1. DEBATE OVER CONSTITUTION

on our national morals, as on our national character. Honest men must
rejoice to see a spirit of honesty running through the NEW CONSTI-
TUTION.-Public spirited men must rejoice to see a prospect of our
national reputation being rescued from approbrium and disgrace; and
all good men, not blinded by party spirit, must rejoice to see an effort
to erect barriers against the establishment of iniquity by law. The Con-
vention have at least given a distinguished proof of their attachment to
the principles of probity and rectitude.
1. Reprinted in the New York Morning Post, 11 October; New York Packet, 12 October;
and by 6 November in eleven newspapers outside New York: Mass. (3), Conn. (5), N.J.
(1), Pa. (1), Md. (1).
Cato I
New York Journal, 27 September 17871
Seven essays signed "Cato," the first of which was unnumbered, appeared
in the New York Journal between 27 September 1787 and 3 January 1788. The
series was not widely reprinted. The first five numbers appeared in the Albany
Gazette, the last five in the Daily Advertiser. No out-of-state newspaper reprinted
more than two numbers.
Between October 1787 and January 1788 several newspaper writers sug-
gested that Governor George Clinton was "Cato." Important among them are
Federalist essayists "Curtius" II, Daily Advertiser, 18 October, and "Examiner"
II, New York Journal, 14 December, both of whom refer to "Cato's" opposition
to the Constitutional Convention, even before it adopted a new Constitution
(both below). In a 21 July article in the Daily Advertiser, Alexander Hamilton
had made such a charge against Clinton. (See "Alexander Hamilton Attacks
Governor George Clinton," 21 July-30 October, above.) In the Daily Advertiser,
19 October, "a Man of no Party" stated that "Cato must undoubtedly be some
little State Sovereign, as State Sovereignty seems to be the burden of the song"
(Mfm:N.Y.). (For other newspaper items suggesting that Clinton was "Cato,"
see "Cato's Soliloquy," Daily Advertiser, 23 October [Mfm:N.Y]; "The Syren's
Songs," Northern Centinel, 11, 18 December [below]; and Extract of a Pough-
keepsie Letter, Northern Centinel, 15 January, [II below].)
No private correspondence attributing authorship to Clinton has been
found. However, in 1892 editor and bibliographer Paul Leicester Ford found
a copy of a letter in the George Clinton manuscripts at the New York State
Library that led him to assign authorship to Clinton. This letter to an unknown
addressee, dated 18 October 1787 and signed "A. Hamilton," was in the hand-
writing of Antifederalist leader John Lamb. No other historian has claimed to
have seen this letter, which was probably destroyed in the great 1911 fire at
the New York State Library. According to Ford, the letter states: "Since my last
the chief of the state party has declared his opposition to the government
proposed, both in private conversation and in print. That you may judge of
the reason and fairness of his views, I send you the two essays, with a reply by
Casar. On further consideration it was concluded to abandon this personal