be soothed into tranquillity. I speak not of these, not because they are not worthy of all praise; but because I would dwell rather on those general blessings, which prosperity diffuses through the whole mass of the community. Who is there that has not a friend or relative in distress, looking up to him for assistance? Who is there that is not called upon to administer to the sick and the suffering, to those who are in the depth of poverty and distress, to those of his own household, or to the stranger beside the gate? The circle of kindness commences with the humblest, and extends wider and wider as we rise to the highest in society, each person administering in his own way to the wants of those around him. It is thus that property becomes the source of comforts of every kind, and dispenses its blessings in every form. In this way it conduces to the public good by promoting private happiness; and every man from the humblest, possessing property, to the highest in the State, contributes his proportion to the general mass of comfort. The man without any property may desire to do the same; but he is necessarily shut out from this most interesting charity. It is in this view that I consider property as the source of all the comforts and advantages we enjoy, and every man, from him who possesses but a single dollar up to him who possesses the greatest fortune, is equally interested in its security and its preservation. Government indeed stands on a combination of interests and circumstances. It must always be a question of the highest moment, how the property-holding part of the community may be sustained against the inroads of poverty and vice. Poverty leads to temptation, and temptation often leads to vice, and vice to military despotism. The rights of man are never heard in a despot’s palace. The very rich man, whose estate consists in personal property, may escape from such evils by flying for refuge to some foreign land. But the hardy yeoman, the owner of a few acres of the soil, and supported by it, cannot leave his home without becoming a wanderer on the face of the earth. In the preservation of property and virtue, he has, therefore, the deepest and most permanent interest.
Gentlemen have argued as if personal rights only were the proper objects of government. But what, I would ask, is life worth, if a man cannot eat in security the bread earned by his own industry? If he is not permitted to transmit to his children the little inheritance which his affection has destined for their use? What enables us to diffuse education among all the classes of society, but property? Are not our public schools, the distinguishing blessing of our land, sustained by its patronage? I will say no more about the rich and the poor. There is no parallel to be run between them, founded on permanent constitutional distinctions. The rich help the poor, and the poor in turn administer to the rich. In our country, the highest man is not above the people; the humblest is not below the people. If the rich may be said to have additional protection, they have not additional power. Nor does wealth here form a permanent distinction of families. Those who are wealthy today pass to the tomb, and their children divide their estates. Property thus is divided quite as fast as it accumulates. No family can, without its own exertions, stand erect for a long time under our statute of descents and distributions, the only true and legitimate agrarian law. It silently and quietly dissolves the mass heaped up by the toil and diligence of a long life of enterprise and industry. Property is continually changing like the waves of the sea. One wave rises and is soon swallowed up in the vast abyss and seen no more. Another rises, and having reached its destined limits, falls gently away, and is succeeded by yet another, which, in its turn, breaks and dies away silently on the shore. The richest man among us may be brought down to the humblest level; and the child with scarcely clothes to cover his nakedness, may rise to the highest office in our government. And the poor man, while he rocks his infant on his knees, may justly indulge the consolation, that if he possess talents and virtue, there is no office beyond the reach of his honorable ambition. It is a mistaken theory, that government is founded for one object only. It is organized for the protection of life, liberty and property, and all the comforts of society—to enable us to indulge in our domestic affections, and quietly to enjoy our homes and our firesides… .
… It has been also suggested, that great property, of itself, gives great influence, and that it is unnecessary that the constitution should secure to it more. I have already stated what I conceive to be the true answer; that a representation in the senate founded on valuation, is not a representation of property in the abstract. It gives no greater power in any district to the rich than to the poor. The poor voters in Suffolk may, if they please, elect six senators into the senate; and so throughout the Commonwealth, the senators of every other district may, in like manner, be chosen by the same class of voters. The basis of valuation was undoubtedly adopted by the framers of our constitution, with reference to a just system of checks and balances, and the principles of rational liberty. Representation and taxation was the doctrine of those days—a doctrine for which our fathers fought and bled, in the battles of the revolution. Upon the basis of valuation, property is not directly represented; but property in the aggregate, combined with personal rights—where the greatest burthen of taxation falls, there the largest representation is apportioned; but still the choice depends upon the will of the majority of voters, and not upon that of the wealthier class within the district. There is a peculiar beauty in our system of taxation and equalizing the public burthens. Our governor, counsellors, senators, judges, and other public officers are paid out of the public treasury,—our representatives by their respective towns. The former are officers for the benefit of the whole Commonwealth; but the right of sending representatives is a privilege granted to corporations, and, as the more immediate agents of such corporations, they are paid by them. The travel however of the representatives is paid out of the public treasury, with the view that no unjust advantage should arise to any part of the Commonwealth from its greater proximity to the capital. Thus the principle of equalizing burthens is exemplified. But even if it were true that the representation in the senate were founded on property, I would respectfully ask gentlemen, if its natural influence would be weakened or destroyed by assuming the basis of population. I presume not. It would still be left to exert that influence over friends and dependents in the same manner that it now does; so that the change would not in the slightest degree aid the asserted object, I mean the suppression of the supposed predominating authority of wealth.
Gentlemen have argued, as though it was universally conceded as a political axiom, that population is in all cases and under all circumstances the safest and best basis of representation. I beg leave to doubt the proposition. Cases may be easily supposed, in which, from the peculiar state of society, such a basis would be universally deemed unsafe and injurious. Take a state where the population is such as that of Manchester in England, (and some states in our Union have not so large a population) where there are five or ten thousand wealthy persons, and ninety or one hundred thousand of artizans reduced to a state of vice and poverty and wretchedness, which leave them exposed to the most dangerous political excitements. I speak of them, not as I know, but as the language of British statesmen and parliamentary proceedings exhibit them. Who would found a representation on such a population, unless he intended all property should be a booty to be divided among plunderers? A different state of things exists in our happy Commonwealth, and no such dangers will here arise from assuming population as the basis of representation. But still the doctrine, in the latitude now contended for, is not well founded. What should be the basis on which representation should be founded, is not an abstract theoretical question, but depends upon the habits, manners, character and institutions of the people, who are to be represented. It is a question of political policy, which every nation must decide for itself, with reference to its own wants and circumstances… .
… To the plan of the gentleman from Roxbury [Mr. Dearborn] two objections existed. The first was, that it destroyed the system of checks and balances in the government, a system which has been approved by the wisdom of ages. The value of this system has been forcibly illustrated by the gentleman from Boston [Mr. Prescott], in the extract which he read from the remarks of Mr. Jefferson on the constitution of Virginia.1 I will not therefore dwell on this objection. The next objection is that it destroys all county lines and distinctions, and breaks all habits and associations connected with them. They might thus be broken up, but it was by tearing asunder some of the strongest bonds of society. The people of each county are drawn together by their necessary attendance upon the county courts, and by their county interests and associations. There is a common feeling diffused among the mass of the population, which extends to, but never passes the boundary of each county; and thus these
