any standard which is erected, and bless the ambitious usurper as a
messenger sent by heaven to save a miserable people. We must not depend
too much on the enlightened state of the country; in deliberation this may
preserve us, but when deliberation proves abortive, we are immediately to
calculate on other principles, and enquire to what may the passions of men
lead them, when they have deliberated to the utmost extent of patience,
and been foiled in every measure, by a set of men who think their
emoluments more safe upon a partial system, than upon one which regards
the national good.

Politics ought to be free from passion--we ought to have patience for a
certain time with those who oppose a federal system. But have they not
been indulged until the state is on the brink of ruin, and they appear
stubborn in error? Have they not been our scourge and the perplexers of
our councils for many years? Is it not thro' their policy that the state
of New York draws an annual tribute of forty thousand pounds from the
citizens of Connecticut? Is it not by their means that our foreign trade
is ruined, and the farmer unable to command a just price for his
commodities? The enlightened part of the people have long seen their
measures to be destructive, and it is only the ignorant and jealous who
give them support. The men who oppose this constitution are the same who
have been unfederal from the beginning. They were as unfriendly to the old
confederation as to the system now proposed, but bore it with more
patience because it was wholly inefficacious. They talk of amendments--of
dangerous articles which must be corrected--that they will heartily join in
a safe plan of federal government; but when we look on their past conduct
can we think them sincere? Doubtless their design is to procrastinate, and
by this carry their own measures; but the artifice must not succeed. The
people are now ripe for a government which will do justice to their
interests, and if the honourable convention deny them, they will despair
of help. They have shewn a noble spirit in appointing their first citizens
for this business--when convened you will constitute the most august
assembly that were ever collected in the State, and your duty is the
greatest that can be expected from men, the salvation of your country. If
coolness and magnanimity of mind attend your deliberations, all little
objections will vanish, and the world will be more astonished by your
politi