I have been encouraged to believe in the practicability of the District System by its conformity with reason, and by seeing how naturally it went into operation under the Constitution of the United States. But there is a difference between that case and the present. A new Government was then founded, with new powers, applicable to a broad expanse of country; but the Constitution of Massachusetts was little more than a continuation of preëxisting usages and institutions, with all dependence upon royalty removed. This distinction may help us now. If the country were absolutely new, without embarrassment from existing corporate rights,--_claims_ I would rather call them,--it might easily be arranged according to the most approved theory, as Philadelphia is said to have been originally laid out on the model of the German city which its great founder had seen in his travels.[23] But to bring our existing system into symmetry, and to lay it out anew, would seem to be a task--at least I am reluctantly led to this conclusion by what I have heard here--not unlike that of rebuilding Boston, and of shaping its compact mass of crooked streets into the regular rectangular forms of the city of Penn. And yet this is not impossible. With each day, by demolishing ancient houses and widening ancient ways, changes are made which tend to this result. [23] Julius, Nordamerikas Sittliche Zustände, Band I. p. 92. Sir, we must recognize the existing condition of things, remedy all practical grievances so far as possible, and set our faces towards the true system. We must act in the Present, but be mindful also of the Future. There are proper occasions for compromise, as most certainly there are rights beyond compromise. But the Representative System is an expedient or device for ascertaining the popular will, and, though well satisfied that this can be best founded on numbers, I would not venture to say, in the present light of political science, that the right of each man to an equal representation, according to the Rule of Three, and without regard to existing institutions or controlling usages, is of that inherent and lofty character--like the God-given right to life or liberty--which admits of no compromise. * * * * * Several grievances exist, which will be removed by the proposed amendments. There is one which I had hoped would disappear, but which is the necessary incident of corporate representation: I mean the unwieldy size of the House.