Essays on the Constitution of the United States Part 16

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 Const.i.tution 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 a.s.sign other reasons why New Hamps.h.i.+re, 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 HAMPs.h.i.+RE.

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 Hamps.h.i.+re cannot expect a Const.i.tution 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 princ.i.p.ality of Hesse-Ca.s.sel for the purpose of retaining her in military alliance, it should teach us the necessity of those parts in the Const.i.tution 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 Hamps.h.i.+re 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 princ.i.p.ally, 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 Hamps.h.i.+re 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 ent.i.tle 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 sh.o.r.es will become miserably poor.

Your forests embosom an immense quant.i.ty of timber for s.h.i.+p-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 embarra.s.sments 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 embarra.s.sed 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 Hamps.h.i.+re 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 a.s.serts 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 a.s.sure 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 pa.s.sion, 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 ingrat.i.tude-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 repet.i.tion 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 eas.e.m.e.nt 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 const.i.tution, 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. Pa.s.sion 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 impa.s.sable 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 unblus.h.i.+ng a.s.surance 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 Const.i.tution, 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.

The love of wealth is a pa.s.sion common to men, and when justly regulated it is conducive to human happiness. Industry may be encouraged by good laws; wealth may be protected by civil regulations; but we are not to depend on these to create it for us, while we are indolent and luxurious.

Industry is most favourable to the moral virtue of the world; it is therefore wisely ordered by the Author of Nature, that the blessings of this world should be acquired by our own application in some business useful to society; so that we have no reason to expect any climate or soil will be found, or any age take place, in which plenty and wealth will be spontaneously produced. The industry and labour of a people furnish a general rule to measure their wealth, and if we use the means we may promise ourselves the reward. The present state of America will limit the greatest part of its inhabitants to agriculture; for as the art of tilling the earth is easily acquired, the price of land low, and the produce immediately necessary for life, greater encouragement to this is offered here than in any country on earth. But still suffer me to enquire whether we are not happily circ.u.mstanced and actually able to manage some princ.i.p.al manufactories with success, and increase our wealth by increasing the labour of the people, and saving the surplus of our earnings for a better purpose than to purchase the labour of the European nations. It is a remark often made, and generally believed, that in a country so new as this, where the price of land is low and the price of labour high, manufactories cannot be conducted with profit. This may be true of some manufactures, but of others it is grossly false. It is now in the power of New England to make itself more formidable to Great Britain by rivaling some of her princ.i.p.al manufactures, than ever it was by separating from her government. Woolen cloaths, the princ.i.p.al English manufacture, may more easily be rivaled than any other. Purchasing all the materials and labour at the common price of the country, cloths of three-quarters width, may be fabricated for six s.h.i.+llings per yard, of fineness and beauty equal to English cloths of six quarters width, which fell at twenty s.h.i.+llings. The cost of our own manufacture is little more than half of the imported, and for service it is allowed to be much preferable. It is found that our wool is of equal quality with the English, and that what we once supposed the defect in our wool, is only a deficiency in cleaning, sorting and dressing it.

It gives me pleasure to hear that a number of gentlemen in Hartford and the neighboring towns are forming a fund for the establishment of a great woolen manufactory. The plan will doubtless succeed; and be more profitable to the stockholders that money deposited in trade. As the manufacture of cloths is introduced, the raising of wool and flax, the raw materials, will become an object of the farmer's attention.

Sheep are the most profitable part of our stock, and the breed is much sooner multiplied than horses or cattle. Why do not our opulent farmers avail themselves of the profit? An experience would soon convince them there is no better method of advancing property, and their country would thank them for the trial. Sheep are found to thrive and the wool to be of good quality in every part of New England, but as this animal delights in grazing, and is made healthy by coming often to the earth, our sea-coasts with the adjacent country, where snow is of short continuance, are particularly favourable to their propagation. Our hilly coasts were designed by nature for this, and every part of the country that abounds in hills ought to make an experiment by which they will be enriched.

In Connecticut, the eastern and southern counties, with the highlands on Connecticut river towards the sea, ought to produce more wool than would cloath the inhabitants of the state. At present the quant.i.ty falls short of what is needed by our own consumption; if a surplusage could be produced, it would find a ready market and the best pay.