1. DEBATE OVER CONSTITUTION

To the CITIZENS of the STATE of NEW-YORK.
In the close of my last introductory address,' I told you, that my
object in future would be to take up this new form of national govern-
ment, to compare it with the experience and opinions of the most
sensible and approved political authors, and to show you that its prin-
ciples, and the exercise of them will be dangerous to your liberty and
happiness.
Although I am conscious that this is an arduous undertaking, yet I
will perform it to the best of my ability.
The freedom, equality, and independence which you enjoyed by na-
ture, induced you to consent to a political power. The same principles
led you to examine the errors and vices of a British superintendence,
to divest yourselves of it, and to reassume a new political shape. It is
acknowledged that there are defects in this, and another is tendered
to you for acceptance; the great question then, that arises on this new
political principle, is, whether it will answer the ends for which it is
said to be offered to you, and for which all men engage in political
society, to wit, the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties, and es-
tates.2
The recital, or premises on which this new form of government is
erected, declares a consolidation or union of all the thirteen parts, or
states, into one great whole, under the firm of the United States, for
all the various and important purposes therein set forth.-But whoever
seriously considers the immense extent of territory comprehended
within the limits of the United States, together with the variety of its
climates, productions, and commerce, the difference of extent, and
number of inhabitants in all; the dissimilitude of interest, morals, and
policies, in almost every one, will receive it as an intuitive truth, that a
consolidated republican form of government therein, can never form a
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, promote the general
welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to you and your posterity, for to
these objects it must be directed: this unkindred legislature therefore,
composed of interests opposite and dissimilar in their nature, will in
its exercise, emphatically be, like a house divided against itself.3
The governments of Europe have taken their limits and form from
adventitious circumstances, and nothing can be argued on the motive
of agreement from them; but these adventitious political principles,
have nevertheless produced effects that have attracted the attention of
philosophy, which has established axioms in the science of politics
therefrom, as irrefragable as any in Euclid. It is natural, says Montes-
quieu, to a republic to have only a small territory, otherwise it cannot long
subsist: in a large one, there are men of large fortunes, and consequently of less

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