University of Virginia Library

1788. CONVENTION, National Republican.—[continued].

The Federalists in Congress
were completely alarmed at the resource
for which we declared, to wit, a convention to
reorganize the government, and to amend it.
The very word convention gives them the horrors,
as in the present democratical spirit of
America, they fear should lose some of
the favorite morsels of the Constitution.—
To James Monroe. Washington ed. iv, 354. Ford ed., vii, 491.
(W. Feb. 15, 1801)