If there is any true cause of fear respecting independance, it is
because no plan is yet laid down. Men do not see their way
out--Wherefore, as an opening into that business, I offer the
following hints; at the same time modestly affirming, that I have no
other opinion of them myself, than that they may be the means of
giving rise to something better. Could the straggling thoughts of
individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for
wise and able men to improve into useful matter.

Let the assemblies be annual, with a President only. The
representation more equal. Their business wholly domestic, and
subject to the authority of a Continental Congress.

Let each colony be divided into six, eight, or ten, convenient
districts, each district to send a proper number of delegates to
Congress, so that each colony send at least thirty. The whole number
in Congress will be least 390. Each Congress to sit and to choose
a president by the following method. When the delegates are met, let
a colony be taken from the whole thirteen colonies by lot, after
which, let the whole Congress choose (by ballot) a president from out
of the delegates of THAT province. In the next Congress, let a
colony be taken by lot from twelve only, omitting that colony from
which the president was taken in the former Congress, and so
proceeding on till the whole thirteen shall have had their proper
rotation. And in order that nothing may pass into a law but what is
satisfactorily just, not less than three fifths of the Congress to be
called a majority. He that will promote discord, under a government
so equally formed as this, would have joined Lucifer in his revolt.

But as there is a peculiar delicacy, from whom, or in what manner,
this business must first arise, and as it seems most agreeable and
consistent that it should come from some intermediate body between
the governed and the governors, that is, between the Congress and the
people, let a CONTINENTAL CONFERENCE be held, in the following
manner, and for the following purpose.

A committee of twenty-six members of Congress, viz. two for each
colony. Two members for each House of Assembly, or Provincial
Convention; and five representatives of the people at large, to be
chosen in the capital city or town of each province, for, and in
behalf of the whole province, by as many qualified voters as shall
think proper to attend from all parts of the province for that
purpose; or,