Corbin made one of the best speeches of the whole debate. On the nonpayment of our debts to foreign nations he was particularly strong. "What!" said he, "borrow money to discharge interest on what was borrowed?... Such a plan would destroy the richest country on earth." As to a Republican Government not being fitted for an extensive country, he asked, "How small must a country be to suit the genius of Republicanism?" The power of taxation was the "lungs of the Constitution." His defense of a standing army was novel and ingenious. The speech was tactful in the deference paid to older men, and so captivating in the pride it must have aroused in the younger members that it justified the shrewdness of the Constitutionalist generals in putting forward this youthful and charming figure.[1208]
Of course Henry could not follow a mere boy. He cleverly asked that Governor Randolph should finish, as the latter had promised to do.[1209] Randolph could not avoid responding; and his speech, while very able, was nevertheless an attempt to explode powder already burned.[1210] Madison saw this, and getting the eye of the chair delivered the second of those intellectual broadsides, which, together with his other mental efforts during the Constitutional period, mark him as almost the first, if not indeed the very first, mind of his time.[1211] The philosophy and method of taxation, the history and reason of government, the whole range of the vast subject were discussed,[1212] or rather begun; for Madison did not finish, and took up the subject four days later. His effort so exhausted him physically that he was ill for three days.[1213]
Thus fortune favored Henry. The day, Saturday, was not yet spent. After all, he could leave the last impression on the members and spectators, could apply fresh color to the picture he wished his hearers to have before their eyes until the next week renewed the conflict. And he could retain the floor so as to open again when Monday came. The art of Henry in this speech was supreme. He began by stating the substance of Thomas Paine's terrific sentence about government being, at best, "a necessary evil"; and aroused anew that repugnance to any sturdy rule which was a general feeling in the breasts of the masses.
Both the Confederation and the proposed Constitution were "evils," asserted Henry, and the only question was which was the less. Randolph and Madison incautiously had referred to maxims. Henry seized the word with infinite skill. "It is impiously irritating the avenging hand of Heaven ... to desert those maxims which alone can preserve liberty," he thundered. They were lowly maxims, to be sure, "poor little, humble republican maxims"; but "humble as they are" they alone could make a nation safe or formidable. He rang the changes on the catchwords of liberty.
Then Henry spoke of Randolph's change of front. The Constitution "was once execrated" by Randolph. "It seems to me very strange and unaccountable that that which was the object of his execration should now receive his encomiums. Something extraordinary must have operated so great a change in his opinion." Randolph had said that it was too late to oppose the "New Plan"; but, answered Henry, "I can never believe that it is too late to save all that is precious." Henry denied the woeful state of the country which the Constitutionalist speakers had pictured. The "imaginary dangers" conjured by them were to intimidate the people; but, cried Henry, "fear is the passion of slaves." The execution of Josiah Philips under the bill of attainder was justifiable. Philips had been a "fugitive murderer and an outlaw" leader of "an infamous banditti," perpetrator of "the most cruel and shocking barbarities ... an enemy to human nature."[1214]
It was not true, declared Henry, that the people were discontented under the Confederation—at least the common people were not; and it was the common people for whom he spoke. But, of course, sneered that consummate actor, "the middling and lower ranks of people have not those illuminated ideas" which the "well-born" are so happily possessed of; "they [the common people] cannot so readily perceive latent objects." It was only the "illuminated imaginations" and the "microscopic eyes of modern statesmen" that could see defects where there were none.
Henry hinted with great adroitness at the probable loss of the Mississippi, which was the sorest point with the members from Kentucky; and, having injected the poison, passed on to let it do its work against the time when he would strike with all his force. Then he appealed to state pride. "When I call this the most mighty state in the Union, do I not speak the truth? Does not Virginia surpass every state?" Of course! There was no danger, then, that Virginia would be left out of the Union, as the Constitutionalists had hinted might happen if Virginia rejected the Constitution; the other States would be glad to have her on her own terms.
Henry went over a variety of subjects and then returned to his favorite idea of the National Government as something foreign. Picking up a careless word of Randolph, who had spoken of the people as a "herd," Henry said that perhaps the words "We, the people," were used to recommend it to the masses, "to those who are likened to a herd; and by the operation of this blessed system are to be transformed from respectable, independent citizens, to abject, dependent subjects or slaves."[1215] Finally, when he felt that he had his hearers once more under his spell, Henry, exclaiming that a Bill of Rights was vital, asked for adjournment, which was taken, the great orator still holding the floor.
FOOTNOTES:
[1111] Though "practical," these methods were honorable, as far as the improper use of money was concerned.