Gazette Of The United States

Of the CONSTITUTION—and AMENDMENTS
to the Same.

THE transactions which have taken place in our
country, fill every patriotic mind with pleasure;
inasmuch as they realize the confidence which had
been reposed in the native good sense of the people;
that whenever their public affairs get obviously
wrong, they would interfere, and set them to rights.—The example of changing a constitution,
by assembling the wise men of the States, instead of assembling armies, will be worth as much to the world, as the former examples America has given it.—The constitution which has been the result of our deliberations, is unquestionably, the wisest ever yet presented to men; and the accommodations of interests which it has adopted, are greatly pleasing to those, who have been anxiously concerned upon this point, having realized how difficult it was to accommodate those interests.

A great concurrence of opinion, however, authorizes to say, that this constitution has some defects: It is, perhaps, not one of the least, that the important rights, not placed in security by the frame of the constitution itself, were not explicitly secured by a supplementary declaration. There are rights, which it is useless to surrender to the government; and which, yet, governments have been always fond to invade:—There are the rights of thinking, and publishing our thoughts, by speaking and writing: the rights of free commerce: the right of personal freedom: There are instruments for administering the government, so peculiarly trust-worthy, that we should never leave the legislature at liberty to change them.—The new constitution has secured these in the legislative and executive departments; but not in the judiciary.—It should have established trials by the people themselves, that is to say by jury. There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation, and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors, that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot, but in well defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army.

Such a supplement to the constitution, where that is silent, is wanting to secure us in these points. The general voice has legitimated this objection; and though it does not authorize us to consider as a defect, the perpetual re-eligibility of the President, but three States out of eleven having declared against this, it may nevertheless be considered as one, and should the majority change their opinion, as to this point, yet it is devoutly to be wished, that this may remain unaltered, as long as we can avail ourselves of the services of our great leader, whose talents, and whose weight of character, are peculiarly necessary, to get the government so under way, as that it may afterwards be carried on by subordinate characters.

Under the auspices of this constitution, administered with justice, firmness and wisdom, our America must rapidly advance to distinguished eminence, power and prosperity: and the perfecting this constitution, by the addition of such supplementary declaration as is above suggested, may be the result of the same calm deliberation and greatness of mind, which led to the ratification of the system—for if this cannot be effected quietly and peaceably, the constitution had better, infinitely better, be left to descend to posterity as it is, than to hazard so invaluable a jewel on the ocean of public discord.