must have borne in mind, that as the plan to be framed and proposed, was to be submitted to the people themselves, the disapprobation of this supreme authority would destroy it forever: its approbation blot out all antecedent errors and irregularities. It might even have occurred to them, that where a disposition to cavil prevailed, their neglect to execute the degree of power vested in them, and still more their recommendation of any measure whatever not warranted by their commission, would not less excite animadversion, than a recommendation at once of a measure fully commensurate to the national exigencies.
ⅭⅬⅩⅩⅤ. Luther Martin’s Defense of Gerry.[1]
I beg leave, through the channel of your Paper, to declare to the Public that from the time I took my seat in convention, which was early in June, until the fourth day of September, when I left Philadelphia, I am satisfied I was not ten minutes absent from convention while sitting (excepting only five days in the beginning of August, immediately after the committee of detail had reported, during which but little business was done.) That during my attendance I never heard Mr. Gerry or any other member introduce a proposition for the redemption of continental money according to its nominal or any other value, nor did I ever hear that such a proposition had been offered to consideration or had been thought of.[2] I was intimate with Mr. Gerry, and never heard him express, in private conversation or otherwise, a wish for the redemption of continental money, or assign the want of such a provision as a defect. Nor did I ever hear in Convention, or anywhere else, such a motive of conduct attributed to Mr. Gerry. I also declare to the Public that a considerable time before I left the convention Mr. Gerry’s opposition to the System was warm and decided; that in a particular manner he strenuously opposed that provision by which the power and authority over the militia is taken away from the States and given to the general government; that in the debate he declared if that measure was adopted it would be the most convincing proof that the destruction of the State governments and the introduction of a king was designed, and that no declarations to the contrary ought to be credited, since it was giving the states the last coup de grace by taking from them the only means of self preservation. The conduct of the advocates and framers of this system towards the
