n many entries
relating to Paine's activity in the public service. Under
date Aug. 21, 1783, about the time referred to by Paine in
this letter, Robert Morris mentions a conversation with him
on public affairs. I am indebted to General Meredith Read,
owner of these Morris papers, for permission to examine
them.--_Editor._.

But the embarrassments increasing, as they necessarily must from the
want of a better cemented union, the State of Virginia proposed holding
a commercial convention, and that convention, which was not sufficiently
numerous, proposed that another convention, with more extensive and
better defined powers, should be held at Philadelphia, May 10, 1787.

When the plan of the Federal Government, formed by this Convention, was
proposed and submitted to the consideration of the several States, it
was strongly objected to in each of them. But the objections were not on
anti-federal grounds, but on constitutional points. Many were shocked
at the idea of placing what is called Executive Power in the hands of a
single individual. To them it had too much the form and appearance of a
military government, or a despotic one. Others objected that the
powers given to a president were too great, and that in the hands of
an ambitious and designing man it might grow into tyranny, as it did
in England under Oliver Cromwell, and as it has since done in France.
A Republic must not only be so in its principles, but in its forms. The
Executive part of the Federal government was made for a man, and those
who consented, against their judgment, to place Executive Power in the
hands of a single individual, reposed more on the supposed moderation of
the person they had in view, than on the wisdom of the measure itself.

Two considerations, however, overcame all objections. The one was, the
absolute necessity of a Federal Government. The other, the rational
reflection, that as government in America is founded on the
representative system any error in the first essay could be reformed
by the same quiet and rational process by which the Constitution was
formed, and that either by the generation then living, or by those who
were to succeed. If ever America lose sight of this principle, she will
no longer be the _land of liberty_. The father will become the assassin
of the rights of the son, and his descendants be a race of slaves.

As many thousands who were minors are grown up to manhood since the nam