The Constitution proposed by the Federal Convention now engages the
fixed attention of America.
Every person appears to be affected. Those who wish the adoption of
the plan, consider its rejection as the source of endless contests,
confusions, and misfortunes; and they also consider a resolution to
alter, without previously adopting it, as a rejection.
Those who oppose the plan, are influenced by different views. Some of
them are friends, others of them are enemies, to The United States.
[2] The latter are of two classes; either men without principles or
fortunes, who think they may have a chance to mend their circumstances,
with impunity, under a weak government, or in public convulsions, but
cannot make them worse even by the last—or men who have been always
averse to the revolution; and though at first confounded by that event,
yet, their hopes reviving with the declension of our affairs, have
since persuaded themselves, that at length the people, tired out with
their continued distresses, will return to their former connection with
Great Britain. To argue with these opposers, would be vain—The other
opposers of the plan deserve the highest respect.
_What concerns all, should be considered by all_; and individuals
may injure a whole society, by not declaring their sentiments. It
is therefore not only their right, but their duty, to declare them.
Weak advocates of a good cause or artful advocates of a bad one,
may endeavour to stop such communications, or to discredit them by
clamour and calumny. This, however, is not the age for such tricks
of controversy. Men have suffered so severely by being deceived upon
subjects of the highest import, those of religion and freedom, that
_truth_ becomes infinitely valuable to them, not as a matter of curious
speculation, but of beneficial practice—A spirit of inquiry is
excited, information diffused, judgment strengthened.
Before this tribunal of _the people,_ let every one freely speak, what
he really thinks, [3] but with so sincere a reverence for the cause
he ventures to discuss, as to use the utmost caution, lest he should
lead any into errors, upon a point of such sacred concern as the public
happiness.
It is not the design of this address, to describe the present
derangement of our affairs, the mischiefs that must ensue from its
continuance, the horrors, of a total dissolution of the union, or of
the division of it into partial confederacies. Nor is it intended to
describe the evils that will result from pursuing the plan of another
Federal Convention; as if a better temper of conciliation, or a more
satisfactory harmony of decisions, could be expected from men, after
their minds are agitated with disgusts and disappointments, than before
they were thus disturbed; though from an uncontradicted assertion it
appears, that without such provocations, the difficulty of reconciling
the interests of the several states was so near to _insuperable_, in
the late convention, that after many weeks spent in the most faithful
labours to promote concord, the members were upon the very point of
dispersing in the utmost disorder, jealousy and resentment, and leaving
the states exposed to all the tempests of passions, that have been so
fatal to confederacies of republics.
All these things, with observations on particular articles of the
constitution, have been laid before the public, and the writer of this
address means not to repeat what has been already said. What he wishes,
is to simplify [4] the subject, so as to facilitate the inquiries of
his fellow citizens.
Many are the objections made to the system proposed. They should be
distinguished. Some may be called local, because they spring from
the supposed interests of individual states. Thus, for instance,
some inhabitants of large states may desire the system to be so
altered, that they may possess more authority in the decisions of the
government; or some inhabitants of commercial states may desire it to
be so altered, that the advantages of trade may center almost wholly
among themselves; and this predilection they may think compatible
with the common welfare. Their judgment being thus warp’d, at the
beginning of their deliberations, objections are accumulated as very
important, that, without this prepossession, would never have obtained
their approbation. Certain it is, that strong understandings may be so
influenced by this insulated patriotism, as to doubt—whether general
benefits can be communicated by a general government.(39)
Probably nothing would operate so much for the correction of these
errors, as the perusal of the accounts transmitted to us by the
ancients, of the calamities occasioned in Greece by a conduct founded
on similar mistakes. They are expressly ascribed to this cause—that
each city meditated a part on its own profit and ends——insomuch that
those _who seemed to contend for union_, could never relinquish their
own interests [5] and advancement, while they deliberated for the public.
Heaven grant! that our countrymen may pause in time—duly estimate the
present moment—and solemnly reflect—whether their measures may not
tend to draw down the same distractions upon us, that desolated Greece.
They may now tolerably judge from the proceedings of the Federal
Convention and of other conventions, what are the sentiments of America
upon her present and future prospects. Let the voice of her distress be
venerated—and adhering to the generous Virginian declaration, let them
resolve to “_cling to Union as the political Rock of our Salvation_.”