IV. CONVENTION ELECTIONS

and perquisites he receives from the State; and you can judge,-
whether it is most probable his opposition to the consolidation of your
national Union proceeds from a pure attachment to your interests, or
from an undue attachment to his own power.
More solid conclusions may be drawn from circumstances of this
kind, than from the occupation or profession of a man, whatever it may
be. But even here the Governor stands upon the same footing with
those to whom the objection is made: for, though it may seem strange
to you after all the pother to which you have been witnesses, the Gov-
ernor is himself a Lawyer. He was bred a Lawyer, and practised as a
Lawyer till the revolution called him into a different situation.
I mention these matters to you, my Fellow Citizens, with reluctance;
but I owe it to you and to justice. It is necessary you should know who
are the men that are continually dinning in your ears the danger of
being lorded over by the wealthy and the great. It is necessary you should
understand that they are themselves among the wealthy, and the first
among the great, as far as that epithet can apply to any man in a re-
publican government. It is necessary, in short, that you should be un-
deceived.
I mean not to impute wealth to any man as a reproach; nor yet to
insinuate that it is a crime to acquire it in public stations;-I only mean
to reprobate the conduct of men who endeavour to excite your jeal-
ousies of others, for what they are themselves: - hypocrisy and deceit are
always odious. Let not men pretend to be what they are not: nor at-
tempt to raise a cry against others for what they are themselves.
Permit me again, my Fellow Citizens, to exhort you to give new
proofs, THIS DAY, of the laudable zeal by which you are actuated. Let
the example of Philadelphia admonish you. There is no spot in the
United States more federal than that city; yet, from an idea that their
exertions were not necessary, they suffered a choice to be made by a
small number of votes-The men whom they wished were chosen; but
it was represented through the State, to be the work of an inconsid-
erable faction; and a very mischievous handle has been made of the
circumstance. Let us take away all pretext for such a representation in
this State.
New-York, April 30, 1788.
N. B. Beware of Counterfeits! Yesterday a very curious artifice was
detected-Tickets were dealt out as Federal Tickets with the Governor
at the head, but so folded down as not to be perceived; and to appear
to the persons to whom they were given, to be the same Ticket as that
which was recommended to you by the Meeting, of which Alderman
Randal was Chairman.4

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