eserving inviolate the fundamental principle, that the people are
not to be taxed but by representitives[sp.] chosen immediately by
themselves. I am captivated by the compromise of the opposite claims of
the great and little States, of the latter to equal, and the former to
proportional influence. I am much pleased, too, with the substitution
of the method of voting by persons, instead of that of voting by States:
and I like the negative given to the Executive, conjointly with a third
of either House; though I should have liked it better, had the judiciary
been associated for that purpose, or invested separately with a similar
power. There are other good things of less moment.

I will now tell you what I do not like. First, the omission of a bill of
rights, providing clearly, and without the aid of sophism, for freedom
of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies,
restriction of monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the
_habeas corpus_ laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable
by the laws of the land, and not by the laws of nations. To say, as Mr.
Wilson does, that a bill of rights was not necessary, because all is
reserved in the case of the general government which is not given, while
in the particular ones, all is given which is not reserved, might do
for the audience to which it was addressed: but it is surely a _gratis
dictum_, the reverse of which might just as well be said; and it is
opposed by strong inferences from the body of the instrument, as well as
from the omission of the clause of our present Confederation, which had
made the reservation in express terms. It was hard to conclude, because
there has been a want of uniformity among the States as to the cases
triable by jury, because some have been so incautious as to dispense
with this mode of trial in certain cases, therefore the more prudent
States shall be reduced to the same level of calamity. It would have
been much more just and wise to have concluded the other way, that as
most of the States had preserved with jealousy this sacred palladium of
liberty, those who had wandered, should be brought back to it: and to
have established general right rather than general wrong. For I consider
all the ill as established, which maybe established. I have a right to
nothing, which another has a right to take away; and Congress will have
a right to take away trials by jury in all civil cases. Let me add,
that a bill