From The Boston Gazette and Country Journal:
I am pleased to see a spirit of inquiry burst the band of constraint upon the subject of the NEW PLAN for
consolidating the governments of the United States, as recommended by the late Convention. If
it is suitable to the GENIUS and HABITS of the citizens of these states, it will bear the strictest scrutiny.
The PEOPLE are the grand inquest who have a RIGHT to judge of its merits. The hideous daemon of
Aristocracy has hitherto had so much influence as to bar the channels of investigation, preclude
the people from inquiry and extinguish every spark of liberal information of its qualities. At length the luminary of intelligence begins to beam its effulgent rays upon this important production; the deceptive mists cast before the eyes of the people by the delusive machinations of its INTERESTED advocates....
There are but two modes by which men are connected in society, the one which operates on individuals, this always has been, and
ought still to be called, national government; the other which binds States and governments together (not corporations, for there
is no considerable nation on earth, despotic, monarchical, or republican, that does not contain many subordinate corporations with
various constitutions) this last has heretofore been denominated a league or confederacy. The term federalists is therefore improperly
applied to themselves, by the friends and supporters of the proposed constitution....
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The adoption of this government will not meliorate our own particular system. I beg leave to consider the circumstances of the Union antecedent
to the meeting of the Convention at Philadelphia. We have been told of phantoms and ideal
dangers to lead us into measures which will, in my opinion, be the ruin of our country.
If the existence of those dangers cannot be proved, if there be no apprehension of wars, if
there be no rumors of wars, it will place the subject in a different light, and plainly evince
to the world that there cannot be any reason for adopting measures which we apprehend to be ruinous
and destructive. When this state [Virginia] proposed that the general government should be improved, Massachusetts was just recovered from a rebellion which had brought the republic to the brink of destruction from a rebellion which was crushed by that federal government....
If we recollect, on last Saturday, I made some observations on some of those dangers
which these gentlemen would fain persuade us hang over the citizens of this commonwealth
[Virginia] to induce us to change the government, and adopt the new plan. Unless there be
great and awful dangers, the change is dangerous, and the experiment ought not to be made.
In estimating the magnitude of these dangers, we are obliged to take a most serious view of
them--to see them, to handle them, and to be familiar with them. It is not sufficient to feign mere imaginary dangers;
there must be a dreadful reality. The great question between us is: Does that reality exist? These dangers are
partially attributed to bad laws, execrated by the community at large....
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