of God—for this I request his justice only. Lest however some future annalist should in the spirit of party vengeance, deign to mention my name, let him recite these truths,—that I went to the federal convention with the strongest affection for the union; that I acted there in full conformity with this affection; that I refused to subscribe because I had, as I still have, objections to the constitution, and wished a free enquiry into its merits; and that the accession of eight states reduced our deliberations to the single question of union or no union.
ⅭⅭⅩⅩⅠ. Debate in the New York Convention.[1]
Hon. Mr. Lansing. … It has been admitted by an honorable gentleman from New York, (Mr. Hamilton,) that the state governments are necessary to secure the liberties of the people. He has urged several forcible reasons why they ought to be preserved under the new system; and he has treated the idea of the general and state governments being hostile to each other as chimerical. I am, however, firmly persuaded that an hostility between them will exist. This was a received opinion in the late Convention at Philadelphia. That honorable gentleman was then fully convinced that it would exist, and argued, with much decision and great plausibility, that the state governments ought to be subverted, at least so far as to leave them only corporate rights, and that, even in that situation, they would endanger the existence of the general government. But the honorable gentleman’s reflections have probably induced him to correct that sentiment.
(Mr. Hamilton here interrupted Mr. Lansing, and contradicted, in the most positive terms, the charge of inconsistency included in the preceding observations. This produced a warm personal altercation between those gentlemen, which engrossed the remainder of the day.)
ⅭⅭⅩⅩⅡ. Mr. Smith in the New York Convention.[2]
Mr. Smith
“Resolved as the Opinion of this Committee
that the President of the United States shall hold his Office during the Term of seven Years & that he shall not be eligible a second
Time.”
