President also in spite of the smaller States. It would ill become him who had been a member of that convention which had the honor of forming the present constitution to let a measure such as the present pass without the most deliberate investigation of its effects. Before the present constitution was adopted all the States held an equal vote on all national questions; by the constitution their sovereignty was guarantied, and the instrument of guarantee and right, he had subscribed his name to as a Representative from South Carolina, and had used all the zeal and influence of which he was possessed to promote its adoption. To give his assent to any violation of it, or any unnecessary innovation on its principles, would be a deviation from morality. The question was immediately taken on the report and carried--yeas 20, nays 11. Mr. ADAMS said, that though he had voted for the amendment, he disapproved of the alteration from five to three. He felt, however, though a representative of a large State, a deep interest in this question. Was there no champion of the small States to stand up in that House and vindicate their rights? Mr. DAYTON was not here as champion of the small States; but, as the representative of one of them, he was ready to enter his protest against being delivered over bound hand and foot to four or five of the large States. The gentleman from South Carolina had offered arguments on the subject irrefutable. The little portion of influence left us he has demonstrated to be now about to be taken away, and the gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. ADAMS,) after aiding the effort with his vote, has taken mercy upon us, and after he has helped to knock us down, asks us why we do not stand up for ourselves. Mr. S. SMITH was not surprised to find those who were members of the old Congress, in which the subject of large and small States was frequently agitated, familiar with the subject of those days. Under the present constitution he had been ten years in Congress and had never heard the subject agitated, nor the least ground given for any apprehension on this subject; he had seen the small States possess all the advantages secured to them without even a moment’s jealousy. The State he represented was once considered a large State; the increase of others in population, however, had rendered it properly belonging to neither class; it was an intermediate State; but from the natural progression of the Union it must be ranked among the small States. In this view then he could speak dispassionately, and the small States could not with reason be apprehensive that a State, which must speedily take rank among them, could be indifferent to their rights if there were the least cause for apprehension.