University of Virginia Library

TO JOSEPH GALES.

Dear Sir,—I thank you for your friendly letter
of the 20th, inclosing an extract from notes by
Judge Yates, of debates in the Convention of 1787,
as published in a N. Y. paper.[25] The letter did not
come to hand till yesterday.[26]

If the extract be a fair sample, the work about
to be published will not have the value claimed for
it. Who can believe that so palpable a misstatement
was made on the floor of the Convention, as that the
several States were political Societies, varying from
the lowest Corporation to the highest Sovereign; or
that the States had vested all the essential rights
ot sovereignty in the Old Congress? This intrinsic
evidence alone, ought to satisfy every candid reader

of the extreme incorrectness of the passage in question.
As to the remark that the States ought to
be under the controul of the Genl. Govt. at least as
much as they formerly were under the King &
B. Parliament, it amounts as it stands when taken
in its presumable meaning, to nothing more than
what actually makes a part of the Constitution;
the powers of Congs. being much greater, especially
on the great points of taxation & trade than the B.
Legislature were ever permitted to exercise.

Whatever may have been the personal worth of
the 2 delegates from whom the materials in this
case were derived, it cannot be unknown that they
represented the strong prejudices in N. Y. agst. the
object of the Convention which was; among other
things to take from that State the important power
over its commerce to which it was peculiarly attached
and that they manifested, untill they withdrew
from the Convention, the strongest feelings of
dissatisfaction agst. the contemplated change in the
federal system and as may be supposed, agst. those
most active in promoting it. Besides misapprehensions
of the ear therefore, the attention of the
notetaker wd. materially be warped, as far at least
as, an upright mind could be warped, to an unfavorable
understanding of what was said in opposition
to the prejudices felt.

I have thought it due to the kind motives of your
communication to say thus much; but, I do it in
the well founded confidence, that your delicacy will
be a safeguard agst. my being introduced into the

Newspapers. Were there no other objection to it,
there would be an insuperable one in the alternative
of following up the task, or acquiescing in like
errors as they may come before the public.