of pride and
insolence, ever attendant on regal authority, swells into a
rupture with foreign powers in instances where a republican
government, by being formed on more natural principles, would
negotiate the mistake.

"If there is any true cause of fear respecting independence, 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 at least three hundred and ninety. 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 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