CITY AND COUNTY OF ALBANY, C. 28 APRIL 1788

as approving the New Constitution. If their sentiments or examples are
to have weight, it must be considered-
1st. Whether they have not some particular object to obtain at the
expence of the citizens at large.
2dly. Whether they think for themselves: and
3dly. Whether they are better informed than you are.
Before you put implicit faith in their opinions, consider their situa-
tion, ability and characters with attention-take from them first, the
men who are possessed of over grown fortunes-secondly, those you
have reason to think are influenced by others-thirdly those who are
not possessed of information superior to your own, and pay that def-
erence to the remainder which one freeman will always unreluctantly
afford another.-Consider their arguments-If they deserve weight, let
them have it-but if not, think for yourselves, and reject the council
dictated by interested, designing or ignorant persons.
It has been boasted that three fourths of the inhabitants of this city
are in favor of the New Constitution-If it is so, why have not the
Federal Committee, whose exertions have been unremitting, to effect
it, procured them to subscribe to their certificate, at the bottom of their
elaborate pamphlet?-Why have they given you the names of persons
who disavow the sentiments contained in it, as approving them?-why
have they given you the name of a man, as subscribing it, who has been
at New-York for three weeks last past? Have you reason to place much
confidence in the testimonial, with which they have furnished you,
when you are informed, that five of the persons whose names appear
as subscribers to the last extraordinary production of the Federal Com-
mittee, publicly declare, that they were unacquainted with its import, or they
would not have signed it, and that some of those persons declare, that
the paper they signed did not contain above three or four lines?-Have you
reason to trust to the declaration, that three fourths of the inhabitants
of this city approve of the New Constitution in its present form, when
you find the name of Mr. John Maley among the subscribers, who, it is
notoriously known, has been three weeks absent at New York?-What
is the inference? Either that they considered the acquisition of one
name of so much consequence, as to induce them to send all the way
to New York to obtain it, or that it has been annexed without his privity
or consent. If the former, it exposes the weakness of the Federalists in
this city, and pointedly contradicts the assertion, that they had a very
short time to answer our objections; for if they had time to send their
pamphlet to Mr. Maley at New-York, before it was completed, for his
approbation, they certainly ought not to complain, that they had no
time to consider its contents, and give it whatever dress they thought

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