When Henry finished his speech Edmund Randolph rose to deprecate the irregular mode of debate and the departure from the order of the House. He said that if the House proceeded in that irregular manner, contrary to its resolution, instead of three or six weeks, it would take six months to decide the question. He should endeavor to make the committee sensible of the necessity of establishing a national Government, and the inefficacy of the Confederation. He should take the first opportunity of doing so; and he mentioned the fact merely to show that he had not answered the gentleman fully, nor in a general way, yesterday. The House then adjourned.

CHAPTER III.

The effect of Henry's speech both in and out of the House had been great. It startled the friends of the new system from that sense of security in which the more sanguine had indulged ; and they saw that unless prompt measures were adopted to counteract the present feeling all hopes of a successful issue would be vain. Accordingly, on Friday, the sixth day of June, and the fifth of the session, the federalists summoned to the field the most able array of talents, which, abounding as they did in able men, their ranks afforded. It was feared that Henry might rise to deepen the impression which he had already made; for Randolph in his few remarks the previous day had not secured the floor, and every effort must be exerted to prevent such an untoward movement. It was evidently arranged that Randolph should discuss the whole subject in an elaborate speech; that Madison, who had been ill, should be on the alert to succeed him; and should his feeble health prevent him from consuming the entire day, that George Nicholas, who was more familiar with large public bodies than either Randolph or Madison, should exhaust the remainder of the sitting.

When the President called the Convention to order, a debate arose on the returns of an election case, which was soon dispatched, and the House resolved itself into committee-Wythe in the chair. As soon as he was fairly seated, Edmund Randolph rose to reply to the speech delivered by Henry. In an exordium of rare beauty, in which he called himself a child of the Revolution, he alluded to the early manifestations of affection to him by Virginia at a time when, from peculiar circumstances well known to the House, he needed it most, and to the honors which had been bestowed upon him; and in which he declared that it should be the unwearied study of his life to pro

mote her happiness, and that in a twelvemonth he should withdraw from all public employments. Then launching into his subject, "We are told," he said, "that the report of dangers is false. The cry of peace, sir, is false; it is but a sudden calm. The tempest growls over you. Look around: wheresoever you look you see danger. When there are so many witnesses in many parts of America that justice is suffocated, shall peace and happiness still be said to reign? Candor requires an undisguised representation of our situation. Candor demands a faithful exposition of facts. Many citizens have found justice strangled and trampled under foot through the course of jurisprudence in this country. Are those who have debts due them satisfied with your Government? Are not creditors wearied with the tedious procrastination of your legal process?-a process obscured by legislative mists. Cast your eyes to your seaports-see how commerce languishes. This country, so blessed by nature with every advantage that can render commerce profitable, through defective legislation is deprived of all the benefits and emoluments which she might otherwise reap from it. We hear many complaints of located lands-a variety of competitors claiming the same lands under legislative acts;125 public faith prostrated, and private confidence destroyed. I ask you if your laws are reverenced? In every well-regulated community the laws command respect. Are yours entitled to reverence? We not only see violations of the Constitution, but of national principles, in repeated instances.

"How is the fact? The history of the violations of the Constition from the year 1776 to this present time-violations made by formal acts of the Legislature. Everything has been drawn within the legislative vortex. There is one example of this violation in Virginia of a most striking and shocking nature--an example so horrid that if I conceived my country would passively permit a repetition of it, dear as it is to me, I would seek means of expatriating myself from it. A man who was then a citizen was deprived of his life in the following manner: From mere reliance on general reports, a gentleman in the House of Delegates informed that body that a certain man (Josiah Philips) had committed several crimes, and, was running at large perpe

125 A hit at George Mason, who drew the first land law.

trating other crimes. He therefore moved for leave to attaint him. He obtained that leave instantly. No sooner did he obtain it than he drew from his pocket a bill ready written for that effect. It was read three times in one day, and carried to the Senate. I will not say that it passed the same day through the Senate; but he was attainted very speedily and precipitately, without any proof better than vague reports. Without being confronted with his accusers and witnesses, without the privilege of calling for evidence in his behalf, he was sentenced to death, and was afterwards actually executed. Was this arbitrary deprivation of life, the dearest gift of God to man, consistent with the genius of a republican government? Is this compatible with the spirit of freedom? This, sir, has made the deepest impression on my heart, and I cannot contemplate it without horror.126

126 The reader must keep in mind that this severe tirade against the legislation of Virginia was designed by the speaker to reflect partly on Mason, but especially on Henry, who, throughout the war and until the session of the Convention, bore a leading part either in the executive or legislative department of the State. But never was an orator more unfortunate than Randolph in his selection of an instance of tyranny. The case of Philips was presented to the Assembly, not by a member, but by the Governor (Henry), who enclosed the letter of Colonel Wilson, of Norfolk county, detailing the enormities perpetrated on unoffending and helpless women and children in the county of Princess Anne by that infamous outlaw. The message of the Governor was referred to a committee of the whole, which reported a resolution attainting Philips. A bill was brought in accordingly, was read on three several days as usual, was passed and sent to the Senate, which adopted it without amendment. Nor was Philips executed in consequence of the act of attainder. On the contrary, having been apprehended, he was indicted for highway robbery by Randolph himself, who was Attorney General at the time, an after a fair trial by a jury was condemned and executed. Possibly, as Randolph was clerk of the House of Delegates (as well as Attorney-General) at the time, he may have remembered that Harrison was speaker of the body at the time, and that Tyler was one of the committe which brought in the bill, both of whom were members of the present Convention, and were warmly opposed to the new Constitution. But granting for the sake of argument that at the most trying period of the Revolution the people of Princess Anne, instead of hanging a desperate outlaw to the first tree, sought to attain their end by an act of attainder, and that the wretch had suffered accordingly, what does it prove? Simply that there were occasional errors in the legislation of the State at a difficult crisis-errors that

There are still a multiplicity of complaints of the debility of the laws. Justice in many cases is so unattainable that commerce may be said in fact to be stopped entirely. There is no peace, sir, in this land. Can peace exist with injustice, licentiousness, insecurity and oppression? These considerations, independent of many others which I have not yet enumerated, would be a sufficient reason for the adoption of this Constitution, because it secures the liberty of the citizen, his person and property, and will invigorate and restore commerce and industry."

He argued at length to prove that the excessive licentiousness which has resulted from the relaxation of the laws would be checked by the new system; that the danger and impolicy of waiting for subsequent amendments were extreme; that jury trial was safe or would readily be made safe; that the position and the connections of the Swiss Cantons were so diverse from ours that no argument drawn from them was applicable to the present case; that the extent of a country was not an insuperable objection to a national government; that the union was necessary to Virginia from her accessibility by sea, from her proximity to Maryland and Pennsylvania, which had adopted the Constitution, from the number of savages on her borders, and from the presence of the black population. "The day may come," he said, "when that population may make an impression upon us. Gentlemen who have long been accustomed to the contemplation of the subject, think there is cause of alarm in this case. The number of those people, compared to that of the whites, is in an immense proportion. Their number amounts to two hundred and thirty-six thousand; that of the whites only to three hundred and fifty-two thousand." Will the American

127

might have occurred under any form of government, and that might argue an amendment of the State Government, and not of a Confederation. It may not be amiss to say that Randolph was a warm advocate of a Convention to amend the Constitution of the State.

127

By the census of 1790, the number of whites in Virginia, including the district of Kentucky, was 442,115; the number of blacks, 293,427; and the whole population, including all other persons, was 748,308. Either the figures of Randolph are far below the actual population of the State in 1788. or the census taken two years later indicates a wonderful increase; and it is known that the census of 1790 underated our numbers.