3. Expressing in affectionate and
conciliatory language our warm attachment to union with our sister
States, and to the instrument and principles by which we are united;
that we are willing to sacrifice to this every thing but the rights of
self-government in those important points which we have never yielded,
and in which alone we see liberty, safety, and happiness; that not at
all disposed to make every measure of error or of wrong, a cause of
scission, we are willing to look on with indulgence, and to wait with
patience, till those passions and delusions shall have passed over,
which the federal government have artfully excited to cover its own
abuses and conceal its designs, fully confident that the good sense of
the American people, and their attachment to those very rights which we
are now vindicating, will, before it shall be too late, rally with us
round the true principles of our federal compact. This was only meant to
give a general idea of the complexion and topics of such an instrument.
Mr. M. who came, as had been proposed, does not concur in the
reservation proposed above; and from this I recede readily, not only
in deference to his judgment, but because, as we should never think of
separation but for repeated and enormous violations, so these, when they
occur, will be cause enough of themselves.
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