To the People of the State of New York:
AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting federal government, you are called
upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own
importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety
and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most
interesting in the world. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people
of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men
are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are
forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.....
To the People of the State of New York
IT IS not a new observation that the people of any country (if, like the Americans, intelligent and wellinformed)
seldom adopt and steadily persevere for many years in an erroneous opinion respecting their
interests. That consideration naturally tends to create great respect for the high opinion which the people
of America have so long and uniformly entertained of the importance of their continuing firmly united
under one federal government, vested with sufficient powers for all general and national purposes.
The more attentively I consider and investigate the reasons which appear to have given birth to this
opinion, the more I become convinced that they are cogent and conclusive....
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To the People of the State of New York:
WHEN the people of America reflect that they are now called upon to decide a question, which, in its
consequences, must prove one of the most important that ever engaged their attention, the propriety of
their taking a very comprehensive, as well as a very serious, view of it, will be evident.
Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of government, and it is equally undeniable, that
whenever and however it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights in order to
vest it with requisite powers. It is well worthy of consideration therefore, whether it would conduce more
to the interest of the people of America that they should, to all general purposes, be one nation, under one
federal government, or that they should divide themselves into separate confederacies, and give to the
head of each the same kind of powers which they are advised to place in one national government....
To the People of the State of New York
MY LAST paper assigned several reasons why the safety of the people would be best secured by union
against the danger it may be exposed to by just causes of war given to other nations; and those reasons
show that such causes would not only be more rarely given, but would also be more easily
accommodated, by a national government than either by the State governments or the proposed little
confederacies.
But the safety of the people of America against dangers from foreign force depends not only on their
forbearing to give just causes of war to other nations, but also on their placing and continuing themselves
in such a situation as not to invite hostility or insult; for it need not be observed that there are pretended as
well as just causes of war.
It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war
whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it; nay, absolute monarchs will often make war....
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