To talk of it, as a thing to be subsequently obtained, and not as one of your unalienable rights, is leaving it to the casual opinion of the Congress who shall take up the consideration of that most important right.  They will not reason with you about the effect of this constitution.  They will not take the opinion of this committee concerning its operation.  They will construe it even as they please.  If you place it subsequently, let me ask the consequences?  Among ten thousand implied powers which they may assume, their may, if we be engaged in war, liberate every one of your slaves if they please.  And this must and will be done by men, a majority of whom have not a common interest with you.  They will, therefore, have no feeling for your interests....  Is it not worth while to turn your eyes for a moment from subsequent amendments, to the real situation of your country?  You may have a union, but can you have a lasting union in these circumstances?  It will be in vain to expect it.  But if you agree to previous amendments, you will have union, firm, solid, permanent.  I cannot conclude without saying, that I shall have nothing to do with it, if subsequent amendments be determined upon.  Oppressions will be carried on as radically by the majority when adjustments and accommodations will be held up.  I say, I conceive it my duty, if this government be adopted before it is amended, to go home.  I shall act as I think my duty requires.  Every other gentleman will do the same.  Previous amendments, in my opinion, are necessary to procure peace and tranquility.  I fear, if they be not agreed to, every movement and operation of government will cease, and how long that baneful thing, civil discord, will stay from this country, God only knows.  When men are free from restraint, how long will you suspend their fury?  The interval between this and bloodshed is but a moment.  The licentious and wicked of the community will seize with avidity every thing you hold.  In this unhappy situation, what is to be done?  It surpasses my stock of wisdom to determine.  If you will, in the language of freemen, stipulate that there are rights which no man under heaven can take from you, you shall have me going along with you; but not otherwise.

* * * * *

=_John Rutledge, 1739-1800._= (Manual, p. 484.)

From “Speech on the Judiciary Establishment.”

=_60._= AN INDEPENDENT JUDICIARY THE SAFEGUARD OF LIBERTY.

While this shield remains to the states, it will be difficult to dissolve the ties which knit and bind them together.  As long as this buckler remains to the people, they cannot be liable to much, or permanent oppression.  The government may be administered with violence, offices may be bestowed exclusively upon those who have no other merit than that of carrying votes at elections,—­the commerce of our country may be depressed by nonsensical theories, and public credit may suffer from bad intentions;