Part 14

If you had only to guard against vesting an undue power in certain great officers of state your work would be comparatively easy. This some times occasions a loss of liberty, but the history of nations teacheth us that for one instance from this cause, there are ten from the contrary, a want of necessary power in some public department to protect and to preserve the true interests of the people. America is at this moment in ten-fold greater danger of slavery than ever she was from the councils of a British monarchy, or the triumph of British arms. She is in danger from herself and her own citizens, not from giving too much, but from denying all power to her rulers—not from a constitution on despotic principles, but from having no constitution at all. Should this great effort to organize the empire prove abortive, heaven only knows the situation in which we shall find ourselves; but there is reason to fear it will be troublesome enough. It is awful to meet the passions of a people who not only believe but feel themselves uncontrouled—who not finding from government the expected protection of their interests, tho’ otherwise honest, become desperate, each man determining to share by the spoils of anarchy, what he would wish to acquire by industry under an efficient national protection. It becomes the deputies of the people to consider what will be the consequence of a miscarriage in this business. Ardent expectation is waiting for its issue—all allow something is necessary—thousands of sufferers have stifled their rights in reverence to the public effort—the industrious classes of men are waiting with patience for better times, and should that be rejected on which they make dependance, will not the public convulsion be great? Or if the civil state should survive the first effects of disappointment, what will be the consequences of slower operations? The men who have done their best to give relief, will despair of success, and gloomily determine that greater sufferings must open the eyes of the deluded—the men who oppose, tho’ they may claim a temporary triumph, will find themselves totally unable to propose, and much less to adopt a better system; the narrowness of policy that they have pursued will instantly appear more ridiculous than at present, and the triumph will spoil that importance, which nature designed them to receive not by succeeding, but by impeding national councils. These men cannot, therefore, be the saviours of their country. While those who have been foremost in the political contention disappear either thro’ despondence or neglect, every man will do what is right in his own eyes and his hand will be against his neighbor—industry will cease—the states will be filled with jealousy—some opposing and others endeavoring to retaliate—a thousand existing factions, and acts of public injustice, thro’ the temporary influence of parties, will prepare the way for chance to erect a government, which might now be established by deliberate wisdom. When government thus arises, it carries an iron hand.

Should the states reject a union upon solid and efficient principles, there needs but some daring genius to step forth, and impose an authority which future deliberation never can correct. Anarchy, or a want of such government as can protect the interests of the subjects against foreign and domestic injustice, is the worst of all conditions. It is a condition which mankind will not long endure. To avoid its distress they will resort to any standard which is erected, and bless the ambitious usurper as a messenger sent by heaven to save a miserable people. We must not depend too much on the enlightened state of the country; in deliberation this may preserve us, but when deliberation proves abortive, we are immediately to calculate on other principles, and enquire to what may the passions of men lead them, when they have deliberated to the utmost extent of patience, and been foiled in every measure, by a set of men who think their emoluments more safe upon a partial system, than upon one which regards the national good.

Politics ought to be free from passion—we ought to have patience for a certain time with those who oppose a federal system. But have they not been indulged until the state is on the brink of ruin, and they appear stubborn in error? Have they not been our scourge and the perplexers of our councils for many years? Is it not thro’ their policy that the state of New York draws an annual tribute of forty thousand pounds from the citizens of Connecticut? Is it not by their means that our foreign trade is ruined, and the farmer unable to command a just price for his commodities? The enlightened part of the people have long seen their measures to be destructive, and it is only the ignorant and jealous who give them support. The men who oppose this constitution are the same who have been unfederal from the beginning. They were as unfriendly to the old confederation as to the system now proposed, but bore it with more patience because it was wholly inefficacious. They talk of amendments—of dangerous articles which must be corrected—that they will heartily join in a safe plan of federal government; but when we look on their past conduct can we think them sincere? Doubtless their design is to procrastinate, and by this carry their own measures; but the artifice must not succeed. The people are now ripe for a government which will do justice to their interests, and if the honourable convention deny them, they will despair of help. They have shewn a noble spirit in appointing their first citizens for this business—when convened you will constitute the most august assembly that were ever collected in the State, and your duty is the greatest that can be expected from men, the salvation of your country. If coolness and magnanimity of mind attend your deliberations, all little objections will vanish, and the world will be more astonished by your political wisdom than they were by the victory of your arms.

A LANDHOLDER.

The Landholder, X.

The Maryland Journal, (Number 1016)

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 1788.

For the Maryland Journal, etc.

TO THE HONOURABLE LUTHER MARTIN, ESQ.(42)

_Sir_,

I have just met with your performance in favour of the Honourable Mr. Gerry, published in the Maryland Journal of the 18th January, 1788. As the Public may be ignorant of the Sacrifice you have made of your resentments on this occasion, you will excuse me for communicating what your extreme modesty must have induced you to conceal. You, no doubt, remember that you and Mr. Gerry never voted alike in Convention, except in the instances I shall hereafter enumerate. He uniformly opposed your principles, and so far did you carry your abhorrence of his politics, as to inform certain members to be on their guard against his wiles, so that, he and Mr. Mason held private meetings, where plans were concerted “to aggrandise, at the expence of the small States, Old Massachusetts and the Ancient Dominion.” After having thus opposed him and accused him, to appear his Champion and intimate acquaintance, has placed you beyond the reach of ordinary panegyric. Having done this justice to your magnanimity, I cannot resist drawing the veil of the Convention a little farther aside; not, I assure you, with any intention to give pain to your Constituents, but merely to induce them to pity you for the many piercing mortifications you met with in the discharge of your duty. The day you took your seat(43) must be long remembered by those who were present; nor will it be possible for you to forget the astonishment your behaviour almost instantaneously produced. You had scarcely time to read the propositions which had been agreed to after the fullest investigation, when, without requesting information, or to be let into the reasons of the adoption of what you might not approve, you opened against them in a speech which held during two days, and which might have continued two months, but for those marks of fatigue and disgust you saw strongly expressed on whichever side of the house you turned your mortified eyes. There needed no other display to fix your character and the rank of your abilities, which the Convention would have confirmed by the most distinguished silence, had not a certain similarity in genius provoked a sarcastic reply from the pleasant Mr. Gerry; in which he admired the strength of your lungs and your profound knowledge in the first principles of government; mixing and illustrating his little remarks with a profusion of those hems, that never fail to lengthen out and enliven his oratory. This reply (from your intimate acquaintance), the match being so equal and the contrast so comic, had the happy effect to put the house in good humor, and leave you a prey to the most humiliating reflections. But this did not teach you to bound your future speeches by the lines of moderation; for the very next day you exhibited without a blush another specimen of eternal volubility. It was not, however, to the duration of your speeches you owed the perfection of your reputation. You, alone, advocated the political heresy, that the people ought not to be trusted with the election of representatives.(44) You held the jargon, that notwithstanding each state had an equal number of votes in the Senate; yet the states were unequally represented in the Senate. You espoused the tyrannic principle, that where a State refused to comply with a requisition of Congress for money, that an army should be marched into its bowels, to fall indiscriminately upon the property of the innocent and the guilty, instead of having it collected as the Constitution proposed, by the mild and equal operation of laws. One hour you sported the opinion that Congress, afraid of the militia resisting their measures, would neither arm nor organize them, and the next, as if men required no time to breathe between such contradictions, that they would harass them by long and unnecessary marches, till they wore down their spirit and rendered them fit subjects for despotism. You, too, contended that the powers and authorities of the new Constitution must destroy the liberties of the people; but that the same powers and authorities might be safely trusted with the Old Congress. You cannot have forgotten, that by such ignorance in politics and contradictory opinions, you exhausted the politeness of the Convention, which at length prepared to slumber when you rose to speak; nor can you have forgotten, you were only twice appointed a member of a Committee, or that these appointments were made merely to avoid your endless garrulity, and if possible, lead you to reason, by the easy road of familiar conversation. But lest you should say that I am a record only of the bad, I shall faithfully recognize whatever occurred to your advantage. You originated that clause in the Constitution which enacts, that “This Constitution and the laws of the United States Which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or the law of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.” You voted that an appeal should lay to the Supreme Judiciary of the United States, for the correction of all errors, both in law and fact. You also agreed to the clause that declares nine States to be sufficient to put the government in motion.(45) These are among the greater positive virtues you exhibited in the Convention; but it would be doing you injustice were I to omit those of a negative nature. Since the publication of the Constitution, every topic of vulgar declamation has been employed to persuade the people, that it will destroy the trial by jury, and is defective for being without a bill of rights. You, sir, had more candour in the Convention than we can allow to those declaimers out of it; there you never signified by any motion or expression whatever, that it stood in need of a bill of rights, or in any wise endangered the trial by jury. In these respects the Constitution met your entire approbation; for had you believed it defective in these essentials, you ought to have mentioned it in Convention, or had you thought it wanted further guards, it was your indispensable duty to have proposed them. I hope to hear that the same candour that influenced you on this occasion, has induced you to obviate any improper impressions such publications may have excited in your constituents, when you had the honor to appear before the General Assembly.(46) From such high instances of your approbation (for every member, like you, had made objections to parts of the Constitution) the Convention were led to conclude that you would have honored it with your signature, had you not been called to Maryland upon some indispensable business; nor ought it to be withheld from you, that your colleagues informed many Gentlemen of the House, that you told them you intended to return before its completion. Durst I proceed beyond these facts, to which the whole Convention can witness, I would ask you why you changed your opinion of the Constitution after leaving Philadelphia. I have it from good authority that you complained to an intimate acquaintance, that nothing grieved you so much as the apprehension of being detained in Maryland longer than you could wish; for that you had rather lose one hundred guineas, than not have your name appear to the Constitution. But as this circumstance seems to have been overlooked when you composed your defence of Mr. Gerry, you may have your recollection of it revived by applying to Mr. Young, of Spruce street, Philadelphia, to whom you made your complaint. But leaving this curious piece of human vanity to such further investigation as you may think it deserves, let us come to those matters more particularly between us. You have said, that you never heard Mr. Gerry, or any other member, introduce a proposition for the redemption of Continental money according to its nominal or any other value; nor did you ever hear that such a proposition had been offered to the Convention, or had been thought of. That the Public may clearly comprehend what degree of credit ought to be given to this kind of evidence, they should know the time you were absent from the Convention, as well as the time you attended. If it should appear that you were only a few days absent, when unimportant business was the object, they will conclude in your favour, provided they entertain a good opinion of your veracity; on the other hand, should it appear that you were absent nearly half the session, however your veracity may be esteemed, they must reject your evidence. As you have not stated this necessary information, I shall do it for you. The Session of Convention commenced the 14th of May, and ended the 17th of September, which makes 126 days. You took your seat the 10th of June,(47) and left it the 4th of September, of which period you were absent at Baltimore ten days, and as many at New York, so that you attended only 66 days out of 126. Now, sir, is it to be presumed that you could have been minutely informed of all that happened in Convention, and committees of Convention, during the 60 days of your absence? or does it follow by any rule of reasoning or logic, that because a thing did not happen in the 66 days you were present, that it did not happen in the 60 days which you did not attend? Is it anywise likely that you could have heard what passed, especially during the last 13 days, within which period the Landholder has fixed the apostacy of Mr. Gerry? or if it is likely that your particular intimacy with Mr. Gerry would stimulate to inquiries respecting his conduct, why is it that we do not see Mr. McHenry’s verification of your assertion, who was of the Committee for considering a proposition for the debts of the union? Your reply to my second charge against this gentleman may be soon dismissed. Compare his letter to the Legislature of his State with your defence, and you will find that you have put into his mouth objections different from anything it contains, so that if your representation be true, his must be false. But there is another circumstance which militates against your new friend. Though he was face to face with his colleagues at the State Convention of Massachusetts,(48) he has not ventured to call upon them to clear him either of this charge, or that respecting the Continental money. But as the Public seemed to require that something should be said on this occasion, an anonymous writer denies that he made such a motion, and endeavours to abate the force of my second allegation, merely by supposing that “his colleagues were men of too much honor to assert that his reasons in Convention were totally different from those which he has published.”

But alas, his colleagues would not acquit him in this way, and he was of too proud a spirit to ask them to do it in person.(49) Hence the charge remains on its original grounds, while you, for want of proper concert, have joined his accusers and reduced him to the humiliating necessity of endeavouring to stifle your justification. These points being dismissed, it remains only to reconcile the contradictory parts you have acted on the great political stage. You entered the convention without a sufficient knowledge in the science of government, where you committed a succession of memorable blunders, as the work advanced. Some rays of light penetrated your understanding, and enabled you (as has been shown) to assist in raising some of its pillars, when the desire of having your name enrolled with the other laborers drew from you that remarkable complaint so expressive of vanity and conviction. But self-interest soon gained the ascendant, you quickly comprehended the delicacy of your situation, and this restored your first impressions in all their original force. You thought the Deputy Attorney General of the United States for the state of Maryland, destined for a different character, and that inspired you with the hope that you might derive from a desperate opposition what you saw no prospect of gaining by a contrary conduct. But I will venture to predict, that though you were to double your efforts, you would fail in your object. I leave you now to your own reflections, under a promise, however, to give my name to the public, should you be able to procure any indifferent testimony to contradict a single fact I have stated.

February, 1788.

A LANDHOLDER.

The Landholder, X.

[This number duplicates the preceding one, for an explanation of which see the foot-note to the first Number X.—_Ed._]

The Connecticut Courant, (Number 1206)

MONDAY, MARCH 3, 1788.

TO THE CITIZENS OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.(50)

The opposition in your state to the new federal constitution, is an event surprising to your New England brethren, yet we are not disposed to criminate a people, which made such gallant efforts in the establishment of the American Empire. It is the prerogative of freemen to determine their own form of government, and if this constitution is not addressed to your interest, if it is not calculated to preserve your freedom and make you glorious, we wish you not to accept it. We have fought by your side, we have long been connected in interest, and with many of you by consanguinity, and wish that you may share with us in all the benefits of a great and free empire. Brethren who differ in their opinions how a common interest may be best governed, ought to deliberate with coolness, and not wantonly accuse each other, either of folly or design. Massachusetts and Connecticut have decidedly judged the new government well calculated not only for the whole but for the northern states. Either you or these states have judged wrong. Your interests are similar to theirs, and cannot be separated from them without counteracting nature.

If there be any one state more interested than the others in the adoption of this system, it is New Hampshire. Your local situation, which can never be altered, is a solemn argument in its favor. Tho’ separated from the government of Britain at no less price than the blood of your bravest sons, you border on her dominions. She is your enemy, and wishes nothing more than your submission to her laws, and to the will of her proud servants.

Her force may easily be pointed thro’ your whole territory and a few regiments would effectually banish resistance. New Hampshire, tho’ growing in population, and amongst the first states in personal bravery, cannot yet stand alone. Should a disunion of the states tempt Britain to make another effort for recovering her former greatness, you will be the first to fall under her sway. In such case you will have nothing to expect from the other states. Dispirited with a fruitless attempt to unite in some plan of general government and protection, they will say, let the dissenting states abide the consequence of their own false opinions. Though such a reply might not be wise, it would be exactly comfortable to what we have ever found in human nature; and nature will have its course, let policy be what it may. You are the northern barrier of the United States, and by your situation, must first meet any hostile animosity from that quarter designed against any part of them. It is certainly for the interest of a barrier country, to have a general government on such efficient principles, as can point the force of the whole for its relief when attacked. The old constitution could not do this; that now under consideration, if accepted, we trust will produce a circulation of riches and the powers of protection to the most extreme parts of the body. On these principles it has generally been said that New Hampshire and Georgia would be amongst the first in adopting. Georgia has done it, not, perhaps, because they were more wise than New Hampshire, but being pressed with a dangerous war in the very moment of decision, they felt its necessity; and feeling is an argument none can resist. Trust not to any complaisance of those British provinces on your northern borders, or those artful men who govern them, who were selected on purpose to beguile your politicks, and divide and weaken the union. When the hour for a permanent connection between the states is past, the teeth of the lion will be again made bare, and you must be either devoured, or become its jackal to hunt for prey in the other states.

We believe those among you who are opposed to the system, as honest and brave as any part of the community, and cannot suspect them of any design against American Independence; but such persons ought to consider what will be the probable consequence of their dissent; and whether this is not the only hour in which this community can be saved from a condition, which is, on all hands, allowed to be dangerous and unhappy. There are certain critical periods in which nations, as well as individuals, who have fallen into perplexity, by a wise exertion may save themselves and be glorious. Such is the present era in American policy, but if we do not see the hour of our salvation, there is no reason to expect that heaven will repeat it. The unexpected harmony of the federal Convention—their mutual condescension in the reconcilement of jarring interests and opposing claims between the several States—the formation of a system so efficient in appearance, at the same time so well guarded against an oppression of the subject—the concurring sentiments of a vast majority thro’ the United States, of those persons who have been most experienced in policy, and most eminent in wisdom and virtue; are events which must be attributed to the special influence of heaven.