s of leaving behind you a good name, and it is the
reflection that you have done right in this life, that blunts the
sharpness of death; the same principles would be a consolation to you, as
patriots, in the hour of dissolution, that you would leave to your
children a fair political inheritance, untouched by the vultures of power,
which you had acquired by an _unshaken perseverance_ in the cause of
liberty; but how miserable the alternative--you would deprecate the ruin
you had brought upon yourselves, be the curse of posterity, and the scorn
and scoff of nations.

Deliberate, therefore, on this new national government with coolness;
analize it with criticism; and reflect on it with candor: if you find that
the influence of a powerful few, or the exercise of a standing army, will
always be directed and exerted for your welfare alone, and not to the
aggrandizement of themselves, and that it will secure to you and your
posterity happiness at home, and national dignity and respect from abroad,
adopt it; if it will not, reject it with indignation--better to be where
you are for the present, than insecure forever afterwards. Turn your eyes
to the United Netherlands, at this moment, and view their situation;
compare it with what yours may be, under a government substantially
similar to theirs.

Beware of those who wish to influence your passions, and to make you dupes
to their resentments and little interests--personal invectives can never
persuade, but they always fix prejudices, which candor might have
removed--those who deal in them have not your happiness at heart. Attach
yourselves to measures, not to men.

This form of government is handed to you by the recommendations of a man
who merits the confidence of the public; but you ought to recollect that
the wisest and best of men may err, and their errors, if adopted, may be
fatal to the community; therefore, in principles of _politics_, as well as
in religious faith, every man ought to think for himself.

Hereafter, when it will be necessary, I shall make such observations on
this new constitution as will tend to promote your welfare and be
justified by reason and truth.

CATO.

_Sept. 26, 1787._

Cato, II.

The New York Journal, (Number 2136)

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1787.

For the New York Journal.

_To the_ CITIZENS _of the_ STATE _of_ NEW YORK:

"Remember, O my friends! the laws, the rights,
The generous plan of power deliver'd down,