uld undoubtedly have
supported it, and Col. Mason would have vented his rage to his own negroes
and to the winds. In Connecticut, our wrongheads are few in number and
feeble in their influence. The opposition here is not one-half so great to
the federal government as it was three years ago to the federal impost,
and the faction, such as it is, is from the same blindfold party.

I thought it my duty to give you these articles of information, for the
reasons above mentioned. Wishing you more caution and better success in
your future manoeuvers, I have the honor to be, Sir, with great respect,
your very humble servant.

A LANDHOLDER.

The Landholder, IX.

The Connecticut Courant, (Number 1197)

MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1787.

TO THE HON. GENTLEMEN CHOSEN TO SERVE IN THE STATE CONVENTION.(41)

_Gentlemen_,

When the deputies of a free people are met to deliberate on a constitution
for their country; they must find themselves in a solemn situation. Few
persons realize the greatness of this business, and none can certainly
determine how it will terminate. A love of liberty in which we have all
been educated, and which your country expects on you to preserve sacred,
will doubtless make you careful not to lay such foundations as will
terminate in despotism. Oppression and a loss of liberty arise from very
different causes, and which at first blush appear totally different from
another.

If you had only to guard against vesting an undue power in certain great
officers of state your work would be comparatively easy. This some times
occasions a loss of liberty, but the history of nations teacheth us that
for one instance from this cause, there are ten from the contrary, a want
of necessary power in some public department to protect and to preserve
the true interests of the people. America is at this moment in ten-fold
greater danger of slavery than ever she was from the councils of a British
monarchy, or the triumph of British arms. She is in danger from herself
and her own citizens, not from giving too much, but from denying all power
to her rulers--not from a constitution on despotic principles, but from
having no constitution at all. Should this great effort to organize the
empire prove abortive, heaven only knows the situation in which we shall
find ourselves; but there is reason to fear it will be troublesome enough.
It is awful to meet the passions of a people who not only believe but feel
themselves uncontrou