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preserve like order and justice among their respective members.

It has been objected, that the States have manifested such aversion to the impost on trade, as renders any recommendations of a general revenue hopeless and imprudent. It must be admitted that the conduct of the States on that subject is less encouraging than were to be wished. A review of it, however, does not excite despondence. The impost was adopted immediately, and in its utmost latitude, by several of the States. Several, also, which complied partially with it at first, have since complied more liberally. One of them, after long refusal, has complied substantially. Two States only have failed altogether; and, as to one of them, it is not known that its failure has proceeded from a decided opposition to it. On the whole, it appears that the necessity and reasonableness of the scheme have been gaining ground among the States. He was aware that one exception ought to be made to this inference; an exception, too, which it peculiarly concerned him to advert to. The State of Virginia, as appears by an act yesterday laid before Congress, has withdrawn its assent once given to the scheme. This circumstance could not but produce some embarrassment in a Representative of that State advocating the scheme-one, too, whose principles were extremely unfavorable to a disregard of the sense of constituents. But it ought not to deter him from listening to considerations which, in the present case, ought to prevail over it. One of these considerations was, that although the Delegates who compose Congress more immediately represented, and were amenable VOL. I.-19*

to, the States from which they respectively come, yet, in another view, they owed a fidelity to the collective interests of the whole; secondly, although not only the express instructions, but even the declared sense of constituents, as in the present case, were to be a law in general to their representatives, still there were occasions on which the latter ought to hazard personal consequences, from a respect to what his clear conviction determines to be the true interest of the former; and the present he conceived to fall under this exception; lastly, the part he took on the present occasion was the more fully justified to his own mind, by his thorough persuasion that with the same knowledge of public affairs which his station commanded, the Legislature of Virginia would not have repealed the law in favor of the impost, and would even now rescind the appeal.

The result of these observations was, that it was the duty of Congress, under whose authority the public debts had been contracted, to aim at a general revenue as the only means of discharging them; and that the dictate of justice and gratitude was enforced by a regard to the preservation of the Confederacy, to our reputation abroad, and to our internal tranquillity.

Mr. RUTLEDGE complained that those who so strenuously urged the necessity and competency of a general revenue,* operating throughout all the United States at the same time, declined specifying any general objects from which such a revenue could be drawn. He was thought to insinuate that these

*He was apprehensive that a tax on land according to its quantity, not value, as had been recommended by Mr. Morris, was in contemplation.

objects were kept back intentionally, until the general principle could be irrevocably fixed, when Congress would be bound, at all events, to go on with the project; whereupon

Mr. FITZSIMMONS expressed some concern at the turn which the discussion seemed to be taking. He said, that unless mutual confidence prevailed no progress could be made towards the attainment of those ends which all, in some way or other, aimed at. It was a mistake to suppose that any specific plan had been preconcerted among the patrons of a general

revenue.

Mr. WILSON, with whom the motion originated, gave his assurances that it was neither the effect of preconcert with others, nor of any determinate plan matured by himself; that he had been led into it by the declaration, on Saturday last, by Congress, that substantial funds ought to be provided, by the memorial of the army from which that declaration had resulted; by the memorial from the State of Pennsylvania, holding out the idea of separate appropriations of her revenue, unless provision were made for the public creditors; by the deplorable and dishonorable situation of public affairs, which had compelled Congress to draw bills on the unpromised and contingent bounty of their Ally, and which was likely to banish the Superintendent of Finance, whose place could not be supplied, from his Department. He observed that he had not introduced details into the debate because he thought them premature, until a general principle should be fixed; and that as soon as the principle should be fixed he would, although not furnished with any digested

plan, contribute all in his power to the forming such

a one.

Mr. RUTLEDGE moved, that the proposition might be committed, in order that some practicable plan might be reported before Congress should declare that it ought to be adopted.

Mr. IZARD seconded the motion, from a conciliatory view.

Mr. MADISON thought the commitment unnecessary, and would have the appearance of delay; that too much delay had already taken place; that the deputation of the army had a right to expect an answer to their memorial as soon as it could be decided by Congress. He differed from Mr. WILSON in thinking that a specification of the objects of a general revenue would be improper; and thought that those who doubted its practicability had a right to expect proof of it from details, before they could be expected to assent to the general principle; but he differed also from Mr. RUTLEDGE, who thought a commitment necessary for the purpose; since his views would be answered by leaving the motion before the House, and giving the debate a greater latitude. He suggested, as practicable objects of a general revenue, first, an impost on trade; secondly, a poll-tax under certain qualifications; thirdly, a land-tax under ditto. *

Mr. HAMILTON suggested a house and window

* A poll-tax to be qualified by rating blacks somewhat lower than whites; a land-tax, by considering the value of land in each State to be in an inverse proportion of its quantity to the number of people; and apportioning on the aggregate quantity in each State accordingly, leaving the State at liberty to make a distributive apportionment on its several districts on a like or any other equalizing principle.

tax; he was in favor of the mode of conducting the business urged by Mr. MADISON.

On the motion for the commitment, six States were in favor of it, and five against it; so it was lost. In this vote the merits of the main proposition very little entered.

Mr. LEE said, that it was a waste of time to be forming resolutions and settling principles on this subject. He asked whether these would ever bring any money into the public treasury. His opinion was that Congress ought, in order to guard against the inconvenience of meetings of the different Legislatures at different and even distant periods, to call upon the Executives to convoke them all at one period, and to lay before them a full state of our public affairs. He said the States would never agree to those plans which tended to aggrandize Congress; that they were jealous of the power of Congress, and that he acknowledged himself to be one of those who thought this jealousy not an unreasonable one; that no one who had ever opened a page, or read a line, on the subject of liberty could be insensible to the danger of surrendering the purse into the same hands which held the sword.

The debate was suspended by an adjournment.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29TH.

Mr. FITZSIMMONS reminded Congress of the numerous inaccuracies and errors in the American column of the Treaty with Holland, and proposed that a revision of it, as ratified, should take place,

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