University of Virginia Library

1643. CONSTITUTION (The Federal) Action by the States. mdash; [further continued] .

I congratulate you on
the accession of your State [South Carolina] to the new Federal Constitution. I expect to
hear daily that my own has followed the good
example. Our government needed bracing.
Still we must take care not to run from one
extreme to another; not to brace too high.—
To E. Rutledge. Washington ed. ii, 435. Ford ed., v, 41.
(P. July. 1788)