Part 15
But alas, his colleagues would not acquit him in this way, and he was of too proud a spirit to ask them to do it in person.(49) Hence the charge remains on its original grounds, while you, for want of proper concert, have joined his accusers and reduced him to the humiliating necessity of endeavouring to stifle your justification. These points being dismissed, it remains only to reconcile the contradictory parts you have acted on the great political stage. You entered the convention without a sufficient knowledge in the science of government, where you committed a succession of memorable blunders, as the work advanced. Some rays of light penetrated your understanding, and enabled you (as has been shown) to assist in raising some of its pillars, when the desire of having your name enrolled with the other laborers drew from you that remarkable complaint so expressive of vanity and conviction. But self-interest soon gained the ascendant, you quickly comprehended the delicacy of your situation, and this restored your first impressions in all their original force. You thought the Deputy Attorney General of the United States for the state of Maryland, destined for a different character, and that inspired you with the hope that you might derive from a desperate opposition what you saw no prospect of gaining by a contrary conduct. But I will venture to predict, that though you were to double your efforts, you would fail in your object. I leave you now to your own reflections, under a promise, however, to give my name to the public, should you be able to procure any indifferent testimony to contradict a single fact I have stated.
February, 1788.
A LANDHOLDER.
The Landholder, X.
[This number duplicates the preceding one, for an explanation of which see the foot-note to the first Number X.—_Ed._]
The Connecticut Courant, (Number 1206)
MONDAY, MARCH 3, 1788.
TO THE CITIZENS OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.(50)
The opposition in your state to the new federal constitution, is an event surprising to your New England brethren, yet we are not disposed to criminate a people, which made such gallant efforts in the establishment of the American Empire. It is the prerogative of freemen to determine their own form of government, and if this constitution is not addressed to your interest, if it is not calculated to preserve your freedom and make you glorious, we wish you not to accept it. We have fought by your side, we have long been connected in interest, and with many of you by consanguinity, and wish that you may share with us in all the benefits of a great and free empire. Brethren who differ in their opinions how a common interest may be best governed, ought to deliberate with coolness, and not wantonly accuse each other, either of folly or design. Massachusetts and Connecticut have decidedly judged the new government well calculated not only for the whole but for the northern states. Either you or these states have judged wrong. Your interests are similar to theirs, and cannot be separated from them without counteracting nature.
If there be any one state more interested than the others in the adoption of this system, it is New Hampshire. Your local situation, which can never be altered, is a solemn argument in its favor. Tho’ separated from the government of Britain at no less price than the blood of your bravest sons, you border on her dominions. She is your enemy, and wishes nothing more than your submission to her laws, and to the will of her proud servants.
Her force may easily be pointed thro’ your whole territory and a few regiments would effectually banish resistance. New Hampshire, tho’ growing in population, and amongst the first states in personal bravery, cannot yet stand alone. Should a disunion of the states tempt Britain to make another effort for recovering her former greatness, you will be the first to fall under her sway. In such case you will have nothing to expect from the other states. Dispirited with a fruitless attempt to unite in some plan of general government and protection, they will say, let the dissenting states abide the consequence of their own false opinions. Though such a reply might not be wise, it would be exactly comfortable to what we have ever found in human nature; and nature will have its course, let policy be what it may. You are the northern barrier of the United States, and by your situation, must first meet any hostile animosity from that quarter designed against any part of them. It is certainly for the interest of a barrier country, to have a general government on such efficient principles, as can point the force of the whole for its relief when attacked. The old constitution could not do this; that now under consideration, if accepted, we trust will produce a circulation of riches and the powers of protection to the most extreme parts of the body. On these principles it has generally been said that New Hampshire and Georgia would be amongst the first in adopting. Georgia has done it, not, perhaps, because they were more wise than New Hampshire, but being pressed with a dangerous war in the very moment of decision, they felt its necessity; and feeling is an argument none can resist. Trust not to any complaisance of those British provinces on your northern borders, or those artful men who govern them, who were selected on purpose to beguile your politicks, and divide and weaken the union. When the hour for a permanent connection between the states is past, the teeth of the lion will be again made bare, and you must be either devoured, or become its jackal to hunt for prey in the other states.
We believe those among you who are opposed to the system, as honest and brave as any part of the community, and cannot suspect them of any design against American Independence; but such persons ought to consider what will be the probable consequence of their dissent; and whether this is not the only hour in which this community can be saved from a condition, which is, on all hands, allowed to be dangerous and unhappy. There are certain critical periods in which nations, as well as individuals, who have fallen into perplexity, by a wise exertion may save themselves and be glorious. Such is the present era in American policy, but if we do not see the hour of our salvation, there is no reason to expect that heaven will repeat it. The unexpected harmony of the federal Convention—their mutual condescension in the reconcilement of jarring interests and opposing claims between the several States—the formation of a system so efficient in appearance, at the same time so well guarded against an oppression of the subject—the concurring sentiments of a vast majority thro’ the United States, of those persons who have been most experienced in policy, and most eminent in wisdom and virtue; are events which must be attributed to the special influence of heaven.
To be jealous of our liberties is lawful, but jealously in excess is a deliriam [sic] of the imagination, by no means favourable to liberty. If you would be free and happy a power must be created to protect your persons and properties; otherwise you are slaves to all mankind. Your British neighbors have long known these truths, and will not fail by their emissaries to seminate such jealousies as favor their own designs.
To prophesy evil is ungrateful business; but forgive me when I predict, that the adoption of this Constitution is the only probable means of saving the greatest part of your State from becoming an appendage of Canada or Nova Scotia. In some future paper I shall assign other reasons why New Hampshire, more than any other State, is interested in this event.
A LANDHOLDER.
The Landholder, XI.
The Connecticut Courant, (Number 1207)
MONDAY, MARCH 10, 1788.
TO THE CITIZENS OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.
Those who wish to enjoy the blessings of society must be willing to suffer some restraint of personal liberty, and devote some part of their property to the public that the remainder may be secured and protected. The cheapest form of government is not always best, for parsimony, though it spends little, generally gains nothing. Neither is that the best government which imposes the least restraint on its subjects; for the benefit of having others restrained may be greater than the disadvantage of being restrained ourselves. That is the best form of government which returns the greatest number of advantages in proportion to the disadvantages with which it is attended.
Measured by this rule, the state of New Hampshire cannot expect a Constitution preferable to that now proposed for the union. In point of defence it gives you the whole force of the empire, so arranged as to act speedily and in concert, which is an article of greatest importance to the frontier states. With the present generation of men, national interest is the measure by which war or peace are determined; and when we see the British nation, by a late treaty, paying an enormous annual subsidy to the little principality of Hesse-Cassel for the purpose of retaining her in military alliance, it should teach us the necessity of those parts in the Constitution which enable the efficient force of the whole to be opposed to an invasion of any part.
A national revenue and the manner of collecting it is another very interesting matter, and here the citizens of New Hampshire have better terms offered them, than their local situation can ever enable them to demand or enforce. Impost and duties on trade, which must be collected in the great importing towns, are the means by which an American revenue will be principally, and perhaps wholly raised. But a point of your state comes near the sea, and that point so situated that it never can collect commerce, and become an emporium for the whole state. Nineteen parts in twenty of New Hampshire are greatly inland, so that local situation necessitates you to be an agricultural people; and this is not a hard necessity, if you now form such a political connection with other states, as will entitle you to a just share in that revenue they raise on commerce. New York, the trading towns on Connecticut River, and Boston, are the sources from which a great part of your foreign supplies will be obtained, and where your produce will be exposed for market.
In all these places an impost is collected, of which, as consumers, you pay a share without deriving any public benefit. You cannot expect any alteration in the private systems of these states, unless effected by the proposed governments, neither to remedy the evil can you command trade from the natural channels, but must sit down contented under the burden, if the present hour of deliverance be not accepted. This argument alone, if there were no other, ought to decide you in favour of adoption.
It has been said that you object to the number of inhabitants being a ratio to determine your proportion of the national expence—that your lands are poor, but the climate favourable to population, which will draw a share of expence beyond your ability to pay. I do not think this objection well founded. Long experience hath taught that the number of industrious inhabitants in any climate is not only the strength, but the wealth of a state, and very justly measures their ability of defraying public expences, without encroaching on the necessary support of life.
If a great proportion of your lands are barren, you ought likewise to remember another rule of nature; that the population and fertility in many tracts of country will be proportioned to each other. Accidental causes for a short time may interrupt the rule, but they cannot be of dangerous continuance. Force may controul a despotic government, and commerce may interrupt it in an advantageous situation for trade; but from the first of these causes you have no reason to fear, and the last, should it happen, will increase wealth with numbers.
The fishery is a source of wealth and an object of immense consequence to all the eastern coasts. The jealousy of European nations ought to teach us its value. So far as you become a navigating people, the fishery should be an object of your first attention. It cannot flourish until patronized and protected by the general government. All the interests of navigation and commerce must be protected by the union or come to ruin, and in our present system where is the power to do it?
When Americans are debarred the fishery, as will soon be the case unless a remedy is provided, all the eastern shores will become miserably poor.
Your forests embosom an immense quantity of timber for ship-building and the lumber trade, but of how little value at present you cannot be ignorant, and the value cannot increase until American navigation and commerce are placed on a respectable footing, which no single state can do for itself. The embarrassments of trade lower the price of your produce, which with the distance of transportation almost absorbs the value; and when by a long journey we have arrived at the place of market, even the finest of your grain will not command cash, at that season of the year most convenient for you to transport. Hence arises that scarcity of specie of which you complain. Your interest is intimately connected with that of the most commercial states, and you cannot separate it. When trade is embarrassed the merchant is the first to complain, but the farmer in event bears more than his share of the loss.
Let the citizens of New Hampshire candidly consider these facts, and they must be convinced that no other state is so much interested in adopting that system of government now under consideration.
A LANDHOLDER.
The Landholder presents his most respectful compliments to Hon W. Williams,(51) and begs leave to remind him that many dispensations in this world, which have the appearance of judgment, are designed in goodness. Such was the short address to you, and though at first it might excite an exquisite sensibility of injury, will in its consequence prove to your advantage, by giving you an honorable opportunity to come out and declare your sentiments to the people. It had been represented in several parts of the state, to the great surprise of your friends, that you wished some religious test as an introduction to office, but as you have explained the matter, it is only a religious preamble which you wish—against preambles we have no animosity. Every man hath a sovereign right to use words in his own sense, and when he hath explained himself, it ought to be believed that he uses them conscientiously. The Landholder, for the sake of his honourable friend, regrets that he denies his having used his name publicly as a writer, for, though the honourable gentleman doubtless asserts the truth, there are a great number of those odd people who really think they were present on that occasion, and have such a strong habit of believing their senses, that they will not be convinced even by evidence which is superior to all sense. But it must be so in this imperfect world.
P. S. The Landholder begs his honourable friend not to be surprised at his former address, as he can assure him most seriously, that he does not even conjecture by whom it was written.
The Landholder, XII.
The Connecticut Courant, (Number 1208)
MONDAY, MARCH 17, 1788.
TO THE RHODE ISLAND FRIENDS OF PAPER MONEY, TENDER ACTS AND ANTI-FEDERALISM.
The singular system of policy adopted by your state, no longer excites either the surprise or indignation of mankind. There are certain extremes of iniquity, which are beheld with patience, from a fixed conviction that the transgressor is inveterate, and that his example from its great injustice hath no longer a seducing influence. Milton’s lapse of the angels and their expulsion from Heaven, produces deeper regret in a benevolent mind than all the evil tricks they have played or torments they have suffered since the bottomless pit became their proper home. Something similar to this is excited in beholding the progress of human depravity. Our minds cannot bear to be always pained; the Creator hath, therefore wisely provided that our tender sentiments should subside, in those desperate cases where there is no longer a probability that any effort to which we may be excited, will have a power to reclaim. But though our benevolence is no longer distressed with the injustice of your measures, as philosophers above the feelings of passion, we can speculate on them to our advantage. The sentiment thrown out by some of our adventurous divines, that the permission of sin is the highest display of supreme wisdom, and the greatest blessing to the universe, is most successfully illustrated by the effects of your general policy.
In point of magnitude, your little state bears much the same proportion to the united American empire, as the little world doth to the immense intelligent universe; and if the apostacy of man hath conveyed such solemn warning and instruction to the whole, as your councils have to every part of the union, no one will doubt the usefulness of Adam’s fall. At the commencement of peace, America was placed in a singular situation. Fear of a common danger could no longer bind us together; patriotism had done its best and was wearied with exertion rewarded only by ingratitude—our federal system was inadequate for national government and justice, and from inexperience the great body of the people were ignorant what consequences should flow from the want of them. Experiments in public credit, though ruinous to thousands, and a disregard to the promises of government had been pardoned in the moment of extreme necessity, and many honest men did not realize that a repetition of them in an hour less critical would shake the existence of society. Men full of evil and desperate fortune were ready to propose every method of public fraud that can be effected by a violation of public faith and depreciating promises. This poison of the community was their only preservation from deferred poverty, and from prisons appointed to be the reward of indolence and knavery. An easement of the poor and necessitous was plead as a reason for measures which have reduced them to more extreme necessity. Most of the states have had their prejudices against an efficient and just government, and have made their experiments in a false policy; but it was done with a timorous mind, and seeing the evil they have receded. A sense of subordination and moral right was their check. Most of the people were convinced, and but few remained who wished to establish iniquity by law. To silence such opposition as might be made to the new constitution, it was fit that public injustice should be exhibited in its greatest degree and most extreme effects. For this end Heaven permitted your apostacy from all the principles of good and just government. By your system we see unrighteousness in the essence, in effects, and in its native miseries. The rogues of every other state blush at the exhibition, and say you have betrayed them by carrying the matter too far. The very naming of your measures is a complete refutation of anti-federalism, paper money and tender acts, for no man chooses such company in argument.
The distress to which many of your best citizens are reduced—the groans of ruined creditors, of widows and orphans, demonstrates that unhappiness follows vice by the unalterable laws of nature and society. I did not mention the stings of conscience, but the authors of public distress ought to remember that there is a world where conscience will not sleep.
Is it now at length time to consider. The great end for which your infatuation was permitted is now become complete. The whole union has seen and fears, and while history gives true information, no other people will ever repeat the studied process of fraud. You may again shew the distorted features of injustice, but never in more lively colors, or by more able hands than has been done already. As virtue and good government has derived all possible advantage from your experiment, and every other state thanks you for putting their own rogues and fools out of countenance, begin to have mercy on yourselves. You may not expect to exist in this course any longer than is necessary for public good; and there is no need that such a kind of warning as you set before us should be eternal. Secure as you may feel in prosecuting what all the rest of mankind condemn, the hour of your political revolution is at hand. The cause is within to yourselves, and needs but the permission of your neighbors to take its full effect. Every moral and social law calls for a review, and a volume of penal statutes cannot prevent it. They are in the first instance nullified by injustice, and five years hence not a man in your territories will presume their vindication. Passion and obstinacy, which were called in to aid injustice, have had their reign, and can support you no longer. By a change of policy give us evidence that you are returned to manhood and honour. The inventors of such councils can never be forgiven in this world, but the people at large who acted by their guidance may break from the connection and restore themselves to virtue.
There are among you legislators eminent, through the union for their wisdom and integrity. Penetrated with grief and astonishment they stand in silence, waiting the return of your reason. They are the only men who can remove the impassable gulph that is between you and the rest of mankind. In your situation there must be some sacrifice. It is required by the necessity of the case, and for the dignity of government. You have guilty victims enough for whom even benevolence will not plead; let them make the atonement and save your state. The large body of a people are rarely guilty of any crime greater than indiscretion, in following those who have no qualification to lead but an unblushing assurance infraud. Acknowledge the indiscretion, and leave those whom you have followed into the quicksands of death to the infamy prepared for them, and from which they cannot be reserved. Your situation admits no compounding of opposite systems, or halving with justice, but to make the cure there must be an entire change of measures. The Creator of nature and its laws made justice as necessary for nations as for individuals, and this necessity hath been sealed by the fate of all obstinate offenders. If you will not hear your own groans, nor feel the pangs of your own torture, it must continue until removed by a political annihilation. Such as do not pity themselves cannot be long be pitied.
Determined that our feelings shall be no longer wounded by any thing to which despair may lead you, with philosophic coolness we wait to continue our speculations on the event.
A LANDHOLDER.
The Landholder, XIII.
The Connecticut Courant, (Number 1209)
MONDAY, MARCH 24, 1788.
The attempt to amend our federal Constitution, which for some time past hath engrossed the public regard, is doubtless become an old and unwelcome topic to many readers, whose opinions are fixed, or who are concerned for the event. There are other subjects which claim a share of attention, both from the public and from private citizens. It is good government which secures the fruits of industry and virtue; but the best system of government cannot produce general happiness unless the people are virtuous, industrious and economical.