t be
entrusted to any government whatever consistent with the freedom of the
states and their citizens, and I earnestly recommended, what I wish my
fellow citizens deeply to impress on your minds, that in altering or
amending our federal government no greater powers ought to be given than
experience has shown to be necessary, since it will be easy to delegate
further power when time shall dictate the expediency or necessity, but
powers once bestowed upon a government, should they be found ever so
dangerous or destructive to freedom, cannot be resumed or wrested from
government but by another revolution.

LUTHER MARTIN.

_Baltimore, March 14, 1788._

Luther Martin, IV.

The Maryland Journal, (Number 1022)

FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 1788.

Number II.

TO THE CITIZENS OF MARYLAND.

In the recognition which the Landholder professes to make "of what
occurred to my advantage," he equally deals in the arts of
misrepresentation, as while he was "only the record of the bad," and I am
equally obliged from a regard to truth to disclaim his pretended
approbation as his avowed censure. He declares that I originated the
clause which enacts that "this Constitution and the laws of the United
States, which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made,
or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be
the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every state shall be bound
thereby, any thing in the Constitution or the laws of any state to the
contrary notwithstanding." To place this matter in a proper point of view,
it will be necessary to state, that as the propositions were reported by
the committee of the whole house, a power was given to the general
government to negative the laws passed by the state legislatures, a power
which I considered as totally inadmissible; in substitution of this I
proposed the following clause, which you will find very materially
different from the clause adopted by the Constitution, "that the
legislative acts of the United States, made by virtue and in pursuance of
the articles of the union, and all treaties made and ratified under the
authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the respective
states, so far as those acts or treaties shall relate to the said states
or their citizens, and that the judiciaries of the several states shall be
bound thereby in their decisions, any thing in the respective laws of the
individual states to the contr