By the same rule of deciding, the residue of the States must be called great; for although Georgia and several others are not sufficiently populous, at this time, to be considered relatively great States, yet their prospect of increase, with other circumstances, fairly bring them within the description, in respect to the operation of the measure now under consideration.
It will be recollected that, in the various turns which the debate has taken, gentlemen have repeatedly said that the constitution was formed for the people; that the good of the whole was its object; that nothing was discernible in it like a contest of States, nothing like jealousy of small States against the great; and although such distinctions and jealousies might have existed under the first confederation, yet they could have no existence under the last. And one gentleman (Mr. SMITH, of Maryland) has said that he has been a member of this Government ten years, and has heard nothing of great and small States, as in the least affecting the operations of Government, or the feelings of those who administer it.
Propriety, therefore, requires that we attentively examine the constitution itself, not only to obtain correct ideas upon these observations, so repeatedly urged, but to place in the proper light the operations and effects of the resolution in debate. If we attend to the constitution, we shall immediately find evident marks of concession and compromise, and that the parties to these concessions were the great and small States. And the members of the convention who formed the instrument have, in private information and public communications, united in the declaration, that the constitution was the result of concession and compromise between the great and small States. In this examination of the constitution it will be impossible to keep out of view our political relations under the first confederation. We primarily united upon the footing of complete State equality--each State had one, and no State had more than one vote in the Federal Council or Congress. With such a confederation we successfully waged war, and became an independent nation. When we were relieved from the pressure of war, that confederation, both in structure and power, was found inadequate to the purposes for which it was established. Under these circumstances, the States, by their convention, entered into a new agreement, upon principles better adapted to promote their mutual security and happiness. But this last agreement, or constitution, under which we are now united, was manifestly carved out of the first confederation. The small States adhered tenaciously to the principles of State equality; and gave up only a part of that federative principle, complete State equality, and that with evident caution and reluctance. To this federative principle they were attached by habit; and their attachment was sanctioned and corroborated by the example of most if not all the ancient and the modern confederacies. And when the great States claimed a weight in the councils of the nation proportionate to their numbers and wealth, the novelty of the claim, as well as its obvious tendency to reduce the sovereignty of the small States, must have produced serious obstacles to its admission. Hence it is, that we find in the constitution but one entire departure from the federal principle. The House of Representatives is established upon the popular principle, and given to numbers and wealth, or to the great States, which, in this view of the subject, are synonymous. It was thought, by the convention, that a consolidation of the States into one simple Republic would be improper. And the local feelings and jealousies of all, but more especially of the small States, rendered a consolidation impracticable.