ot vessels of our own, it is certainly proper that we
should hire those of citizens in preference to strangers; and though the
price of freight should rise for two or three years, this advantage is
fully due to our brethren in the eastern and middle states, who, with
great and exemplary candour, have given us equal advantages in return. A
small increase in the price of freight would operate greatly in favour of
the southern states: it would promote the spirit of ship-building; it
would promote a nursery for native seamen, and would afford support to the
poor who live near the sea coast; it would increase the value of their
lands, and, at the same time, it would reduce their taxes.

It has finally been objected that the several states are not permitted to
tax their exports for the benefit of their particular treasuries. This
strange objection has been occasionally repeated by citizens of this
state. They must have transplanted it from another state, for it could not
have been the growth of North Carolina.

Such have been the objections against the new constitution.

Whilst the honest patriot who guards with jealous eye the liberties of his
country, and apprehends danger under every form--the placeman in every
state, who fears lest his office should pass into other hands--the idle,
the fractious, and the dishonest, who live by plunder or speculation on
the miseries of their country--while these, assisted by a numerous body of
secret enemies, who never have been reconciled to our independence, are
seeking for objections to this constitution--it is a remarkable
circumstance, and a very high encomium on the plan, that nothing more
plausible has been offered against it; for it is an easy matter to find
faults.

Let us turn our eyes to a more fruitful subject; let us consider the
present condition of the United States, and the particular benefits that
North Carolina must reap by the proposed form of government. Without money
no government can be supported; and Congress can raise no money under the
present constitution. They have not the power to make commercial treaties,
because they cannot preserve them when made. Hence it is, that we are the
prey of every nation. We are indulged in such foreign commerce as must be
hurtful to us; we are prohibited from that which might be profitable; and
we are accordingly told, that in the last two years, the thirteen states
have hardly paid into the treasury as much as should have been pa