Original Document

"Address of the Minority Members of the House of Representatives to their Constituents."


Gentlemen:

When in consequence of your suffrage at the late election we were chosen to represent you in the general assembly of this commonwealth, we accepted of the important trust with a determination to execute it in the best manner we were able; and we flatter ourselves we have acted in such a manner as to convince you, that your interest, with that of the good of the State, has been the object of our measures.

During the fall and spring session of the legislature on the recommendation of the Congress of the United States your representatives proceeded to the appointment of delegates to attend a convention to be held in the city of Philadelphia, for the purposes of revising and amending the present articles of confederation, and to report their proceedings to Congress, and when adopted by them, and ratified by the several States, to become binding on them as part of the confederation of the United States. We lamented at the time, that a majority of our legislature appointed men to represent this State who were all citizens of Philadelphia, none of them calculated to represent the landed interest of Pennsylvania, and almost all of them of one political party, men who have been uniformly opposed to that constitution for which you have on every occasion manifested your attachment. We were apprehensive at the time of the ill-consequences of so partial a representation, but all opposition was in vain. When the convention met, members from twelve States attended, and after deliberating upward of four months on the subject, agreed on a plan of government which was sent forward by them to Congress, and which was reported to the house by the delegates of Pennsylvania as mere matter of information, and printed in the newspapers of the city of Philadelphia; . . .

We conceived it required the most minute examination and mature consideration, and that it ought to be taken up by the next house. Judge then of our surprise on finding the last day but one in the sessions, a member of the house who had been a delegate in the convention, without any previous notice or any intimation of his intention to the house, offer a resolution recommending the calling a convention to consider of the proposed constitution and to direct the electing members for the same, at so early a period as the day of your annual election, thus attempting to surprise you into a choice of members - to approve or disapprove of a constitution, which is to entail happiness or misery forever, without giving time to the greatest part of the State even to see, much less to examine, the plan of government. . . .

You have a right, and we have no doubt you will consider whether or not you are in a situation to support the expense of such a government as is now offered to you, as well as the expense of your State government? or whether a legislature consisting of three branches, neither of them chosen annually, and that the senate, the most, powerful, the members of which are for six years, are likely to lessen your burthens or increase your taxes? or whether in case your State government should be annihilated, which will probably be the case, or dwindle into a mere corporation, the continental government will be competent to attend to your local concerns? You can also best determine whether the power of levying and imposing internal taxes at pleasure, will be of real use to you or not? or whether a continental collector assisted by a few faithful soldiers will be more eligible than your present collectors of taxes? You will also in your deliberations on this important business judge, whether the liberty of the press may be considered as a blessing or as a curse in a free government, and whether a declaration for the preservation of it is necessary? or whether in a plan of government any declaration of rights should be prefixed or inserted? You will be able, likewise, to determine whether in a free government there ought or ought not to be any provision against a standing army in time of peace? or whether the trial by jury in civil cases is becoming dangerous and ought to be abolished? and whether the judiciary of the United States is not so constructed as to absorb and destroy the judiciaries of the several States? You will also be able to judge whether such inconveniences have been experienced by the present mode of trial between citizen and citizen of different States as to render a continental court necessary for that purpose? or whether there can be any real use in the appellate jurisdiction with respect to fact as well as law? We shall not dwell longer on the subject; one thing however, it is proper you should be informed of: the convention were not unanimous with respect to men, though they were as States; several of those who have signed did not fully approve of the plan of government. . . .

The confederation, no doubt, is defective, and requires amendment and revision, and had the convention extended their plan to the enabling the United States to regulate commerce, equalize the impost, collect it throughout the United States, and have the entire jurisdiction over maritime affairs, leaving the exercise of internal taxation to the separate States, we apprehend there would have been no objection to the plan of government.

The matter will be before you, and you will be able to judge for yourselves. `Show that you seek not yourselves, but the good of your country, and may He who alone has dominion over the passions and understandings of men enlighten and direct you aright, that posterity may bless God for the wisdom of their ancestors.'

Sept. 29, 1787.

(Signed by the Minority Members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in Opposition to Ratification of the Federal Constitution)


Credit: John Bach McMaster, ed., Pennsylvania, and the Federal Constitution, 1787-1788 (Philadelphia, 1888), 73-79.