chosen, as recommended in the above Resolutions, if in their judgment the situation of the Country shall urgently require it.[1]
Replies of the States to the Hartford Convention Amendments.
These amendments as indorsed by the legislatures of Massachusetts and Connecticut did not even receive the approval of any of the other New England States, and the legislatures of the following nine States passed resolutions of disapproval: Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Louisiana. (For references, see Ames, Proposed Amendments, 46, note, 265, note, 332.) Most of the legislatures simply passed resolutions of non concurrence, but the legislatures of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, accompanied their resolutions with interesting reports of disapproval. Extracts from the reports of New Jersey and New York follow. The very elaborate report of the Senate of Pennsylvania, written by a Federalist, is too long to be reprinted here, but is in Senate Journal of Penna., 1814–15, 381–397; a digest of the report is given in The Historical Register, 1814, 131–136. A printed attested copy of this report was communicated to Massachusetts, and is in the Mass. Archives.
40. Reply of the Legislature of New Jersey.[2]
February 17, 1815.
The committee to whom was referred the several propositions for the amendment of the Constitution of the United States, adopted by the general assembly of Connecticut, and at their request communicated to his excellency the governor, to be laid before the legislature of this state for their approbation and adoption, beg leave to report, that they have been induced by the untoward circumstances of the times, and the general aspect of our political affairs to consider the same, with a view rather to their general bearing, character and tendency, than to their several intrinsic merits. Under these impressions they are constrained to remark, that the leading purpose, the favorite master principle pervading all the propositions in question, is to reduce
- ↑ Signatures of the Delegates omitted.
- ↑ For message of Governor Pennington of Jan. 11, 1815, condemning the movement in the Eastern States, see Niles, VII, 108, 109.
