es with a gleam of optimism:

... Is it not likely that real defects will be as readily
discovered after as before trial? and will not our successors be
as ready to apply the remedy as ourselves, if occasion should
require it? To think otherwise will, in my judgment, be ascribing
more of the amor patriae, more wisdom and more virtue to
ourselves, than I think we deserve.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ford, XI, 173.]

Nearly five months later, February 7, 1788, he wrote Lafayette what we
may consider a more deliberate opinion:

As to my sentiments with respect to the merits of the new
constitution, I will disclose them without reserve, (although by
passing through the post-office they should become known to
all the world,) for in truth I have nothing to conceal on that
subject. It appears to me, then, little short of a miracle, that
the delegates from so many different States (which States you
know are also different from each other), in their manners,
circumstances, and prejudices, should unite in forming a system of
national government, so little liable to well-founded objections.
Nor am I yet such an enthusiastic, partial, or indiscriminating
admirer of it, as not to perceive it is tinctured with some real
(though not radical) defects. The limits of a letter would not
suffer me to go fully into an examination of them; nor would the
discussion be entertaining or profitable. I therefore forbear to
touch upon it. With regard to the two great points (the pivots
upon which the whole machine must move), my creed is simply,

1st. That the general government is not invested with more powers,
than are indispensably necessary to perform the functions of a
good government; and consequently, that no objection ought to be
made against the quantity of power delegated to it.

2nd. That these powers (as the appointment of all rulers will for
ever arise from, and at short, stated intervals recur to, the free
suffrage of the people), are so distributed among the legislative,
executive, and judicial branches, into which the general
government is arranged, that it can never be in danger of
degenerating into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any
other despotic or oppressive form, so long as there shall remain
any virtue in the body of the people.

I would not be understood, my dear Marquis, to s