e according to the number
of inhabitants. Is it not a pleasing consideration that North Carolina,
under all her natural disadvantages, must have the same facility of paying
her share of the public debt, as the most favoured, or the most fortunate
state? She gains no advantage by this plan, but she recovers from her
misfortunes. She stands on the same footing with her sisters, and they are
too generous to desire that she should stand on lower ground. When you
consider those parts of the new system which are of the greatest
import--those which respect the general question of liberty and safety--you
will recollect that the states in convention were unanimous; and you must
remember, that some of the members of that body have risqued their lives
in defence of liberty: but the system does not require the help of such
arguments; it will bear the most scrupulous examination.

When you refer the proposed system to the particular circumstances of
North Carolina, and consider how she is to be affected by this plan, you
must find the utmost reason to rejoice in the prospect of better times.
This is a sentiment that I have ventured with the greater confidence,
because it is the general opinion of my late honourable colleagues,(63)
and I have the utmost reliance in their superior abilities. But if our
constituents shall discover faults where we could not see any--or if they
shall suppose that a plan is formed for abridging their liberties, when we
imagined that we had been securing both liberty and property on a more
stable foundation--if they perceive that they are to suffer a loss, where
we thought they must rise from a misfortune--they will, at least do us the
justice to charge those errors to the head, and not to the heart.

The proposed system is now in your hands, and with it the fate of your
country. We have a common interest for we are embarked in the same vessel.
At present she is in a sea of trouble, without sails, oars, or pilot;
ready to be dashed to pieces by every flaw of wind. You may secure a port,
unless you think it better to remain at sea. If there is any man among you
that wishes for troubled times and fluctuating measures, that he may live
by speculations, and thrive by the calamities of the state, this
government is not for him.

If there is any man who envies the prosperity of a native citizen--who
wishes that we should remain without native merchants or seamen, without
shipping, without manufactures, without