f, as to have dreaded any rivalship from some of
the candidates of those days; nor do I mean, by this declaration, to
insinuate any extraordinary merit, when I estimate mine by that of those I
have alluded to. I could not have consented to make the sacrifices
required; but you, however, and some others, as much opposed to the
essential parts of the constitution as I was, freely made them, and broke
through every obligation of faith and honour.

The charge you have brought against a party in the state, of an opposition
to its constitution, deserves some attention. I will digress a little from
my main subject to examine how far this charge is true, and how far the
thing is in itself criminal.

Government is generally so reverenced among men, that those who attempt to
subvert any system of it whatever, have to contend against a very natural
prejudice. But this prejudice can only be in degree with the antiquity of
its establishment; for modern error, how high soever its authority, has but
little claim to our veneration. This concession made, could it be expected
that our novel constitution, liable at first blush to so many important
objections, should not have its opponents; but that in a moment it should
be submitted to, as implicitly as if it had had the sanction of ages? What
circumstance was there, in the production of this whimsical machine, that
should silence, at once, all the remonstrances of reason and sense against
it? Was it not worth a pause to examine, whether this coat, wove for ages,
would fit us or our posterity before we put on; or whether this gift of our
convention would not prove our destruction? From an apprehension that it
would, an opposition was formed, that included a majority of the state. Did
those who composed it, think it criminal to prevent the singular ideas of a
convention, from being carried into execution, against an almost general
sentiment; or did they not rather conceive it safe and better for the
community still to go on in the administration of governmental affairs by
those temporary expedients we had been in the habits of, until their
constitution could be revised?

This idea, patriotic as it was, was defeated by the obstinate enthusiasm of
some, who trembled for this New Jerusalem of their hopes, and by the
scandalous desertion of others, and especially yourself. The ends of
opposition being thus rendered unattainable, but at the hazard of
convulsions, that might endanger the great