University of Virginia Library

TO EDMUND RANDOLPH.

Since I got home which was on the day preceding
our election, I have received your favor of the 29th.
of Feby., which did not reach New York before I had
left it.

I view the amendments of Massachusetts pretty
nearly in the same light that you do. They were
meant for the people at large, not for the minority in
the Convention. The latter were not affected by
them; their objections being levelled against the
very essence of the proposed Government. I do not
see that the 2d. amendment,[58] if I understand its scope,
can be more exceptionable to the S. Sts than the
others. I take it to mean that the number of Reps

shall be limited to 200. who will be apportioned from
time to time according to a census; not that the apportionment
first made when the Reps. amount to
that number shall be perpetual. The 9th. amendment[59]
I have understood was made a very serious
point of by S. Adams.

I do not know of anything in the new Constitution
that can change the obligations of the public with
regard to the old money. The principle on which
it is to be settled, seems to be equally in the power
of that as of the existing one. The claim of the
Indiana Company cannot I should suppose be any
more validated by the new System, than that of all
the creditors and others who have been aggrieved by
unjust laws. You do not mention what part of the
Constitution, could give colour to such a doctrine.
The condemnation of retrospective laws, if that be
the part, does not appear to me, to admit on any
principle of such a retrospective construction. As
to the religious test, I should conceive that it can
imply at most nothing more than that without that
exception, a power would have been given to impose
an oath involving a religious test as a qualification
for office. The constitution of necessary offices being
given to the Congress, the proper qualifications
seem to be evidently involved. I think too there
are several other satisfactory points of view in which
the exception might be placed.

I shall be extremely happy to see a coalition among
all the real federalists. Recommendatory alterations
are the only ground that occurs to me. A conditional
ratification or a second convention appears
to me utterly irreconcileable in the present state of
things with the dictates of prudence and safety. I
am confirmed, by a comparative view of the publications
on the subject, and still more of the debates in
the several conventions, that a second experiment
would be either wholly abortive, or would end in
something much more remote from your ideas and
those of others who wish a salutary Government,
than the plan now before the public. It is to be considered
also that besides the local & personal pride
that wd. stand in the way, it could not be a very easy
matter to bring about a reconsideration and rescision
of what will certainly have been done in six and
probably eight States, and in several of them by
unanimous votes. Add to all this the extreme
facility with which those who secretly aim at disunion
(and there are probably some such in most if
not all the States) will be able to carry on their
schemes, under the mask of contending for alterations
popular in some places and known to be inadmissible
in others. Every danger of this sort might
be justly dreaded from such men as this State & N.
York only could furnish, playing for such a purpose
into each others hands. The declaration of H—y,
mentioned in your letter, is a proof to me that desperate
measures will be his game. If report does not
more than usually exaggerate Mason also is ripening

fast for going every length.[60] His licentiousness of
animadversion it is said, no longer spares even the
moderate opponents of the Constitution.