The true theory of our constitution is
surely the wisest and best, that the States are independent as to every
thing within themselves, and united as to every thing respecting foreign
nations. Let the General Government be reduced to foreign concerns only,
and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all other nations,
except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better,
the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our General
Government may be reduced to a very simple organization, and a very
unexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants.
But I repeat, that this simple and economical mode of government can
never be secured, if the New England States continue to support the
contrary system. I rejoice, therefore, in every appearance of their
returning to those principles which I had always imagined to be almost
innate in them. In this State, a few persons were deluded by the X.
Y. Z. duperies. You saw the effect of it in our last Congressional
representatives, chosen under their influence. This experiment on their
credulity is now seen into, and our next representation will be as
republican as it has heretofore been. On the whole, we hope, that by a
part of the Union having held on to the principles of the constitution,
time has been given to the States to recover from the temporary phrenzy
into which they had been decoyed, to rally round the constitution, and
to rescue it from the destruction with which it had been threatened even
at their own hands.
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