Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/38

xxxvi is, 'The maintenance of his opinions, if erroneous, can do no other injury than to lessen the character of the Repository for fidelity and impartiality, and I should not have deemed it proper, if the facts were not misstated, to take any notice of them.' What is it, I ask, I would not have noticed? I answer, his opinions, unless the facts on which they rest were misstated.

"But it is not material to vindicate the style of my composition; its truth is more important to the public and to myself. I will proceed to state the proofs upon which I wrote the piece alluded to. Whilst Mr. was Secretary of State, a friend of his purchased, at Washington city, ' edition of The Federalist, and, in a conversation with Mr.  relating to it, he requested him to furnish an index to the numbers, for his private use. Mr. M. then gave him a pencilled memorandum of the numbers he had written, which was sealed in the first volume, where it now is, and from that pencilled memorandum, in the handwriting of Mr., I copied the numbers into my note of the 10th ultimo.

"If any corroboration of this proof were wanting, the numbers in question will furnish it. The New York Evening Post says Mr. M. wrote Nos. 37 to 48, inclusive, and that Mr. Hamilton wrote all the succeeding ones, except No. 54.

"No. 47 commences with 'The meaning of the maxim, which requires a separation of the departments of power, examined and ascertained.'

"No. 48, 'The same subject continued, with a view to the means of giving efficacy in practice to that maxim.'

"No. 49 & 50, continue and conclude the subject, with the same view.

"No. 49 contains the following sentences: 'The