ORGANIZATION of a CONSTITUTION from original rights, and the FORMATION of GOVERNMENT from contributed rights, both of so much importance in laying regular FOUNDATIONS of civil society, and consequently in securing the advancement of HUMAN HAPPINESS.

The last set of letters was caused by the extraordinary call of congress, on the twenty-fifth day of March, 1797.

THE

Ꮮ Ꭼ Ꭲ Ꭲ Ꭼ Ꭱ Ꮪ

O F

FABIUS:

CONTAINING,

OBSERVATIONS ON THE CONSTITUTION

PROPOSED BY THE

FEDERAL CONVENTION.

LETTER I.

THE constitution proposed by the federal convention, now engages the fixed attention of America.

EVERY person appears to be affected. Those who wish the adoption of the plan, consider its rejection as the source of endless contests, confusions, and misfortunes; and they also consider a resolution to alter, without previously adopting it, as a rejection.

Those who oppose the plan, are influenced by different views. Some of them are friends, others of them are enemies, to the United States. The latter are of two classes; either men without principles or fortunes, who think they may have a chance to mend their circumstances, with impunity, under a weak government, or in public convulsions, but cannot make them worse even by the last-or men who have been always averse to the revolution; and though at first confounded by that event, yet, their hopes reviving with the declension of our affairs, have since persuaded themselves that at length the people, tired out with their continued distresses, will return to their former connection with Great-Britain. To argue with these opposers would be vain.The other opposers of the plan deserve the highest respect.

WHAT concerns all, should be considered by all; and individuals may injure a whole society, by not declaring their sentiments. It is therefore not only their right, but their duty, to declare them. Weak advocates of a good cause, or artful advocates of a bad one, may endeavour to stop such communications, or to discredit them by clamour and calumny. This, however, is not the age for such tricks of controversy. Men have suffered so severely by being deceived upon subjects of the

highest import, those of religion and freedom, that TRUTH becomes infinitely valuable to them, not as a matter of curious speculation, but of beneficial practice-a spirit of inquiry is excited, information diffused, judgment strengthened.

BEFORE this tribunal of THE PEOPLE, let every one freely speak, what he really thinks, but with so sincere a reverence for the cause he ventures to discuss, as to use the utmost caution, lest he should lead any into errors, upon a point of such sacred concern as the public happiness.

Ir is not the design of this address to describe the present derangement of our affairs, the mischiefs that must ensue from its continuance, the horrors of a total dissolution of the union, or of the division of it into partial confederacies.

Nor is it intended to describe the evils that will result from pursuing the plan of another federal convention; as if a better temper of conciliation, or a more satisfactory harmony of decisions, could be expected from men, after their minds are agitated with disgusts and disappointments, than before they were thus disturbed; though from an uncontradicted assertion it appears, that without such provoca

tions, the difficulty of reconciling the interests of the several states was so near to INSUPERABLE, in the late convention, that after many weeks spent in the most faithful labours to promote concord, the members were upon the very point of dispersing in the utmost disorder, jealousy and resentment, and leaving the states exposed to all the tempests of passions, that have been so fatal to confederacies of republics.

ALL these things, with observations on particular articles of the constitution, have been laid before the public, and the writer of this address means not to repeat what has been already said. What he wishes, is to simplify the subject, so as to facili tate the inquiries of his fellow-citizens.

MANY are the objections made to the system proposed. They should be distinguished. Some may be called local, because they spring from the supposed interests of individual states. Thus, for instance, some inhabitants of large states may desire the system to be so altered, that they may possess more authority in the decisions of the government or some inhabitants of commercial states may desire it to be so altered, that the advantages of trade may center almost wholly among themselves; and this predilection they may think com