Mr. TAYLOR.--The opposition to this discriminating amendment to the constitution is condensed into a single stratagem, namely: an effort to excite the passion of jealousy in various forms. Endeavors have been made to excite geographical jealousies--a jealousy of the smaller against the larger States--a jealousy in the people against the idea of amending the constitution; and even a jealousy against individual members of this House. Sir, is this passion a good medium through which to discern truth, or is it a mirror calculated to reflect error? Will it enlighten or deceive? Is it planted in good or in evil--in moral or in vicious principles? Wherefore, then, do gentlemen endeavor to blow it up? Is it because they distrust the strength of their arguments, that they resort to this furious and erring passion? Is it because they know that
----“Trifles light as air, Are, to the jealous, confirmations strong As proofs of holy writ!”
So far as these efforts have been directed towards a geographical demarcation of the interests of the Union into North and South, in order to excite a jealousy of one division against another; and, so far as they have been used to create suspicions of individuals, they have been either so feeble, inapplicable, or frivolous, as to bear but lightly upon the question, and to merit but little attention. But the attempts to array States against States because they differ in size, and to prejudice the people against the idea of amending their constitution, bear a more formidable aspect, and ought to be repelled, because they are founded on principles the most mischievous and inimical to the constitution, and, could they be successful, are replete with great mischiefs.
Towards exciting this jealousy of smaller States against larger States, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. TRACY) had labored to prove that the federal principle of the constitution of the United States was founded in the idea of minority invested with operative power. That, in pursuance of this principle, it was contemplated and intended that the election of a President should frequently come into the House of Representatives, and to divert it from thence by this amendment would trench upon the federal principle of our constitution, and diminish the rights of the smaller States, bestowed by this principle upon them. This was the scope of his argument to excite their jealousy, and is the amount also of several other arguments delivered by gentlemen on the same side of the question. He did not question the words, but the ideas of gentlemen. Words, selected from their comrades, are easily asserted to misrepresent opinions, as he had himself experienced during the discussion on the subject.