actures, and call it
regulation to take the earnings of one of these branches of industry,
and that too the most depressed, and put them into the pockets of the
other, the most flourishing of all. Under the authority to establish
post-roads, they claim that of cutting down mountains for the
construction of roads, of digging canals, and aided by a little
sophistry on the words 'general welfare,' a right to do, not only the
acts to effect that, which are specifically enumerated and permitted,
but whatsoever they shall think or pretend will be for the general
welfare. And what is our resource for the preservation of the
constitution? Reason and argument? You might as well reason and argue
with the marble columns encircling them. The representatives chosen by
ourselves? They are joined in the combination, some from incorrect views
of government, some from corrupt ones, sufficient, voting together,
to outnumber the sound parts; and with majorities only of one, two, or
three, bold enough to go forward in defiance. Are we then to stand
to our arms, with the hot-headed Georgian? No. That must be the last
resource, not to be thought of until much longer and greater sufferings.
If every infraction of a compact of so many parties is to be resisted at
once, as a dissolution of it, none can ever be formed which would last
one year. We must have patience and longer endurance then with our
brethren while under delusion; give them time for reflection and
experience of consequences; keep ourselves in a situation to profit by
the chapter of accidents; and separate from our companions only when the
sole alternatives left, are the dissolution of our Union with them, or
submission to a government without limitation of powers. Between these
two evils, when we must make a choice, there can be no hesitation. But
in the mean while, the States should be watchful to note every material
usurpation on their rights; to denounce them as they occur in the most
peremptory terms; to protest against them as wrongs to which our present
submission shall be considered, not as acknowledgments or precedents
of right, but as a temporary yielding to the lesser evil, until their
accumulation shall overweigh that of separation. I would go still
further, and give to the federal member, by a regular amendment of the
constitution, a right to make roads and canals of intercommunication
between the States, providing sufficiently against corrupt practices in
Congress (l