ovided. Our
present government knows of no such thing.

AGRIPPA.

Agrippa, VI.

The Massachusetts Gazette, (Number 391)

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1787.

For the Massachusetts Gazette.

TO THE PEOPLE.

To prevent any mistakes, or misapprehensions of the argument, stated in my
last paper, to prove that the proposed constitution is an actual
consolidation of the separate states into one extensive commonwealth, the
reader is desired to observe, that in the course of the argument, the new
plan is considered as an entire system. It is not dependent on any other
book for an explanation, and contains no references to any other book. All
the defences of it, therefore, so far as they are drawn from the state
constitutions, or from maxims of the common law, are foreign to the
purpose. It is only by comparing the different parts of it together, that
the meaning of the whole is to be understood. For instance--

We find in it, that there is to be a legislative assembly, with authority
to constitute courts for the trial of all kinds of civil causes, between
citizens of different states. The right to appoint such courts necessarily
involves in it the right of defining their powers, and determining the
rules by which their judgment shall be regulated; and the grant of the
former of those rights is nugatory without the latter. It is vain to tell
us, that a maxim of common law requires contracts to be determined by the
law existing where the contract was made: for it is also a maxim, that the
legislature has a right to alter the common law. Such a power forms an
essential part of legislation. Here, then, a declaration of rights is of
inestimable value. It contains those principles which the government never
can invade without an open violation of the compact between them and the
citizens. Such a declaration ought to have come to the new constitution in
favour of the legislative rights of the several states, by which their
sovereignty over their own citizens within the state should be secured.
Without such an express declaration the states are annihilated in reality
upon receiving this constitution--the forms will be preserved only during
the pleasure of Congress.

The idea of consolidation is further kept up in the right given to
regulate trade. Though this power under certain limitations would be a
proper one for the department of Congress; it is in this system carried
much too far, and much farther than is necessary. This