ver, my countrymen, beware that the advocates of this new
system do not deceive you by a fallacious resemblance between it and your
own state government which you so much prize; and, if you examine, you
will perceive that the chief magistrate of this state is your immediate
choice, controlled and checked by a just and full representation of the
people, divested of the prerogative of influencing war and peace, making
treaties, receiving and sending embassies, and commanding standing armies
and navies, which belong to the power of the confederation, and will be
convinced that this government is no more like a true picture of your own
than an Angel of Darkness resembles an Angel of Light.

CATO.

Cato, V.

The New York Journal, (Number 2145)

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1787.

For the New York Journal, &c.

_To the_ CITIZENS _of the_ STATE _of_ NEW YORK.

In my last number I endeavored to prove that the language of the article
relative to the establishment of the executive of this new government was
vague and inexplicit; that the great powers of the president, connected
with his duration in office, would lead to oppression and ruin; that he
would be governed by favorites and flatterers, or that a dangerous council
would be collected from the great officers of state; that the ten miles
square, if the remarks of one of the wisest men, drawn from the experience
of mankind, may be credited, would be the asylum of the base, idle,
avaricious and ambitious, and that the court would possess a language and
manners different from yours; that a vice-president is as unnecessary as
he is dangerous in his influence; that the president cannot represent you
because he is not of your own immediate choice; that if you adopt this
government you will incline to an arbitrary and odious aristocracy or
monarchy; that the president, possessed of the power given him by this
frame of government, differs but very immaterially from the establishment
of monarchy in Great Britain; and I warned you to beware of the fallacious
resemblance that is held out to you by the advocates of this new system
between it and your own state governments.

And here I cannot help remarking that inexplicitness seems to pervade this
whole political fabric; certainly in political compacts, which Mr. Coke
calls _the mother and nurse of repose and quietness_ the want of which
induced men to engage in political society, has ever been held by a wise
and free people