some patriotic and
respectable citizen or number of citizens. They must have recollected
that it was by this irregular and assumed privilege of proposing to the
people plans for their safety and happiness, that the States were first
united against the danger with which they were threatened by their
ancient government; that committees and congresses were formed for
concentrating their efforts and defending their rights; and that
CONVENTIONS were ELECTED in THE SEVERAL STATES for establishing the
constitutions under which they are now governed; nor could it have been
forgotten that no little ill-timed scruples, no zeal for adhering
to ordinary forms, were anywhere seen, except in those who wished
to indulge, under these masks, their secret enmity to the substance
contended for. They must have borne in mind, that as the plan to be
framed and proposed was to be submitted TO THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES, the
disapprobation of this supreme authority would destroy it forever; its
approbation blot out antecedent errors and irregularities. It might
even have occurred to them, that where a disposition to cavil prevailed,
their neglect to execute the degree of power vested in them, and still
more their recommendation of any measure whatever, not warranted
by their commission, would not less excite animadversion, than a
recommendation at once of a measure fully commensurate to the national
exigencies.

Had the convention, under all these impressions, and in the midst of all
these considerations, instead of exercising a manly confidence in their
country, by whose confidence they had been so peculiarly distinguished,
and of pointing out a system capable, in their judgment, of securing
its happiness, taken the cold and sullen resolution of disappointing
its ardent hopes, of sacrificing substance to forms, of committing the
dearest interests of their country to the uncertainties of delay and
the hazard of events, let me ask the man who can raise his mind to one
elevated conception, who can awaken in his bosom one patriotic emotion,
what judgment ought to have been pronounced by the impartial world, by
the friends of mankind, by every virtuous citizen, on the conduct and
character of this assembly? Or if there be a man whose propensity to
condemn is susceptible of no control, let me then ask what sentence he
has in reserve for the twelve States who USURPED THE POWER of
sending deputies to the convention, a body utterly unknown to their
const