NY Ratification Convention Debates (July 11, 1788) - New York Daily Advertiser (July 16, 1788)

On Friday Mr. Jay came forward with a statement from the informal Committee; representing, that no plan of conciliation had been formed, and no measure taken, in consequence of the Antifœderalists adhering rigidly to the principle of a conditional adoption, which was inadmissible and absurd. He went into a consideration of the nature and tendency of such an adoption; compared it with the powers delegated to this Convention, and the powers of the future Congress; and inferred, that it would amount in result to a total rejection. He called on the opposition repeatedly to answer his arguments. —He was replied to by Mr. Smith and Mr. Lansing, who attempted to prove that the Convention, as the representatives of a sovereign people, had a power to agree to the Constitution, under any restrictions and qualifications which should be thought expedient. They insisted that the Congress would have a right to restrain the exercise of any power given them by the Constitution: —that it was in the power of any Legislature to apply a different mode of imposing burthens on different parts of a state, according to circumstances.

The Chancellor, in the course of this debate, assumed a mode of reasoning a little different, but not less impressive than that of his worthy colleague. He appealed to the apprehensions and passions of the Convention—painted in the most glowing colors the unavoidable convulsions of our state—the depreciation of our currency—the great loss arising from the removal of Congress from our capital—and the various disadvantages of being deprived of a voice in the counsels of the Union.