At a time when our Government is approaching to Dissolution, when some of its Principals have been found utterly inadequate to the Purposes for which it was establish'd, & it is evident that without some material Alterations it can not much longer subsist, it must give real concern to every man who has his Country's Interest at Heart to find such a Difference of Sentiment & Opinion in an Assembly of the most respectable and confidential characters in America, appointed for the special purposes of revising and amending the federal Constitution, so as to obtain and preserve the important objects for which it was instituted—the protection Safety & Happiness of the people.
The Treatys & Leagues & Confederacies between different sovereign independent powers have been urged as proofs in support of the propriety and Justice of the single & equal representation of each individual State in the American Union; & thence conclusions have been drawn that the People of these United States would refuse to adopt a Government founded more on an equal representation of the People themselves, than on the distinct representation of each separate individual State. . . . If the different States in our Union always had been as now run substantially & in reallity distinct sovereign & independent nations, this kind of reasoning would have great Force; but if the premises on which it is founded on mere Assumptions not ground on Facts or at best upon Facts to be found only upon a paper of yesterday, & even then contradictory to each other; no satisfactory conclusions can be drawn from them.
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