Part 14

Now, Mr. Gerry, as this is generally known to be the state of facts, and as neither the reasons which you publish nor those retained on the Secretary’s files can be supposed to have the least affinity to truth, or to contain the real motives which induced you to withhold your name from the constitution, it appears to me that your plan was not judiciously contrived. When we act without principle, we ought to be prepared against embarrassments. You might have expected some difficulties in realizing your continental money; indeed the chance was rather against your motion, even in the most artful shape in which it could have been proposed. An experienced hand would therefore have laid the whole plan beforehand, and have guarded against a disappointment. You should have begun the business with doubts, and expressed your sentiments with great ambiguity upon every subject as it passed. This method would have secured you many advantages. Your doubts and ambiguities, if artfully managed, might have passed, like those of the Delphic Oracle, for wisdom and deliberation; and at the close of the business you might have acted either for or against the constitution, according to the success of your motion, without appearing dishonest or inconsistent with yourself. One farther precaution would have brought you off clear.

Instead of waiting till the convention rose, before you consulted your friends at New York, you ought to have applied to them at an earlier period, to know what objections you should make. They could have instructed you as well in August as October.

With these advantages you might have past for a complete politician, and your duplicity might never have been detected.

The enemies of America have always been extremely unfortunate in concerting their measures. They have generally betrayed great ignorance of the true spirit and feeling of the country, and they have failed to act in concert with each other. This is uniformly conspicuous, from the first Bute Parliament in London to the last Shays Parliament at Pelham.

The conduct of the enemies of the new constitution compares with that of the other enemies above mentioned only in two particulars, its object and its tendency.

Its object was self interest built on the ruins of the country, and its tendency is the disgrace of its authors and the final prosperity of the same country they meant to depress. Whether the constitution will be adopted at the first trial in the conventions of nine states is at present doubtful. It is certain, however, that its enemies have great difficulties to encounter arising from their disunion: in the different states where the opposition rages the most, their principles are totally opposite to each other, and their objections discordant and irreconcilable, so that no regular system can be formed among you, and you will betray each other’s motives.

In Massachusetts the opposition began with you, and from motives most pitifully selfish and despicable, you addressed yourself to the feelings of the Shays faction, and that faction will be your only support. In New York the opposition is not to this constitution in particular, but to the federal impost, it is confined wholly to salary-men and their connections, men whose salary is paid by the state impost. This class of citizens are endeavoring to convince the ignorant part of the community that an annual income of fifty thousand pounds, extorted from the citizens of Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey, is a great blessing to the state of New York. And although the regulation of trade and other advantages of a federal government would secure more than five times that sum to the people of that state, yet, as this would not come through the same hands, these men find fault with the constitution. In Pennsylvania the old quarrel respecting their state constitution has thrown the state into parties for a number of years. One of these parties happened to declare for the new federal constitution, and this was a sufficient motive for the other to oppose it; the dispute there is not upon the merits of the subject, but it is their old warfare carried on with different weapons, and it was an even chance that the parties had taken different sides from what they have taken, for there is no doubt but either party would sacrifice the whole country to the destruction of their enemies. In Virginia the opposition wholly originated in two principles; the madness of Mason, and the enemity of the Lee faction to General Washington. Had the General not attended the convention nor given his sentiments respecting the constitution, the Lee party would undoubtedly have supported it, and Col. Mason would have vented his rage to his own negroes and to the winds. In Connecticut, our wrongheads are few in number and feeble in their influence. The opposition here is not one-half so great to the federal government as it was three years ago to the federal impost, and the faction, such as it is, is from the same blindfold party.

I thought it my duty to give you these articles of information, for the reasons above mentioned. Wishing you more caution and better success in your future manœuvers, I have the honor to be, Sir, with great respect, your very humble servant.

A LANDHOLDER.

The Landholder, IX.

The Connecticut Courant, (Number 1197)

MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1787.

TO THE HON. GENTLEMEN CHOSEN TO SERVE IN THE STATE CONVENTION.(41)

_Gentlemen_,

When the deputies of a free people are met to deliberate on a constitution for their country; they must find themselves in a solemn situation. Few persons realize the greatness of this business, and none can certainly determine how it will terminate. A love of liberty in which we have all been educated, and which your country expects on you to preserve sacred, will doubtless make you careful not to lay such foundations as will terminate in despotism. Oppression and a loss of liberty arise from very different causes, and which at first blush appear totally different from another.

If you had only to guard against vesting an undue power in certain great officers of state your work would be comparatively easy. This some times occasions a loss of liberty, but the history of nations teacheth us that for one instance from this cause, there are ten from the contrary, a want of necessary power in some public department to protect and to preserve the true interests of the people. America is at this moment in ten-fold greater danger of slavery than ever she was from the councils of a British monarchy, or the triumph of British arms. She is in danger from herself and her own citizens, not from giving too much, but from denying all power to her rulers—not from a constitution on despotic principles, but from having no constitution at all. Should this great effort to organize the empire prove abortive, heaven only knows the situation in which we shall find ourselves; but there is reason to fear it will be troublesome enough. It is awful to meet the passions of a people who not only believe but feel themselves uncontrouled—who not finding from government the expected protection of their interests, tho’ otherwise honest, become desperate, each man determining to share by the spoils of anarchy, what he would wish to acquire by industry under an efficient national protection. It becomes the deputies of the people to consider what will be the consequence of a miscarriage in this business. Ardent expectation is waiting for its issue—all allow something is necessary—thousands of sufferers have stifled their rights in reverence to the public effort—the industrious classes of men are waiting with patience for better times, and should that be rejected on which they make dependance, will not the public convulsion be great? Or if the civil state should survive the first effects of disappointment, what will be the consequences of slower operations? The men who have done their best to give relief, will despair of success, and gloomily determine that greater sufferings must open the eyes of the deluded—the men who oppose, tho’ they may claim a temporary triumph, will find themselves totally unable to propose, and much less to adopt a better system; the narrowness of policy that they have pursued will instantly appear more ridiculous than at present, and the triumph will spoil that importance, which nature designed them to receive not by succeeding, but by impeding national councils. These men cannot, therefore, be the saviours of their country. While those who have been foremost in the political contention disappear either thro’ despondence or neglect, every man will do what is right in his own eyes and his hand will be against his neighbor—industry will cease—the states will be filled with jealousy—some opposing and others endeavoring to retaliate—a thousand existing factions, and acts of public injustice, thro’ the temporary influence of parties, will prepare the way for chance to erect a government, which might now be established by deliberate wisdom. When government thus arises, it carries an iron hand.

Should the states reject a union upon solid and efficient principles, there needs but some daring genius to step forth, and impose an authority which future deliberation never can correct. Anarchy, or a want of such government as can protect the interests of the subjects against foreign and domestic injustice, is the worst of all conditions. It is a condition which mankind will not long endure. To avoid its distress they will resort to 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 political wisdom than they were by the victory of your arms.

A LANDHOLDER.

The Landholder, X.

The Maryland Journal, (Number 1016)

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 1788.

For the Maryland Journal, etc.

TO THE HONOURABLE LUTHER MARTIN, ESQ.(42)

_Sir_,

I have just met with your performance in favour of the Honourable Mr. Gerry, published in the Maryland Journal of the 18th January, 1788. As the Public may be ignorant of the Sacrifice you have made of your resentments on this occasion, you will excuse me for communicating what your extreme modesty must have induced you to conceal. You, no doubt, remember that you and Mr. Gerry never voted alike in Convention, except in the instances I shall hereafter enumerate. He uniformly opposed your principles, and so far did you carry your abhorrence of his politics, as to inform certain members to be on their guard against his wiles, so that, he and Mr. Mason held private meetings, where plans were concerted “to aggrandise, at the expence of the small States, Old Massachusetts and the Ancient Dominion.” After having thus opposed him and accused him, to appear his Champion and intimate acquaintance, has placed you beyond the reach of ordinary panegyric. Having done this justice to your magnanimity, I cannot resist drawing the veil of the Convention a little farther aside; not, I assure you, with any intention to give pain to your Constituents, but merely to induce them to pity you for the many piercing mortifications you met with in the discharge of your duty. The day you took your seat(43) must be long remembered by those who were present; nor will it be possible for you to forget the astonishment your behaviour almost instantaneously produced. You had scarcely time to read the propositions which had been agreed to after the fullest investigation, when, without requesting information, or to be let into the reasons of the adoption of what you might not approve, you opened against them in a speech which held during two days, and which might have continued two months, but for those marks of fatigue and disgust you saw strongly expressed on whichever side of the house you turned your mortified eyes. There needed no other display to fix your character and the rank of your abilities, which the Convention would have confirmed by the most distinguished silence, had not a certain similarity in genius provoked a sarcastic reply from the pleasant Mr. Gerry; in which he admired the strength of your lungs and your profound knowledge in the first principles of government; mixing and illustrating his little remarks with a profusion of those hems, that never fail to lengthen out and enliven his oratory. This reply (from your intimate acquaintance), the match being so equal and the contrast so comic, had the happy effect to put the house in good humor, and leave you a prey to the most humiliating reflections. But this did not teach you to bound your future speeches by the lines of moderation; for the very next day you exhibited without a blush another specimen of eternal volubility. It was not, however, to the duration of your speeches you owed the perfection of your reputation. You, alone, advocated the political heresy, that the people ought not to be trusted with the election of representatives.(44) You held the jargon, that notwithstanding each state had an equal number of votes in the Senate; yet the states were unequally represented in the Senate. You espoused the tyrannic principle, that where a State refused to comply with a requisition of Congress for money, that an army should be marched into its bowels, to fall indiscriminately upon the property of the innocent and the guilty, instead of having it collected as the Constitution proposed, by the mild and equal operation of laws. One hour you sported the opinion that Congress, afraid of the militia resisting their measures, would neither arm nor organize them, and the next, as if men required no time to breathe between such contradictions, that they would harass them by long and unnecessary marches, till they wore down their spirit and rendered them fit subjects for despotism. You, too, contended that the powers and authorities of the new Constitution must destroy the liberties of the people; but that the same powers and authorities might be safely trusted with the Old Congress. You cannot have forgotten, that by such ignorance in politics and contradictory opinions, you exhausted the politeness of the Convention, which at length prepared to slumber when you rose to speak; nor can you have forgotten, you were only twice appointed a member of a Committee, or that these appointments were made merely to avoid your endless garrulity, and if possible, lead you to reason, by the easy road of familiar conversation. But lest you should say that I am a record only of the bad, I shall faithfully recognize whatever occurred to your advantage. You originated that clause in the Constitution which enacts, that “This Constitution and the laws of the United States Which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or the law of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.” You voted that an appeal should lay to the Supreme Judiciary of the United States, for the correction of all errors, both in law and fact. You also agreed to the clause that declares nine States to be sufficient to put the government in motion.(45) These are among the greater positive virtues you exhibited in the Convention; but it would be doing you injustice were I to omit those of a negative nature. Since the publication of the Constitution, every topic of vulgar declamation has been employed to persuade the people, that it will destroy the trial by jury, and is defective for being without a bill of rights. You, sir, had more candour in the Convention than we can allow to those declaimers out of it; there you never signified by any motion or expression whatever, that it stood in need of a bill of rights, or in any wise endangered the trial by jury. In these respects the Constitution met your entire approbation; for had you believed it defective in these essentials, you ought to have mentioned it in Convention, or had you thought it wanted further guards, it was your indispensable duty to have proposed them. I hope to hear that the same candour that influenced you on this occasion, has induced you to obviate any improper impressions such publications may have excited in your constituents, when you had the honor to appear before the General Assembly.(46) From such high instances of your approbation (for every member, like you, had made objections to parts of the Constitution) the Convention were led to conclude that you would have honored it with your signature, had you not been called to Maryland upon some indispensable business; nor ought it to be withheld from you, that your colleagues informed many Gentlemen of the House, that you told them you intended to return before its completion. Durst I proceed beyond these facts, to which the whole Convention can witness, I would ask you why you changed your opinion of the Constitution after leaving Philadelphia. I have it from good authority that you complained to an intimate acquaintance, that nothing grieved you so much as the apprehension of being detained in Maryland longer than you could wish; for that you had rather lose one hundred guineas, than not have your name appear to the Constitution. But as this circumstance seems to have been overlooked when you composed your defence of Mr. Gerry, you may have your recollection of it revived by applying to Mr. Young, of Spruce street, Philadelphia, to whom you made your complaint. But leaving this curious piece of human vanity to such further investigation as you may think it deserves, let us come to those matters more particularly between us. You have said, that you never heard Mr. Gerry, or any other member, introduce a proposition for the redemption of Continental money according to its nominal or any other value; nor did you ever hear that such a proposition had been offered to the Convention, or had been thought of. That the Public may clearly comprehend what degree of credit ought to be given to this kind of evidence, they should know the time you were absent from the Convention, as well as the time you attended. If it should appear that you were only a few days absent, when unimportant business was the object, they will conclude in your favour, provided they entertain a good opinion of your veracity; on the other hand, should it appear that you were absent nearly half the session, however your veracity may be esteemed, they must reject your evidence. As you have not stated this necessary information, I shall do it for you. The Session of Convention commenced the 14th of May, and ended the 17th of September, which makes 126 days. You took your seat the 10th of June,(47) and left it the 4th of September, of which period you were absent at Baltimore ten days, and as many at New York, so that you attended only 66 days out of 126. Now, sir, is it to be presumed that you could have been minutely informed of all that happened in Convention, and committees of Convention, during the 60 days of your absence? or does it follow by any rule of reasoning or logic, that because a thing did not happen in the 66 days you were present, that it did not happen in the 60 days which you did not attend? Is it anywise likely that you could have heard what passed, especially during the last 13 days, within which period the Landholder has fixed the apostacy of Mr. Gerry? or if it is likely that your particular intimacy with Mr. Gerry would stimulate to inquiries respecting his conduct, why is it that we do not see Mr. McHenry’s verification of your assertion, who was of the Committee for considering a proposition for the debts of the union? Your reply to my second charge against this gentleman may be soon dismissed. Compare his letter to the Legislature of his State with your defence, and you will find that you have put into his mouth objections different from anything it contains, so that if your representation be true, his must be false. But there is another circumstance which militates against your new friend. Though he was face to face with his colleagues at the State Convention of Massachusetts,(48) he has not ventured to call upon them to clear him either of this charge, or that respecting the Continental money. But as the Public seemed to require that something should be said on this occasion, an anonymous writer denies that he made such a motion, and endeavours to abate the force of my second allegation, merely by supposing that “his colleagues were men of too much honor to assert that his reasons in Convention were totally different from those which he has published.”