Through the channel of your paper we have lately been favored with the new Federal Constitution, the plan of which I must confess I like, and it is my heart’ s wish to see a federal constitution established agreeable to the principles of republican liberty and independence, and on the basis of a democratical government, meaning that of the people, being that very government intended by our glorious Declaration of Independence.
Through this new Federal Constitution, I believe, was framed and intended for the good of the United States and, as we are well aware, was assented to by the political saviors of our country, to whom all deference and respect is due, yet the sacredness of these illustrious characters has not been sufficient nor able to prevent several articles from creeping into the said Constitution which, by their different constructions and great latitude given them, a American Sulla or Augustus Octavianus might one day or other make serviceable to his ambition, interest, and to the utter subversion of our SACRED FREEDOM. And as mankind, upon the whole is so depraved as, with pleasure, to trample upon the sacred rights and privileges of their fellow creatures, it is certainly one of our greatest cares, both for ourselves and our offspring, to frame such constitutional laws thereby to prevent such designing tyrants (if ever they be) from grasping at a power, to our destruction, in the said Federal Constitution within their reach; as also to guard with the safest care against all encroachments, and to bar them forever from paving the way to what is worse yet, an ARISTOCRATICAL government, whereby about 70 nabobs would lord over three millions of people as slaves; as also to establish power, harmony, equality and justice, for and among the whole of the United States.
I agree, as it may be said, that the Articles of the Confederation are defective; and, to make it answer effectually the purpose of a federal government, it is to be observed, delegates from all the states, except Rhode Island, were appointed by the legislatures, with this power only, “to meet in Convention, to join in devising and discussing all such ALTERATIONS and farther provisions as may be necessary to render the articles of the confederation adequate to the exigencies of the Union.” This was the only power in them vested, and, in conformity to it, had they added to the Articles of the Confederation a power to Congress, viz., to regulate foreign and internal trade, to lay and collect duties and imposts, uniform throughout the United States, to have the sole legislative power in maritime matters, to have a coercive power to enforce the payment of the quota of each delinquent state, but to leave internal taxation and excise to the management of each individual state, the legislature thereof being certainly best acquainted with that important business, all would have been well and our federal government as good and fully adequate to its exigencies as could have been wished. But as this Convention had thought fit to destroy such an useful fabric as the Articles of the Confederation, with the before mentioned amendment and addition, would have been, and, on the ruins of that, raised a new structure rather favorable to aristocratical and destructive to democratical government, and as it seems not to have the equality and justice for its basis [that] it certainly ought to have among confederated, free, and independent states; I wish to point out the few articles inconsistent with such a constitution and also to try the remedies thereof, hoping by that means that my fellow citizens will, by a candid second reading of said Constitution, agree with me in the impropriety of such articles, and [by] their united wisdom, in a convention guided by the love of their country, and answering the benefit of the whole, will improve the remedies and so establish a federal constitution capable of deterring any ambitious men from making an use of it to our destruction; as also o keep alive and in due harmony the Confederation among the united independent states lately so dearly purchased from the government of Great Britain, because that meant “TO BIND US IN ALL CASES WHATSOEVER.” But now to the point itself.
Explanation:
