person can have. He is entrusted with the care of an extensive tract of country, now the property of the United States by purchase. The value of those lands will depend on the increasing prosperity of Louisiana, its agriculture, commerce, and population. You have only a local and partial interest in the town of New-Orleans, or its vicinity; and if, in consequence of exploring the country, new seats of commerce should offer, his general interest would lead him to open them, and your partial interest to shut them up.

There is probably some justice in your remark, as it applies to the governments under which you formerly lived. Such governments always look with jealousy, and an apprehension of revolt, on colonies increasing in prosperity and population, and they send governors to keep them down. But when you argue from the conduct of governments distant and despotic, to that of domestic and free government, it shows you do not understand the principles and interest of a republic, and to put you right is friendship; we have had experience, and you have not.

The other case to which I alluded, as being founded in direct injustice, is that in which you petition for power, under the name of rights, to import and enslave Africans!

Dare you put up a petition to Heaven for such a power, without fearing to be struck from the earth by its justice? Why, then, do you ask it of man against man?

Do you want to renew in Louisiana the horrors of Domingo?

Sept. 22, 1804.

COMMON SENSE.

TO THE CITIZENS OF PENNSYLVANIA,

ON THE

PROPOSAL FOR CALLING A CONVENTION.

As I resided in the capital of your state (Philadelphia,) in the time that tried men's souls, and all my political writings, during the revolutionary war, were written in that city, it seems natural for me to look back to the place of my political and literary birth, and feel an interest for its happiness. Removed as I now am from the place, and detached from every thing of personal party, I address this token to you on the ground of principle, and in remembrance of former times and friendships.

The subject now before you, is the call of a convention, to examine, and, if necessary, to reform the constitution of the state, or to speak in the correct language of constitutional order, to propose written articles of reform to be accepted or rejected by the people, by vote, in the room of those now existing, that shall be judged improper or defective. There cannot be, on the ground of reason, any objection to this; because if no reform or alteration is necessary, the sense of the country will permit none to be made; and, if necessary, it will be made because it ought to be made. Until, therefore, the sense of the country can be collected, and made known by a convention elected for that purpose, all opposition to the call of a convention, not only passes for nothing, but serves to create a suspicion that the opposers are conscious that the constitution will not bear an examination,

The constitution formed by the Convention of 1776, of which Benjamin Franklin (the greatest and most useful man America has yet produced,) was president, had many good points in it, which were averthrown by the Convention of 1790.

under the pretence of making the constitution conformable to that of the United States; as if the forms and periods of election for a territory, extensive as that of the United States is, could become a rule for a single state.

The principal defect in the constitution of 1776, was, that it was subject, in practice, to too much precipitancy, but the ground work of that constitution was good. The present constitution appears to me to be clogged with inconsistencies of a hazardous tendency, as a supposed remedy against a precipitancy that might not happen. Investing any individual, by whatever name or official title he may be called, with a negative over the formation of the laws, is copied from the English government, without eyer perceiving the inconsistency and absurdity of it, when applied to the representative system, or understanding the origin of it in England.

The present form of government in England, and all those things called prerogatives of the crown, of which this negative power is one, was established by conquest, not by compact. Their origin was the conquest of England by the Normans, under William of Normandy, surnamed the Conqueror, in 1066, and the genealogy of its kings takes its date from him. He is the first of the list. There is no historical certainty of the time when parliaments began; but be the time when it may, they began by what are called grants or charters from the Nor man Conqueror, or his successors, to certain towns, and to counties, to elect members to meet and serve in parliament, subject to his control; and the custom still continues with a king of England calling the parliament my parliament; that is, a parliament originating from his authority, and over which he holds control in right of himself, derived from that conquest. It is from this assumed right, derived from conquest, and not from any constitutional right by compact, that kings of England hold a negative over the formation of the laws; and they hold this for the purpose of preventing any being enacted that might abridge, invade, or in any way affect or diminish what they claim to be their hereditary or family rights and pre

• Parliament is a French word, brought into England by the Normana It comes from the French verb parler-to speak.

rogatives, derived originally from the conquest of the country.* This is the origin of the King of England's negative. It is a badge of disgrace which his parliaments are obliged to wear, and to which they are abject enough to submit.

But what has this case to do with a legislature chosen by freemen, on their own authority, in right of themselves? Or in what manner does a person styled governor or chief magistrate resemble a conqueror subjugating a country, as William of Normandy subjugated England, and saying to it, you shall have no laws but what I please? The negativing power in a country like America, is of that kind, that a wise man would not choose to be embarrassed with it, and a man fond of using it will be overthrown by it. It is not difficult to see that when Mr. McKean negatived the Arbitration Act, he was induced to it as a lawyer, for the benefit of the profession, and not as a magistrate, for the benefit of the people; for it is the office of a chief magistrate to compose differences and prevent lawsuits. If the people choose to have arbitration instead of lawsuits, why should they not have them? It is a matter that concerns them as individuals, and not as a state or community, and is not a proper case for a governor to interfere in, for it is not a state or government concern; nor does it concern the peace thereof, otherwise than to make it more peaceable by making it less contentious.

This negativing power in the hands of an individual ought to be constitutionally abolished. It is a dangerous power. There is no prescribing rules for the use of it. It is discretionary and arbitrary; and the will and temper of the person at any time possessing it, is its only rule.

There must have been great want of reflection in the convention that admitted it into the constitution. Would that convention have put the constitution it had formed (whether good or bad) in the power of any individual to negative? It would not. It would have treated such a proposal with dis

When a king of England (for they are not an English race of kings) negatives an act passed by the parliament, he does it in the Norman or French language, which was the language of the conquest, the literal translation of which is, the king will advise himself of it. It is the only instance of a king of England speaking French in parliament; and shows the origin of the negative.

dain. Why then did it put the legislatures thereafter to be chosen, and all the laws, in that predicament? Had that convention, or the law members thereof, known the origin of the negativing power used by kings of England, from whence they copied it, they must have seen the inconsistency of introducing it into an American constitution. We are not a conquered people; we know no conqueror; and the negativing power used by kings in England is for the defence of the personal and family prerogatives of the successors of the conqueror against the parliament and the people. What is all this to us? We know no prerogatives but what belong to the sovereignty of ourselves.

At the time this constitution was formed, there was a great departure from the principles of the revolution, among those who then assumed the lead, and the country was grossly imposed upon. This accounts for some inconsistencies that are to be found in the present constitution, among which is the negativing power inconsistently copied from England. While the exercise of the power over the state remained dormant, it remained unnoticed; but the instant it began to be active it began to alarm; and the exercise of it against the rights of the people to settle their private pecuniary differences by the peaceable mode of arbitration, without the interference of lawyers, and the expense and tediousness of courts of law, has brought its existence to a crisis.

Arbitration is of more importance to society than courts of law, and ought to have precedence of them in all cases of pecuniary concerns between individuals or parties of them. Who are better qualified than merchants to settle disputes between merchants, or who better than farmers to settle disputes between farmers? And the same for every other description of men What do lawyers or courts of law know of these matters They devote themselves to forms rather than to principles, and the merits of the case become obscure and lost in a labyrinth of verbal perplexities. We do not hear of lawyers going to law with each other, though they could do it cheaper than other people, which shows they have no opinion of it for themselves.

The principle and rule of arbitration ought to be constitu