sting Confederation, and showing that
they cannot be supplied by a government of less energy than that before
the public, several of the most important principles of the latter
fell of course under consideration. But as the ultimate object of
these papers is to determine clearly and fully the merits of this
Constitution, and the expediency of adopting it, our plan cannot be
complete without taking a more critical and thorough survey of the work
of the convention, without examining it on all its sides, comparing
it in all its parts, and calculating its probable effects. That this
remaining task may be executed under impressions conducive to a just
and fair result, some reflections must in this place be indulged, which
candor previously suggests.

It is a misfortune, inseparable from human affairs, that public
measures are rarely investigated with that spirit of moderation which
is essential to a just estimate of their real tendency to advance
or obstruct the public good; and that this spirit is more apt to be
diminished than promoted, by those occasions which require an unusual
exercise of it. To those who have been led by experience to attend to
this consideration, it could not appear surprising, that the act of the
convention, which recommends so many important changes and innovations,
which may be viewed in so many lights and relations, and which touches
the springs of so many passions and interests, should find or excite
dispositions unfriendly, both on one side and on the other, to a fair
discussion and accurate judgment of its merits. In some, it has been too
evident from their own publications, that they have scanned the proposed
Constitution, not only with a predisposition to censure, but with a
predetermination to condemn; as the language held by others betrays an
opposite predetermination or bias, which must render their opinions also
of little moment in the question. In placing, however, these different
characters on a level, with respect to the weight of their opinions, I
wish not to insinuate that there may not be a material difference in
the purity of their intentions. It is but just to remark in favor of the
latter description, that as our situation is universally admitted to be
peculiarly critical, and to require indispensably that something should
be done for our relief, the predetermined patron of what has been
actually done may have taken his bias from the weight of these
considerations, as well as fro