I approve of the
greater House being chosen by the people directly. For though I think a
House so chosen, will be very far inferior to the present Congress,
will be very illy qualified to legislate for the Union, for foreign
nations, etc., yet this evil does not weigh against the good, of
preserving inviolate the fundamental principle, that the people are not
to be taxed but by representatives chosen immediately by themselves. I
am captivated by the compromise of the opposite claims of the great and
little States, of the latter to equal, and the former to proportional
influence. I am much pleased, too, with the substitution of the method
of voting by person, instead of that of voting by States; and I like
the negative given to the Executive, conjointly with a third of either
House; though I should have liked it better, had the judiciary been
associated for that purpose, or invested separately with a similar
power. There are other good things of less moment. I will now tell you
what I do not like. First, the omission of a bill of rights, providing
clearly, and without the aid of sophism, for freedom of religion,
freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction
of monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus
laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of
the land, and not by the laws of nations. To say, as Mr. Wilson does,
that a bill of rights was not necessary, because all is reserved in the
case of the general government which is not given, while in the
particular ones, all is given which is not reserved, might do for the
audience to which it was addressed; but it is surely a _gratis dictum_,
the reverse of which might just as well be said; and it is opposed by
strong inferences from the body of the instrument, as well as from the
omission of the cause of our present Confederation, which had made the
reservation in express terms. It was hard to conclude, because there
has been a want of uniformity among the States as to the cases triable
by jury, because some have been so incautious as to dispense with this
mode of trial in certain cases, therefore, the more prudent States
shall be reduced to the same level of calamity. It would have been much
more just and wise to have concluded the other way, that as most of the
States had preserved with jealousy this sacred palladium of liberty,
those who had wandered, should be brought back to it; and to have
establ