ted by a meeting of private individuals, is better
than that prepared by the concentrated wisdom of the nation, of men not
self-chosen, but clothed with the full confidence of the people? Is it
that there is no danger that a new authority, marching independently
along side of the government, in the same line and to the same object,
may not produce collision, may not thwart and obstruct the operations of
the government, or wrest the object entirely from their hands? Might we
not as well appoint a committee for each department of the government,
to counsel and direct its head separately, as volunteer ourselves to
counsel and direct the whole, in mass? And might we not do it as well
for their foreign, their fiscal, and their military, as for their Indian
affairs? And how many societies, auxiliary to the government, may we
expect to see spring up, in imitation of this, offering to associate
themselves in this and that of its functions? In a word, why not take
the government out of its constitutional hands, associate them indeed
with us, to preserve a semblance that the acts are theirs, but insuring
them to be our own by allowing them a minor vote only?

These considerations have impressed my mind with a force so
irrresistible, that (in duty bound to answer your polite letter, without
which I should not have obtruded an opinion) I have not been able to
withhold the expression of them. Not knowing the individuals who have
proposed this plan, I cannot be conceived as entertaining personal
disrespect for them. On the contrary, I see in the printed list persons
for whom I cherish sentiments of sincere friendship; and others, for
whose opinions and purity of purpose I have the highest respect. Yet
thinking, as I do, that this association is unnecessary; that the
government is proceeding to the same object under control of the law;
that they are competent to it in wisdom, in means, and inclination; that
this association, this wheel within a wheel, is more likely to produce
collision than aid; and that it is, in its magnitude, of dangerous
example; I am bound to say, that, as a dutiful citizen, I cannot in
conscience become a member of this society, possessing as it does my
entire confidence in the integrity of its views. I feel with awe the
weight of opinion to which I may be opposed, and that, for myself, I
have need to ask the indulgence of a belief, that the opinion I have
given is the best result I can deduce from my own reason