altogether disproportioned to their wealth, strength, and resources; and we presume it to be a fact capable of demonstration, that for about twenty years past, the United States have been governed by a representation of about two fifths of the actual property of the country.

In addition to this, the creation of new states in the south, and out of the original limits of the United States, has increased the southern interest, which has appeared so hostile to the peace and commercial prosperity of the northern states. This power, assumed by Congress, of bringing into the Union new states, not comprehended within the terri. tory of the United States, at the time of the federal compact, is deemed arbitrary, unjust, and dangerous, and a direct infringement of the constitution. This is a power which may hereafter be extended, and the evil will not cease with the establishment of peace. We would ask then, ought the northern states to acquiesce in the exercise of this power? To what consequences would it lead? How can the people of the northern states answer to themselves and to their posterity, for an acquiescence in the exercise of this power, that augments an influence already destructive of our prosperity, and will, in time, annihilate the best interests of the northern people?

There are other measures of the general government, which, we apprehend, ought to excite serious alarm. The power assumed to lay a permanent embargo appears not to be constitutional, but an encroachment on the rights of our citizens, which calls for decided opposition. It is a power, we believe, never before exercised by a commercial nation; and how can the northern states, which are habitually commer cial, and whose active foreign trade is so necessarily connected with the interest of the farmer and mechanic, sleep in tranquillity under such a violent infringement of their rights? But this is not all. The late act imposing an embargo, is subversive of the first principles of civil liberty. The trade coast-wise between different ports in the same state, is arbitrarily and unconstitutionally prohibited; and the subordinate officers of government are vested with powers altogether inconsistent with our republican institutions. It arms the President and his agents with complete control of persons and property, and authorizes the em ployment of military force to carry its extraordinary provisions into execution.

We forbear to enumerate all the measures of the federal govern. ment, which we consider as violations of the constitution, and encroach. ments upon the rights of the people, and which bear particularly hard upon the commercial people of the north. But we would invite our fellow citizens to consider whether peace will remedy our public evils, without some amendments of the constitution, which shall secure to the northern states their due weight and influence in our national councils.

The northern states acceded to the representation of slaves, as a matter of compromise, upon the express stipulation in the constitution, that they should be protected in the enjoyment of their commercial rights. These stipulations have been repeatedly violated; and it can not be expected that the northern states should be willing to bear their proportion of the burdens of the federal government, without enjoying the benefits stipulated.

If our fellow citizens should concur with us in opinion, we would suggest whether it would not be expedient for the people in town meet. ings, to address memorials to the General Court, at their present session, petitioning that honorable body to propose a convention of all the northern and commercial states, by delegates to be appointed by their respective legislatures, to consult upon measures in concert, for procuring such alterations in the federal constitution, as will give to the northern states a due proportion of representation, and secure them from the future exercise of powers injurious to their commercial interests; or if the General Court shall see fit, that they should pursue such other course, as they, in their wisdom, shall deem best calculated to effect the objects.

The measure is of such magnitude that we apprehend a concert of states will be useful, and even necessary to procure the amendments proposed; and should the people of the several states concur in this opinion, it would be expedient to act on the subject without delay.

We request you, sir, to consult with your friends on the subject, and if it should be thought advisable, to lay this communication before the people of your town. In behalf, and by direction of the gentlemen assembled, JOSEPH LYMAN, Chairman.

In compliance with the request and suggestions in this circular, many town meetings were held, and with great unanimity addresses and memorials were voted to be presented to the General Court, stating the sufferings of the country in consequence of the embargo, the war, and arbitrary restrictions on our coasting trade, with the violations of our constitutional rights, and requesting the legislature to take measures for obtaining redress, either by a convention of delegates from the northern and commercial states, or by such other measures as they should judge to be expedient.

These addresses and memorials were transmitted to the General Court, then in session; but as commissioners had been sent to Europe for the purpose of negotiating a treaty of peace, it was judged advisable not to have any action upon them, till the result of the negotiation should be known. But during the following summer, no news of peace arrived; and the distresses of the country increasing, and the sea-coast remaining defenseless, Gov. Strong summoned a special meeting of the legislature in October, in which the petitions of the towns were taken into consideration, and a resolve was passed, appointing dele gates to a convention to be held in Hartford. The subsequent history of that convention is known by their report.

This measure of resorting to a convention for the purpose of arresting the evils of a bad administration, roused the jealousy of the advocates of the war, and called forth the bitterest invectives. The convention was represented as a treasonable combination, originating in Boston, for the purpose of dissolving the Union. But citizens of Boston had no concern in originating the proposal for a convention; it was wholly the project of the people in old Hampshire County; as respect. able and patriotic republicans as ever trod the soil of a free country. The citizens who first assembled in Northampton, convened under the authority of the bill of rights, which declares, that the people have a

right to meet in a peaceable manner and consult for the public safety. The citizens had the same right then to meet in convention, as they have now; the distresses of the country demanded extraordinary meas ures for redress; the thought of dissolving the Union never entered the head of any of the projectors, or of the members of the convention; the gentlemen who composed it, for talents and patriotism, have never been surpassed by any assembly in the United States; and beyond a question, the appointment of the Hartford Convention had a very favor. able effect in hastening the conclusion of a treaty of peace.

All the reports which have been circulated respecting the evil designs of that convention, I know to be the foulest misrepresentations. Indeed, respecting the views of the disciples of Washington and the supporters of his policy, many, and probably most of the people of the United States, in this generation, are made to believe far more false. hood than truth. I speak of facts within my personal knowledge. We may well say with the prophet, "Truth is fallen in the street, and equity can not enter." Party spirit produces an unholy zeal to depreciate one class of men for the purpose of exalting another. It be comes rampant in propagating slander, which engenders contempt for personal worth and superior excellence; it blunts the sensibility of men to injured reputation; impairs a sense of honor; banishes the charities of life; debases the moral sense of the community; weakens the motives which prompt men to aim at high attainments and patriotic achievements; degrades national character, and exposes it to the scorn of the civilized world.

CHAPTER XIX.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN THE UNITED STATES.

THE origin of the two great political parties which have agitated the United States for half a century; the causes which have produced and sustained them; and their injurious effects upon public measures-are subjects of deep interest to the citizens of our confederacy. As it has fallen to my ot to be well acquainted with the origin and history of these parties, it may be interesting to the present generation, most of whom have been born since they originated, to see a brief narrative of facts relating to their origin, their respective motives and measures of policy, and to their influence in disturbing public harmony, embarrassing our national councils, and interrupting the prosperity of the country.

The claims of Great Britain to govern the people of this country, when in a colonial state; to tax them at pleasure, and impose restrictions on their trade, roused an opposition which resulted in open resistance by force, and which terminated in a revolution. As the inhabitants of the colonies were generally attached to their father-land, small causes could not have induced them to withdraw from it, by dissolving all connection with its government. But the stamp act and other acts of the British Parliament which our fathers deemed unconstitutional and oppressive, gradually produced a conviction in the minds of the more intelligent citizens of this country, that it was necessary to resist the British claims at all hazards.

In order to prepare the minds of our citizens for such a resistance, our leading statesmen deemed it necessary to attempt to detach the affections of the people from the British government and nation, by presenting to their view the corruptions of that government, as well as the consequences of their claim to "bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever." Among other things they insisted much on the oppressiveness of the excise laws of Great Britain, and on the injustice and corrupt use of pensions. These articles are specified for the purpose of showing the effects which the writings of the fathers of the Revolution afterward had on the measures of our own government. The declamations against the oppressive operation of the excise laws of Great Britain, excited, in this country, an extreme popular odium against that mode of taxation; and this odium directed against the duties of excise, laid by Congress upon distilled spirits, was among the most powerful causes of the insurrection in Pennsylvania. The arguments which our writers had used against the oppressive laws of Great Britain, to alienate our citizens from the British government, were turned with effect against a similar law of our own government.

Still more general and violent was the opposition in this country to pensions. It was represented, and probably with truth, that the administration in England used the power of granting pensions for corrupt

purposes. Yet the practice of bestowing pensions on old public servants, civil and military, when they retired from office, was and is a noble feature in the British government. But popular opinion, in this country, made little or no distinction between pensions; they were all condemned as unjust, and the continual clamors against them served the purpose of increasing the alienation of our citizens from the British government. The prejudices thus excited against the practice of granting pensions, were, at the close of the revolutionary war, directed against the grant of half-pay to the officers of the American army, and its substitute, the grant of five years' full pay, to indemnify them for the losses they sustained by receiving in payment a depreciated currency.

Hence in the first organization of our government under the present constitution, Congress granted pensions only to certain disabled officers or the widows of officers; neglecting to pension most of those who had assisted in achieving our independence, who descended into their graves without an indemnification for their losses.

An extreme jealousy of the powers of the government, which had been excited and fastened on the minds of the American people by an opposition to the claims of the British Parliament, began very early to be manifested in this country by popular resolutions against an undue extension of the powers of our own government. An example of this jealousy occurred in the county of Fairfax in Virginia, before the definitive treaty of 1783 was signed.

On the 30th of May, 1783, the representatives of that county in the house of delegates, received instructions from their constituents on several subjects. Among other things, they were instructed to oppose all attempts of Congress to obtain a perpetual revenue. The people, giv. ing instructions, considered the requisition of Congress on the states for revenue, as exhibiting strong proofs of a lust of power. They expressed a decided opposition to the proposal of Congress, Oct. 10, 1780, for appropriating the proceeds of unappropriated lands that might be ceded to the United States. They also recommended to their representatives in the legislature, to endeavor to obtain an instruction from the general assembly to the Virginia delegation in Congress, against sending embassadors to the courts of Europe; on the ground that, in the circumstances then existing, the United States were unable to defray the expense. They added that such appointments could hardly fail of producing dangerous combinations, factions and cabals in the great council of America; and from the great distance, and the difficulty of knowing and examining their conduct, they argued that there was danger that some of the persons sent might be corrupted and pensioned, by the courts near which they might reside. They supposed that consuls would be sufficient to answer every good purpose.

Not long after appeared, in the northern states, a public opposition to the resolve of Congress, granting to the officers of the revolutionary army five years' extra pay, to make good their losses by the depreciation of continental bills. It must be remarked that Congress, to make good such losses, had at first passed a resolve to grant the officers half pay for life. This grant alarmed the people, who considered it as the beginning of that odious practice of pensioning, which existed in Great