New Hampshire Advertiser:
. . . . Great complaint has been made, that Congress [under the Articles] has been too liberal in their grants of salaries to
individuals, and I think not without just cause. For if I am rightly informed, there have been men whose salaries have been
fifteen hundred dollars per year, and some of them did not do business at any rate, that the sum they negotiated would amount
to their yearly salary. And some men [are] now in office, at twenty five hundred dollars per year, who I think would have been
glad to have set down at one hundred pounds a year before the war, and would have done as much or more business. The truth is,
when you carry a man's salary beyond what decency requires, he immediately becomes a man of consequence, and does little or no business
at all. Let us cast our eyes around us, in the other departments-the judges of the superior court have but about one hundred pounds salary a year.
The judges of the courts of common pleas, on an average, not more than sixty dollars per year. The ministers of the gospel-a very
valuable set of men.....
Massachusetts Gazette:
The abuse which has been thrown upon the state of Rhode Island seems to be greatly unmerited. Popular favor is variable, and those who are now
despised and insulted may soon change situations with the present idols of the people. Rhode Island has out done even Pennsylvania in the glorious
work of freeing the Negroes in this country, without which the patriotism of some states appears ridiculous. The General Assembly of the state of
Rhode Island has prevented the further importation of Negroes, and have made a law by which all blacks born in that state after March, 1784, are
absolutely and at once free....
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New-York Journal:
. . . The recital, or premises on which the new form of government is erected, declares a consolidation or union of all the thirteen parts, or states, into one great whole, under the form of the United States, for all the various and important purposes therein set forth. But whoever seriously considers the immense extent of territory comprehended within the limits of the United States, together with the variety of its climates, productions, and commerce, the difference of extent, and number of inhabitants in all; the dissimilitude of interest, morals, and politics, in almost every one, will receive it as an intuitive truth, that a consolidated republican form of government therein, can never form a perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to you and your posterity....
New York-Journal:
To the real PATRIOTS of America: . . . America is now free. She now enjoys a greater portion of political
liberty than any other country under heaven. How long she may continue so depends entirely upon her own caution and wisdom.
If she would look to herself more, and to Europe less, I am persuaded it would tend to promote her felicity. She possesses all
the advantages which characterize a rich country-rich within herself, she ought less to regard the politics, the manufactures,
and the interests of distant nations....
 
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