fellow citizens, to read and examine the new
constitution with candor--examine it for yourselves: you are, most of you,
as learned as the objector, and certainly as able to judge of its virtues
or vices as he is. To make the objections the more plausible, they are
called _The objections of the Hon. George Mason, etc._--They may possibly
be his, but be assured they were not those made in convention, and being
directly against what he there supported in one instance ought to caution
you against giving any credit to the rest; his violent opposition to the
powers given congress to regulate trade, was an open decided preference of
all the world to you. A man governed by such narrow views and local
prejudices, can never be trusted; and his pompous declaration in the House
of Delegates in Virginia that no man was more federal than himself,
amounts to no more than this, "Make a federal government that will secure
Virginia all her natural advantages, promote all her interests regardless
of every disadvantage to the other states, and I will subscribe to it."

It may be asked how I came by my information respecting Col. Mason's
conduct in convention, as the doors were shut? To this I answer, no
delegate of the late convention will contradict my assertions, as I have
repeatedly heard them made by others in presence of several of them, who
could not deny their truth. Whether the constitution in question will be
adopted by the United States in our day is uncertain; but it is neither
aristocracy or monarchy can grow out of it, so long as the present descent
of landed estates last, and the mass of the people have, as at present, a
tolerable education; and were it ever so perfect a scheme of freedom, when
we become ignorant, vicious, idle, and regardless of the education of our
children, our liberties will be lost--we shall be fitted for slavery, and
it will be an easy business to reduce us to obey one or more tyrants.

A LANDHOLDER.

The Landholder, VII.

The Connecticut Courant, (Number 1195)

MONDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1787.

TO THE LANDHOLDERS AND FARMERS.

I have often admired the spirit of candour, liberality, and justice, with
which the Convention began and completed the important object of their
mission. "In all our deliberation on this subject," say they, "we kept
steadily in our view, that which appears to us the greatest interest of
every true American, the consolidation of our union, in which is involved
our prosper