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the deaf, and the dumb have learned to lisp her name and charities in the same breath. These monuments which she has reared all over the State are more enduring than brass, that shall abide "when granite moulders and when records fail." Its press was to be hereafter, though I did not understand the gentleman for Berlin to say it is now, an engine through which the people of this and surrounding cities were to control the legislature of the Commonwealth in all time to come. There are thirteen daily presses in Boston, he exclaims, and therein, in my judgment, lies its safety. There is no one London Times" to speak for the whole, not only for Boston, but for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, through which formerly, though not entirely so now, I rejoice to say, it was necessary to learn the politics not only of London and the British Empire, but of the world.

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There are thirteen daily presses, representing every shadow of interest, and every political party in the Commonwealth, as well as in Boston. And they represent not only every political party but every shade of opinion in every party. The gentleman's party has shades, and the party to which I belong has shades; all parties have shades and tendencies. Every one of them is represented by some one among these thirteen daily presses in Boston. And so long as there are thirteen or more of them planted thus, to give utterance to the impressions, or guard and encourage the views of every one who favors these antagonistic interests, so long all of them, not only in Boston, but throughout the State, wherever they have existence or representation, are impotent for evil.

Moral character has been referred to; the moral character of the people of the cities, and particularly of the people of Boston. The difference of that moral character from that of the people of the country, has been alluded to; but whether gentlemen mean to put forth distinctly that principle as a basis of representation, I do not know. It seems sometimes as though some of them were verging fast towards that proposition. I think my esteemed friend who represents Manchester, (Mr. Dana,) alluded to that principle, and said that in Boston there was a greater number than all his constituents of Manchester, so degraded that they should be nameless; and I think he hinted at least at the question whether the basis of representation should not be upon moral character. I do not know about applying that principle. It is a new element, and I do not know by what standard we can measure the moral character of any portion of the people. But, Sir, Boston and the

[June 21st.

other cities are not Paris; they are not made up of that mass of people huddled together as they are in Paris, without any distinctive features as to their employments; made up, as was said by the gentleman from Boston, (Mr. Choate,) of Jacobin clubs, of harlot beauty, and of that party which in the galleries out-roared the Mountain; but it is made up of its native population and those who come in here from the country. There is no one of this vast variety of pursuits in this city but what has its distinguishing and marked representative from the country. No one of them into which the representatives from the country have not infused that character for stability and integrity which I have heard lauded here so highly. They who have come in here from the country have left something behind them; they have left something to draw them back into the country. They have left their homes and their hearths. There is the cradle that rocked them, and the mother that nursed them; and through all the vicissitudes of fortune in the city, however they may be immersed in business, politics, or pleasure, there are serious moments in the life of the most thoughtless of them, which are drawing them back as with cords, and binding them with hooks of steel to the country, from whence they came. Wherever the representative from the country may go, he is filled with the spirit of Goldsmith's Traveller :

"Where'er I rove, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee."

I was sorry to hear the esteemed gentleman who represents Manchester express a doubt whether Boston would pay the tea tax now or not. He said he was born and had always lived within three miles of the place where he then stood, and I exceedingly regretted to hear him express that doubt; for I do not believe it, although I have no doubt that the gentleman honestly cherishes the doubt to which he gave utterance. But, Sir, I don't believe Boston to be so craven. I know he can better speak of those who were born within three miles of this place than I can. But for one, I can tell him there are country boys enough in Boston to-day, living by the sweat of their brows, beneath this burning sun, to tip every pound of tea in it into the harbor; and if it be true that the native citizens of Boston have become so degenerate, there are country boys enough here to drive every one of her recreant sons down these steep places into the sea, where their prototypes were drowned nearly two thousand years ago.

The gentleman for Manchester said, that he took the position that a town of one hundred

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thousand inhabitants was not so much entitled to one hundred representatives as a town of one thousand inhabitants was entitled to one. I agree with the gentleman there. The mistake is in attempting to give representation to the town itself, to the lifeless inanimate corporation, and on this principle the town of one thousand is entitled to just as many representatives as the town with one hundred thousand. The towns themselves, as towns, are equal. If they have any right to representation as towns, they have just the same power and the same force in the one case as in the other. And, therefore, the town with one hundred thousand inhabitants, is not only not entitled to one hundred times as many representatives as the town with one thousand, but it is not entitled to one more representative. The town is a unit, and there are but two units in the case; and I want to know by what process the one unit is to be entitled to a single particle more of power on the floor of the House of Representatives than the other unit. But I ask here, if each and every man in the town with one hundred thousand inhabitants, has not the same right of representation upon the floor of the House, that each and every man in the town with one thousand inhabitants has? Here is the distinction, and here the mistake. It is because the gentleman proceeds on the supposition that the towns have a right to representation. The town is an incorporeal thing, without flesh and blood; it is a creature of a statute. It is without a soul, and has no more right to representation than the brute cattle on the thousand hills about us. But it is the men who are entitled to it. And if you do not believe my statement, Mr. Chairman, I will read my authority. I read from a very interesting and able debate which occurred on this floor, on the nineteenth of May last. I read from the very able and interesting argument which I was delighted to hear from the honorable gentleman from Natick, (Mr. Wilson,) whom I am now happy to see in the Chair.

"Now I see no reason why the city of Lowell, because it happens to have ten thousand women, should be cut down in the senatorial representation. I see no reason, because the city of Boston has thirty, forty, or fifty thousand foreign population, who have cast their lot in this country, and who are hereafter to be with us and of us, why they should not be considered equal to the rest of our fellow citizens in making the basis of representation. I believe, if this Convention undertakes to adopt any policy of that character, it will array against the acts of this body, at least the feelings of a large class of our population, which I do not wish to arouse, either in that class, or in any other class of our fellow citizens."

[June 21st.

I will next read from the remarks of the gentleman from Fall River, (Mr. Hooper).

"I believe that population is the only true and just basis of representation, and one which will give the highest satisfaction to all classes. It has been suggested, that one of the objects of this Convention is to limit the influence of some of the large places by changing this very basis, but I hope that our action will not go to substantiate that allegation."

I read again, from the remarks of the gentleman from Lowell, (Mr. Butler).

"I would have the basis of representation changed from a property basis, to a more perfect popular basis, so that the whole of the Commonwealth should be represented, and that obvious principle is population, in my estimation."

So, Sir, when we were constructing the basis for the Senate, gentlemen dilated, gentlemen enlarged and amplified upon this great, grand, distinctive feature, found in that Report, namely, that it based the Senate upon population, and upon that alone; and one gentleman could see no reason why forty thousand or fifty thousand in this city should be disfranchised, or that ten thousand girls in the city of Lowell should not have their voice in forming the basis of the Senate. And I cannot see the difference when you come to the House of Representatives.

Suppose, Sir, that all these difficulties upon which the argument of gentlemen is based exist. What is the remedy? The majority have reported a measure which I do not understand them to call a remedy, but they have reported a basis of representation upon the principle of compensating for these evils. They recognize all this inequality in the population and in wealth as legitimate, as continuing, lasting, abiding, and they undertake to compensate it. Now, I say, Sir, in the beginning, you cannot pay for it; it was not purchased. in any such way. It owes its origin to diverse and other causes, and it cannot be paid for by loss of political right. If there is any such inequality existing in this Commonwealth, those who have acquired it, did not acquire it, by any means from the basis of representation, or any other system of legislation which exists in the Commonwealth. It is due to natural causes in a great measure, and it is due to the policy of trade and to the mysteries of trade, and to a variety of causes; it is not due in any measure to the basis of representation in the House of Representatives, and it cannot be compensated for in that way. How futile and how impotent, if the prediction is just, if there is no defect in the computation of the gentleman for Berlin, if we are really to have in seventeen years

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a population of 377,000 in Boston, and in fortyseven years we are to have 2,500,000 in Boston and eleven other cities in the Commonwealth to control the legislation of the State. They will go on and do it in spite of your parchments and your cob-web contrivances on this floor. It cannot be done in that way. Now, what are you going to do, suppose you deprive these men of their just proportion of the political power of this Commonwealth? Have you taken from them their power? Have you disarmed them? Have you plucked their sting? If Boston is to be like Paris, the ruler of France, deprive it of representation in the House, and you put in a new element of disturbance; you arm her, you put into her mouth the cry that she has lost her just share of representation, that she has lost her just power in the government, and then there is no force in Christendom can put her down and keep her down. Has it occurred to the gentleman who represents Berlin, what will be the state of things in Massachusetts with a population of more than two millions in the city of your capitol, and where your laws are to be made, deprived of any just or any considerable share of the voice in making laws which are to govern them? Has it occurred to him what will be the state of things then? Not only will the galleries be filled with those outbellowing the Mountain, but those who come here advocating such a system, will be driven hence. Something of the spirit which did throw the tea overboard, will be found to wake up then, though it may sleep now. I beg gentlemen to consider that if they have any just reason for believing that there is any danger of such a state of things as they predict, they are rendering it ten fold more dangerous by this attempt to deprive this population of its fair proportion of that power in the government to which every man is entitled, and which, with every soul, is inalienable. You may guide, direct, mould and fashion this mass, but you cannot put your hand upon it and hold it down. It has within it that irrepressible, irresistible Yankee spirit which "can but by annihilation die," and no system, whether that of the gentleman who is the chairman of the Committee, or any other, based on any such false principle as that of depriving any considerable portion of the people of this Commonwealth of their just share of their rights, and of power in the hall of the House of Representatives, the popular branch, can live for a moment when such a state of things as that represented by the gentleman for Berlin, shall be upon us, if that day

ever comes.

On the other hand, Sir, the only other ground that can be taken, is the district system. I do

[June 21st.

not for one, Sir, go for the Minority Report any more than I do for that of the Majority. I do not know that I ought to say any more. It contains the principle of the district system, imperfectly developed. At the proper time, Sir, if I can have the indulgence of the Committee, I may offer an amendment to that amendment, by which the district system shall be developed in this Commonwealth perfectly, so that whatever may be the inequalities hereafter, whatever may be the ratio of the basis of increase, that every man in this Commonwealth, wherever he may be, and however humble, will have precisely the same political rights in the House of Representatives that he does in the Senate, and that he does everywhere else, and that every other man shall have in that hall, however exalted he may be.

I have a resolution, but I do not deem it proper to embarrass the action of those gentlemen who offered this Minority Report by proposing it at this time, whereby the Commonwealth, which is to be divided into forty senatorial districts, might be further cut up into eight subdivisions or subdistricts, making a House of three hundred and twenty members, and making the basis of representation in each district somewhere about three thousand; and, Sir, upon a liberal application of that basis we have precisely the system foreshadowed by the gentleman for Berlin, (Mr. Boutwell,) and more developed by the gentleman from North Brookfield, viz.: small towns put together, middling sized towns, between fifty and a hundred, forming single districts, and large towns and cities being divided into single districts, so that it is in fact the same principle which pervaded the system, which as near as I can tell, is shadowed by the views of the gentleman for Berlin, and to which the gentleman from North Brookfield would perhaps adhere. I think that there would be more than fifty towns which would each be a district, and by which arrangement the town lines would be preserved, and all that pertains to that blessed state of things would exist and go on for a while just as they have done. I understand that with the exception of the chairman of the Committee, (Mr. Griswold,) every-body who has spoken upon this floor deems it absolutely necessary that these small towns should be grouped together. Then, Sir, more than two of the small towns should be put together, if possible, and I will give the reason why I should prefer that three should go together rather than two. If only two were put together, the weaker of them would have to contend against the stronger; but if three should be joined the two weakest could combine against the strongest. I think, if I know anything of the feeling

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in the small towns-and, Sir, having been born and brought up in one of them, I know something about it-they would much prefer a larger district, than to be yoked together two and two, as is proposed by the gentleman from North Brookfield, (Mr. Walker). I appreciate the difficulty which surrounds the honorable chairman of the Committee. I know the strong feeling in the small towns, to which he has so fully conformed his Report, to the sacrifice of justice and equal rights. But it seems now to be admitted that the small towns must come together. It is admitted by all, as I understand, that a district system is exactly just; and I believe one great complaint against it is that it is too exactly just. The gentleman who represents Manchester, (Mr. Dana,) seems to think that it savors too much of French mathematics-too much of the square root, and he is afraid there will be found some difficulty in reducing it to practice, it is so completely and exactly equal and just. The complaint is that it is so very just that we cannot get along with it, and we must stop short of it, and introduce some disturbing element of inequality to make it savor more of our past notions. It is a very excellent thing to talk about-this principle of equality—a capital thing to put in resolutions at caucuses and conventions; but it would be dangerous to attempt to carry it out in practice. But, Sir, I have not yet learned that there is any insurmountable difficulty in the way. It is founded, as I said, upon the true theory, that of men and not of corporate rights. It is upon the principle so ably laid down by the honorable gentleman who represents Wilbraham, in the same debate from which I have heretofore read; and it is in accordance with the spirit there set forth. If for no other reason, I think that the Convention, having by their vote established and sanctioned the principles he laid down, are bound to go for it. Here is what the honorable gentleman representing Wilbraham said :—

"Mr. President, I am for progress, not for rashness, haste, nor destruction; but I am for taking no step backward in this Convention. I ask my friend from Freetown if it is not taking a step backwards to attempt to reduce the basis of representation from the whole people to a particular class? For forty years the friends of liberal principles labored to abolish from the Constitution the property qualification. They finally effected that to a certain extent. It then cost twenty years more to come from the ratable polls, which was the first amendment of the present Constitution, to the present basis, of the entire population or inhabitants. There is the result of sixty years of progress. Will gentlemen go back twenty years? That is the question before us. I would rather go forward."

[June 21st.

At the close of the same remarks, the gentleman said:

"I trust that in taking the vote we shall not go backward. I wish our basis to be made as broad as are the people, and when coming to vote upon that question I trust we shall arrive as far as possible at a unanimous result."

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I was delighted, Sir, when I heard these remarks. But notwithstanding these sentiments, what has the gentleman been doing in this debate? My curiosity has been a good deal gratified to see the same gentleman go back to the period of sixty years, one hundred years, two hundred years and even two hundred and seventeen years, to 1636, arm in arm with my progressive friend who represents Erving, groping around the musty records of that day to find out what was then the theory of representation in this Commonwealth. And it was rather amusing to see the learned and distinguished gentleman from Cambridge following them, and softly and quietly threading his way among the musty tomes of antiquity, searching for these two progressive brothers as they were threading their devious way behind this book and that pile, in this alcove and on that shelf, and having at last put his finger on them to point out that about two hundred and twenty-five years ago we find a precedent for the whole thing. is "progress!" Now I submit whether there is any analogy in the state of things in this Commonwealth at the present day and the state of things here in 1636? Is Massachusetts to-day what she was then? Sir, there is not one particle of consequence attached to the question whether the gentleman for Wilbraham, or the gentleman for Erving, had succeeded in this memorable dispute with the gentleman from Cambridge. It makes no sort of difference, because the state of things has altered very much from what it was at that time. What was just, right and proper then, is no more likely to be just, right and proper now, than anything else is. There were then only a few scattered plantations or towns-and they could not either of them tell which they were, plantations or towns-here and there, scarcely able to preserve their existence, and carrying on a fearful and doubtful contest with famine and war-the savages and starvation-not knowing which would exterminate them the quickest. The state of things in those provincial and colonial times furnishes no rule by which a question can be decided at this day by this Convention. The State of Massachusetts at this day is covered all over with these towns, for free interchange of sentiment, intertwined and interwoven by the ties of social life, of genius, industry and enterprise, by her thou

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sands of miles of railway and facilities of intercommunication, making all the inhabitants of the State one common people; and yet we are told | that the question is to be decided here upon the doubtful point whether in 1636 towns and plan- | tations having less than ten freeholders were entitled to a voice in the provincial legislature. Sir, in my humble judgment this is taking more than one step backwards.

Gentlemen tell us that for two hundred years the towns have rejoiced in town representationthat it has become a part of their nature, and a part of their policy, and therefore we must adhere to that precise and exact state of things. This is the reason they give us for going back to these early times. The people of this Commonwealth will not give up this town representation, they tell us, because they have had it so long. Will not give it up? Why, Sir, these very gentlemen who say that the towns will not give up this system, without a twinge or a pang have cut off limb after limb of this old tree which is more than two hundred years old. "His Excellency" fell yesterday without their shedding a tear or a sigh; and this goes back more than two hundred years, before the existence of the colony. This dates back even before the time when Columbus found the spot where we stand. The Council came over here before we had representation, and the gentleman for Wilbraham, demonstrated that it had existed for more than two hundred years, as a part of our government, when the people roamed almost in a savage state; and then he turned round from his argument which demonstrated its antiquity, and cut it off. Why, Sir, if the people of the Commonwealth are to suffer their old institutions to be thus cast away, I want to know where is the limit-I want to know where is the distinction wherein and whereby gentlemen are authorized to say that the people will submit to this pruning, and that dismemberment, and the other dissection, but yet when you come to the matter of town representation they will cling to it in spite of its injustice they will cling to it in the face of the fact that by this system more than two-thirds of the people of the Commonwealth are put at the mercy of less than the other third. I would like to put the question to my venerable friend who represents Clarksburg upon this floor, (Mr. Clark,) if it were not that I see his vacant seat, and am reminded by its vacancy, that we may not have him here more-I would like to put it to his innate sense of justice, "Do you wish that the three hundred and ninety-four men of the town of Clarksburg shall have the same power in the House of Representatives, with the four thousand men of Lee, or Great Barrington, or the five

[June 21st.

thousand in Quincy?" I would like to put the question to my friend in front of me from New Ashford, (Mr. Harmon,) whether he asks, or whether his innate sense of justice will allow him to ask, in the name of the two hundred and ten men of New Ashford, to have the same power which Williamstown with its two thousand five hundred and thirty-four men has upon this floor. The men of New Ashford are good and true as steel, but no more so than the men of Williamstown. Every man of Williamstown, or Lee, or Great Barrington, or even of Adams, has the same inherent and inalienable right of representation with each man in New Ashford.

But it is said that the district system breaks up old associations, and brings together communities that are strangers to each other and to the men who represent them. They cannot know their men. Who says this? Who says that in a district system the electors will hardly know their candidates-that they ought to live near to and be familiar with their representatives? Why, Sir, it is the gentleman from Groton, who represents Berlin-the gentleman from Dedham, who represents Abington-the gentleman from Cambridge, for Manchester-from Greenfield for Ervingfrom Boston for Wilbraham. I let practice answer preaching.

Again, it is said that the district system weakens the power of the towns. But, Sir, the importance of the town organization, does not consist in choosing a representative-the act of voting. That is preserved to them intact. It is in their deliberative character, in their municipal government, all of which remains untouched under the district system.

This district system may not prevail at this time, but it will come sooner or later. I take my stand upon it and patiently bide the time of its coming.

But, Sir, before I close let me say a word to the small towns. I submit whether it would not be better to be content with a just share of political power, rather than by grasping too much to lose all. The inequalities of population and power, so far as they do not arise from physical causes may be removed. Beyond this they should not ask or desire to go. Open the channels of trade all over the Commonwealth, develop her resources, awaken her slumbering energies in every part-among all her hills and throughout all her vales, and along her waterfalls, and you have counteracted all the tendencies to centralization that it is in the power of man to

counteract.

But, Sir, if this Majority Report should be adopted, and if by any means it should be ratified

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