in the extreme, who have not sense enough to discover, or virtue to pursue, their real interests.  In
an emergency of this kind, what will partial amendments avail?  A resolution only, calamity and long
sufferings, can operate their reform, and restore such a people to a just way of thinking and acting.
    Does experience call for any of the proposed amendments?  To amend a constitution in its infancy,
from the dread of imaginary, and not from the existence of real evils, is surely most unwise.
So far as the short trial we have had of the federal government will enable us to judge of its future
operations, we ought to remain satisfied with its present form; for a large majority of the American
people, and this state in particular, have repeatedly expressed their approbation of its administration,
and their thankfulness for the benefits derived from that government.  No country can be said to
enjoy a free constitution, nor will long retain its essence and purity, without proper checks and balances.
The framers of the federal government have so distributed powers among the parts composing
it, that each may control the others; no event has yet discovered that the distribution has
been injudiciously made; why then has it been thought necessary to alter it?  Why take away from
two branches, to impart in common to one, that portion of power which was exclusively lodged in
the two?  Perhaps it may be said, that the power has been abused--When parties run high, and are
nearly poised, every expedient will be tried to give the mastery to the one or the other.  Does
the constitution present barriers to this wished for ascendancy?  These must be levelled; amendments
must do them away, and will be proposed by the defeated party on the spur of the occasion; in the
very hurry and tumult of the passions, disappointed and foiled in a favourite object, at such a time
can amendments be discussed and weighed with that coolness and candour so requisite to the forming
a right judgment?
    Why should a tribunal, other than the senate, be instituted for the trial of impeachments?  No
person has been impeached before the senate, and therefore no defect in the tribunal can be collected
from facts and experiment; the objections, if not altogether proceeding from a love of novelty and
change, must have originated from fancied apprehensions of unfairness and corruption in the senate,
as a court.  If the government is to be new modelled upon the visionary conceits of speculative
men, for ever on the change, it will never assume a stable form, and the condition of the people
living under it will be as miserable as those under vague and uncertain laws, which, partaking of
the nature of the government, if this be fluctuating and capricious, those will be equally so.
    The third amendment contemplates and provides for a more frequent election and renewal of
members in the senate of the United States.  In this respect it appears to the committee to run directly
counter to the main end of its institution.  The framers of the federal government, no doubt,
wished to temper and control those sallies of passion which it was foreseen party heats would at times
produce in the house of representatives.  No method so effectual for the purpose occurred, as to give
to the senators that permanency which might secure them from the frenzy of the moment, from the
contagion of faction, and the unfounded suspicions of prejudice.  Besides, from a body durable as
the senate, and appointed in the manner prescribed by the constitution, more experience in business,
more steadiness of conduct, and consistency of views, are to be expected, than from biennial representatives,
owing frequently their election as much to party zeal as to merit.  The quick rotation 
of senators proposed to be established by the amendment would deprive the senate of those advantages,
which, as at present constituted, it derives from that degree of stability imparted to it by a longer
continuance in the trust of its members.
    The fourth amendment was evidently levelled at the appointment of Mr. Jay as envoy extraordinary
to the court of London, and no doubt was intended as an indirect censure of that measure.
However, it does not strike the committee, that the appointment of a judge on a momentous occasion,
to execute a temporary and particular commission, has been or can be attended with any inconvenience
or danger to the public.
    If the preceding observations and reasoning are just, the committee submit the following resolve,
as proper to be passed by the legislature.
    RESOLVED, That the first and third amendments, proposed in last December by the legislature of
Virginia to be made to the constitution or frame of government for the United States, ought not to
be adopted, because, in the opinion of the legislature, they would give too great a preponderancy to 
the house of representatives, and thus derange the balance of reciprocal control, checks and powers,
so happily devised and distributed among its component parts of the federal government, and thereby
endanger the liberty of the people; that the second and fourth amendments are particularly inexpedient,
as not being warranted by the experience of any evils which have resulted from the government
as now constituted, or from its administration.
    The committee also beg leave to report, that the annual interchange of laws, as proposed by the
general assembly of Virginia, may be attended with beneficial effects, and therefore recommend the
following resolve:
    RESOLVED, That the governor of this state be requested to inform the governor of the commonwealth
of Virginia, that the legislature of this state have acceded to their proposition of an annual
interchange of the laws of their respective states, and also to an exchange of the existing code of
laws in each state, and that the governor be requested to procure the said laws, and determine and
fix upon the means for carrying this resolution into effect.
    Which was read.
    ORDERED, That the said report have a second reading on Saturday next, and that the printer to
the state strike one hundred copies for the use of the general assembly.
    The clerk of the senate delivers the additional supplement to the act, entitled, An act for the removal
of the seat of justice from Melville's warehouse to Pig Point, ion Caroline county, endorsed;