ed, or to patch it
up by adding a stipulation in favor of the press, or to guard it by
removing the paltry objection to the right of Congress to regulate the
time and manner of elections.

If you cannot prove by the best of all evidence, viz., by the _interest of
the rulers_, that this authority will not be abused, or at least that
those powers are not more likely to be abused by the Congress, than by
those who now have the same powers, you must by no means adopt the
constitution:--No, not with all the bills of rights and with all the
stipulations in favor of the people that can be made.

But if the members of Congress are to be interested just as you and I are,
and just as the members of our present legislatures are interested, we
shall be just as safe, with even supreme power (if that were granted) in
Congress, as in the General Assembly. If the members of Congress can take
no improper step which will not affect them as much as it does us, we need
not apprehend that they will usurp authorities not given them to injure
that society of which they are a part.

The sole question, (so far as any apprehension of tyranny and oppression
is concerned) ought to be, how are Congress formed? how far have you a
control over them? Decide this, and then all the questions about their
power may be dismissed for the amusement of those politicians whose
business it is to catch flies, or may occasionally furnish subjects for
_George Bryan's_ Pomposity, or the declamations of _Cato_--_An Old
Whig_--_Son of Liberty_--_Brutus_--_Brutus junior_--_An Officer of the
Continental Army_,--the more contemptible _Timoleon_, and the residue of
that rabble of writers.

A Countryman, III.

The New Haven Gazette, (Number 41)

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1787.

TO THE PEOPLE OF CONNECTICUT.

The same thing once more--I am a plain man, of few words; for this reason
perhaps it is, that when I have said a thing I love to repeat it. Last
week I endeavored to evince, that the only surety you could have for your
liberties must be in the nature of your government; that you could derive
no security from bills of rights, or stipulations, on the subject of a
standing army, the liberty of the press, trial by jury, or on any other
subject. Did you ever hear of an absolute monarchy, where those rights
which are proposed by the pigmy politicians of this day, to be secured by
stipulation, were ever preserved? Would it not be mere trifling to make
any such