Rome, and those
of all other nations, in having precisely marked out the power of the
government and the rights of the people."

It may be proper to premise that the pressure of necessity and distress
(and not corruption) had a principal tendency to induce the adoption of
the state constitutions and the existing confederation, that power was
even then vested in the rulers with the greatest caution, and that, as
from every circumstance we have reason to infer that the new constitution
does not originate from a pure source, we ought deliberately to trace the
extent and tendency of the trust we are about to repose, under the
conviction that a reassumption of that trust will at least be difficult,
if not impracticable. If we take a retrospective view of the measures of
Congress who have their secret journals, the conduct of their officers, at
home and abroad, acting under an oath of secrecy, as well as of
individuals who were intimately connected with them, from the year 1780 to
the last convention, who also acted under an injunction of secrecy (and
whose journals have not been published even to this day, but will no doubt
continue buried in the dark womb of suspicious secrecy), we can scarcely
entertain a doubt but that a plan has long since been framed to subvert
the confederation; that that plan has been matured with the most
persevering industry and unremitted attention, and that the objects
expressed in the preamble to the constitution, that is "to promote the
general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our
posterity," were merely the ostensible, and not the real reasons of its
framers. That necessity and danger have been the moving causes to the
establishment of the confederation will appear from the words of Congress
recommending its formation to the several legislatures which are "under a
conviction of the absolute necessity of uniting all our councils and all
our strength to maintain our common liberties. Let them be examined with
liberality becoming brethren and fellow-citizens, surrounded by the same
iminent dangers, contending for the same illustrious prize, and deeply
interested in being forever bound and connected together by the ties the
most intimate and indissoluble."

That these principles equally applied to the formation of our state
constitution no person can seriously doubt who recollects the rapid
progress of the British troops in this state and in Jersey in the year
1776, an