most
eminent men; of President Dwight when a student in Yale college,
and Theophilus Parsons, with whom he read law in Massachusetts.
When Rhode Island, in 1781, refused to comply with the
recommendations of Congress in regard to levying duties on
imports and prizes, she looked only at her own interests as a
sea-board State. The address of her Assembly to Congress, through
Hon. William Bradshaw, gave reasons of purely local self-interest
for her refusal; but her State selfishness was seen by the
patriots of the hour not to be even that of an enlightened
State-interest, and Congress at once declared there "could be no
general security, no confidence in the Nation, at home or abroad,
if its actions were under the constant revisal of thirteen
different deliberations."

It therefore became necessary to take another step in the
centralization of power, and let it be remembered that every such
successive step we have traced was taken in the interests of
liberty, and for the benefit of the whole people. The Nation has
acted in the defense of its citizens against the tyranny of
States. We are not first citizens of Rhode Island, or South
Carolina, but, if we belong to the Nation at all, we are first
parts of that Nation. I am first a citizen of the United States,
then a citizen of the State of New York, then a citizen of
Onondaga county in that State, and then a citizen of the town of
Manlius, and lastly, a citizen of the village of Fayetteville.
That every person born or naturalized in the Nation, is first a
citizen of the Nation, must be borne in mind, for upon that
depend the liberties of every man, woman and child in the Nation,
black or white, native or foreign. Although Rhode Island led in
State rights, she had many followers, as only four States
complied with the recommendation of Congress to invest that body
with more powers for collecting the revenue and prosecuting the
war. This non-compliance led to active debate. In regard to the
public debt it was said, "That it must, once for all, be defined
and established on the faith of the States, solemnly pledged to
each other, and not revocable by any, without a breach of the
general compact." If a feeling of insecurity existed in regard to
the property interests of the Nation when but thirtee