COMMENTARIES, 11 DECEMBER 1787

State Sovereignty.8 We shall never do cleverly while he lives. I wish he was
put out of the way. It would be as good a deed as to drink, to do it. I
am sure I should not stick at either a rope or a razor, if I had a chance.
He tossicated the heads of our staunchest men last winter, and stag-
gered them so confoundedly, he almost made them believe, there was
one honest man of that side, that did not mean to ruin the State. Ifackins
if our side had not cunningly taken to the bush, where his business wont so
well let him follow us, it might have gone hard with us. He may be as
knowing as a sarpent, but I'll be hanged if he is as harmless as a sucking
dove, for he stings most consumedly. If he should find out the right way
to get in (and we know how the trick is done) and set his cap that way.
Egad I am afraid we should all be in the suds; the Philistines would be
upon us. Squire Sour Crout says, "it was meant at first to have tried and
hanged him for high treason against the State; and all the rest who spoke
or wrote for overturning the State Constitution. For tho' it gives liberty
of speech and the press, yet it is meant he says only on such matters, and
at such times, as the best men in the State think proper and for the good of the
State: and if we could have been sure of a pretty large majority, we
should have tucked up all who were enemies to its Sovereignty; and
might have done it under the Constitution, just as handily as we voted
out the general impost by it. But as matters now look, the Squire says
he is sorry the cat was unluckily let out of the bag-that it was unwarily
mentioned by some of our side, that signing the Convention was trea-
son against the State; because our adversaries may take handle against
us, and say mere declarations are not a full security; for a prevailing
State or national faction, having both inclination and power, will not
suffer words (which they can construe as they like) to defend those they
have marked out as victims.
'A Bill of Rights or Constitution, in suitable hands and properly man-
aged, is a very useful and pliable convenience, said he. That of Penn-
sylvania, when in the hands of the true friends to equal liberty was most
excellent; but now it has got into other hands, it is abominable. That
a majority of bad men should govern, is contrary to all sound republican
doctrine; which teaches that when an impious majority bear sway, the
virtuous minority, when they cannot seize the reins of Government into
their own hands, should like Sampson pull down its pillars, and bury
themselves and their enemies under its ruins; as was bravely attempted
by the Sixteen true and virtuous Republicans in Pennsylvania:9 and it
would have been done too, had it not been for the villainous Phila-
delphia populace. If," says the Squire, "the new scheme goes down, it
will be the confoundedest bite that ever happened; he and the rest of
our side laughed, he says, heartily, at the notion of a number of grave

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