he
most powerful looseners of the bands of private friendship. I think,
therefore, that this institution would fail in its principal object, the
perpetuation of the personal friendships contracted through the war.

The objections of those who are opposed to the institution shall be
briefly sketched. You will readily fill them up. They urge that it
is against the Confederation--against the letter of some of our
constitutions--against the spirit of all of them;--that the foundation
on which all these are built, is the natural equality of man, the
denial of every pre-eminence but that annexed to legal office, and,
particularly, the denial of a pre-eminence by birth; that however, in
their present dispositions, citizens might decline accepting honorary
instalments[sp.]into the order; but a time, may come, when a change
of dispositions would render these flattering, when a well directed
distribution of them might draw into the order all the men of talents,
of office, and wealth, and in this case, would probably procure an
ingraftment into the government; that in this, they will be supported by
their foreign members, and the wishes and influence of foreign courts;
that experience has shown that the hereditary branches of modern
governments are the patrons of privilege and prerogative, and not of the
natural rights of the people, whose oppressors they generally are:
that besides these evils, which are remote, others may take place
more immediately; that a distinction is kept up between the civil and
military, which it is for the happiness of both to obliterate; that when
the members assemble the, will be proposing to do something, and what
that something may be, will depend on actual circumstances; that being
an organized body, under habits of subordination, the first obstruction
to enterprise will be already surmounted; that the moderation and virtue
of a single character have probably prevented this Revolution from being
closed as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was
intended to establish; that he is not immortal, and his successor, or
some of his successors, may be led by false calculation into a less
certain road to glory.

What are the sentiments of Congress on this subject, and what line they
will pursue, can only be stated, conjecturally. Congress as a body, if
left to themselves, will in my opinion say nothing on the subject. They
may, however, be forced into a declaration by instructions from