COMMENTARIES, 8 NOVEMBER 1787

Magazine, May 1788 issue, III below. Webster was the editor of the American
Magazine and a contributor to it.).
A Pennsylvania Federalist, however, did write a point-by-point refutation of
the Letters, but it was not published. On 24 December, a month after Charles
Tillinghast had sent him a copy of the Letters and had requested his opinion
of the Constitution, Timothy Pickering of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, began
writing an eighteen-page letter refuting the "Federal Farmer." On 27 January
1788 Tillinghast sent a copy of Pickering's letter to Hugh Hughes, stating that
he believed that Pickering wanted the letter printed. However, Tillinghast, who
acted as a go-between for inserting Antifederalist pieces in the New YorkJournal,
did not have the letter printed. (For Pickering's letter of 24 December, see
CC:288-C; and for Tillinghast's letter of 24 November, in which Tillinghast
agreed with the "Federal Farmer" that the Constitution was "very dangerous
to the liberties of the People," see below. Pickering had received Tillinghast's
request while a delegate to the Pennsylvania Convention and he did not begin
writing his refutation of the Letters until twelve days after that Convention had
ratified the Constitution.).
LETTER I.
OCTOBER 8th, 1787.
DEAR SIR, My letters to you last winter, on the subject of a well-
balanced national government for the United States, were the result of
free enquiry; when I passed from that subject to enquiries relative to
our commerce, revenues, past administration, &c. I anticipated the anx-
ieties I feel, on carefully examining the plan of government proposed
by the convention. It appears to be a plan retaining some federal fea-
tures; but to be the first important step, and to aim strongly to one
consolidated government of the United States. It leaves the powers of
government, and the representation of the people, so unnaturally di-
vided between the general and state governments, that the operations
of our system must be very uncertain. My uniform federal attachments,
and the interest I have in the protection of property, and a steady
execution of the laws, will convince you, that, if I am under any biass
at it,' it is in favor of any general system which shall promise those
advantages. The instability of our laws increase my wishes for firm and
steady government; but then, I can consent to no government, which,
in my opinion, is not calculated equally to preserve the rights of all
orders of men in the community. My object has been to join with those
who have endeavoured to supply the defects in the forms of our gov-
ernments by a steady and proper administration of them. Though I
have long apprehended that fraudulent debtors, and embarrassed men,
on the one hand, and men, on the other, unfriendly to republican
equality, would produce an uneasiness among the people, and prepare
the way, not for cool and deliberate reforms in the governments, but
for changes calculated to promote the interests of particular orders of

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