national felicity; nay, that the most necessary and urgent alterations
cannot be made without the absolute unanimity of all the States. Does
not the thirteenth article of the confederation expressly require, that
no alteration shall be made without the unanimous consent of all the
States? Can any thing in theory be more perniciously improvident and
injudicious than this submission of the will of the majority to the most
trifling minority? Have not experience and practice actually manifested
this theoretical inconvenience to be extremely impolitic? Let me mention
one fact, which I conceive must carry conviction to the mind of any
one,--the smallest State in the Union has obstructed every attempt to
reform the government; that little member has repeatedly disobeyed and
counteracted the general authority; nay, has even supplied the enemies
of its country with provisions. Twelve States had agreed to certain
improvements which were proposed, being thought absolutely necessary to
preserve the existence of the general government; but as these
improvements, though really indispensable, could not, by the
confederation, be introduced into it without the consent of every State,
the refractory dissent of that little State prevented their adoption.
The inconveniences resulting from this requisition of unanimous
concurrence in alterations of the confederation, must be known to every
member in this convention; it is therefore needless to remind them of
them. Is it not self-evident, that a trifling minority ought not to bind
the majority? Would not foreign influence be exerted with facility over
a small minority? Would the honorable gentleman agree to continue the
most radical defects in the old system, because the petty State of Rhode
Island would not agree to remove them?

He next objects to the exclusive legislation over the district where the
seat of the government may be fixed. Would he submit that the
representatives of this State should carry on their deliberations under