Page:The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 Volume 3.djvu/243

 this system by two or three very respectable characters in the convention, which have been the subject of much conversation;…

When you refer the proposed system to the particular circumstances of North Carolina, and consider how she is to be affected by this plan, you must find the utmost reason to rejoice in the prospect of better times. This is a sentiment that I have ventured with the greater confidence, because it is the general opinion of my late-honourable colleagues, and I have the utmost reliance in their superior abilities. But if our constituents shall discover faults where we could not see any—or if they shall suppose that a plan is formed for abridging their liberties, when we imagined that we had been securing both liberty and property on a more stable foundation—if they perceive that they are to suffer a loss, where we thought they must rise from a misfortune—they will, at least do us the justice to charge those errors to the head, and not to the heart.

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But may ask, Why then was it [Art. I, Sect. 8, last paragraph] introduced? The answer is, that it could only have been done for greater caution, and to guard against all cavilling refinements in those who might hereafter feel a disposition to curtail and evade the legitimate authorities of the union. The convention probably foresaw, that it has been a principal aim of these papers to inculcate, that the danger which most threatens our political welfare is, that the state governments will finally sap the foundations of the union; and might therefore think it necessary, in so cardinal a point, to leave nothing to construction. Whatever may have been the inducement to it, the wisdom of the precaution is evident from the cry which has been raised against it; as that very cry betrays a disposition to question the great and essential truth which it is manifestly the object of that provision to declare.

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Mr. Russell:

You are desired to inform the publick from good authority, that Mr. Gerry … never heard, in the Convention, a motion made, much less did make any, “for the redemption of the old continental