I have read, Sir, your letter of 27th August to the clambake "gathering" at Medbury Grove.

Your are an educated man; for several years you filled the important station of an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and, for one year, by a majority of one vote, was elevated to the Chief Magistracy of that most respectable Commonwealth. How you could descend from these high stations to the level of Slammism, and mingle your counsels with those who have so much disturbed the peace, and threatened the lives and property of the citizens of a sister State, may well excite our surprise, (if anything could surprise us, in these days,) and cannot fail to kindle in the breast of every true son of Rhode Island the strongest indignation.

But the problem is solved. You have been nominated for that office for which you were a partisan candidate, year after year, whilst you were clothed with the ermine of justice, and which it was your misfortune to obtain for a brief period, and only long enough to lose the highly honorable and more permanent station you were obliged to relinquish. You are now seeking to regain a portion of what you lost, and are striving to make some political capital out of the troubles of Rhode Island.

You would impress us with the belief, that in thus interfering with the internal concerns of Rhode Island, you are actuated only by a sacred regard for principle. If you can practise this deception on yourself, you will not deceive those who look beyond professions, and judge of men by their fruits.

You say, "no man has interfered less in the recent affairs of Rhode Island" than yourself; and you "trust you have been an impartial observer of passing events," though not "an indifferent one." How much you have interfered in our affairs, is best known to yourself. Your attendance, as one of the " orators of the human race," at the Somerset " gathering," was caused, no doubt, by the anticipated nomination, which has since been made, and your letter refutes all your professions of impartiality.

It may be, Sir, that you were as indifferent to the first movements in Rhode Island, in relation to suffrage, as were some of your party in that State, who were lookers on, until they thought something could be gained by urging, it on to revolution. They have since manifested, that it was not the extension of suffrage, but a most unprincipled contest for power, which induced them to raise the whirlwind, in hopes of being able to direct the storm. If the extension of suffrage, as originally .intended by the Suffrage Association, had been their sole object, they would not have rejected that Constitution by which suffrage was so liberally extended, and they would have accepted the very liberal basis upon which another Convention was called, and would have united with their fellow citizens in this measure of peace and conciliation.

Read, Sir, the history of the Rhode Island suffrage question, by Mr. J. Frieze, recently published in Providence, who wrote from knowledge and not from hearsay, being himself a suffrage man, and you will behold the true motives of the politicians on this subject.

Their object and yours, I fear, is the same— power, power. The lust of office and of power has ever proved the greatest enemy of human rights. Such is the lesson of history, and what is passing before us, shows that we are not free from the evils which have caused the downfall of so many republics.

After attempting to persuade us that you are an impartial judge of the Rhode Island controversy, and that your interest in the same arises solely from principle, you proceed to state, in a manner that betrays the feelings of a partisan, the nature of this controversy, and then say: "This has assumed a party character, and may be considered indicative of the political principles of the two great parties into which our country is divided."

Thank God, many of the most respectable of that party in Rhode Island, who supported Mr. Van Buren, felt their attachment to their State stronger than their attachment to party, and nobly came forth in defence of law, order and government. Such men now compose a majority of the Senate of the State, and many of them are found in the House of Representatives. This ought to lead you to doubt, whether you are correctly informed as to the facts and principles connected with this controversy.

But you are doing all you can to make this a party question, in Massachusetts, and would thereby prevent that impartial judgment, in reference to our affairs, which you well know is not to be expected in matters of party controversy. In this you do us much wrong, and of this we have a right to complain.

But how can you deem yourself an impartial judge of a controversy, which, in your view, has assumed a party character, you yourself being the candidate of one party for the chief magistracy of Massachusetts, and attending one clam bake, and writing a letter to another, to excite the sympathies of Massachusetts men against the government of Rhode Island, in order to facilitate your own elevation! We might as well expect grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles, as impartiality under such circumstances.

You commence your statement of the Rhode Island controversy, with the following sentence:
"The people of Rhode Island, acting in their original sovereign capacity, without the aid of governmental regulation, but in a peaceable manner, and with all the formality which, the circumstances would admit, called a convention, founded on an equal representation of their numbers, to form a Constitution for their adoption or rejection."

What do you mean by "the people of Rhode Island," in this sentence? Do you mean that the whole people of Rhode Island, acting in their original sovereign capacity, called a convention? This, you must know, is not true. Do you mean that a majority of the people of Rhode Island called this convention? If you have been the attentive observer you say you have been, you must know that this is not true. There was not a majority of the people, in any sense, that called that convention.

Now, Sir, I should like to know, by what authority a minority of the people can undertake to act, or can act, in their original sovereign capacity? And if they can, how far, Sir, does their sovereignty extend? And by what authority did a minority of the male population over twenty-one years of age, and a very small minority, call a convention in opposition to the convention which had already been called by the Legislature of the State? Does the democratic principle furnish a satisfactory answer to these questions?

If it be true that a majority of the people have a right, at their own will and pleasure, to throw off their allegiance to the government, and to "act in their original sovereign capacity," which I do not admit, have the minority the same right? If not, then at the very commencement of your statement, we have already discovered two errors, the one of fact and the other of principle. It is not true that "the people of Rhode Island called this convention," and it is not true that those who did call it "acted in their original sovereign capacity.

But we are accustomed to hear such language from Gentlemen of your democratic profession. You seem to think that you are emphatically the people, and that there are none beside you, and that any small portion of you, wherever collected, have a right to speak and act in the name of the "sovereign" people!

The next sentence conveys a meaning which is no nearer the truth.

You say, "the people of Rhode Island, &c., called a convention founded on an equal representation of their numbers, to form a constitution for their adoption or rejection. This convention performed the duty required of it." I understand by this, that you mean to convey the meaning that a convention, thus called, and in which the people were not only represented, but " equally represented," met and formed what you are also pleased to call " the people's constitution." The truth is, that a majority of the people were not represented at all in this convention, much less "equally represented."

Those who chose delegates to this convention, acted under no legal authority, and had no authority to speak or act for any but themselves. If they acted, to use your language, "in their original sovereign capacity," they still acted only for themselves; and those whom they chose, to act as delegates, had no authority to represent any but those who chose them. These delegates were chosen by less than eight thousand votes, about seven thousand two hundred, not more than one third of the male population over twenty-one years of age. Yet this convention called itself "the People's Convention," and the result of their doings they christened "the People's Constitution."

Such was the origin of "the People's Constitution," and its progress was in the same spirit. Those who had the assurance to go thus far in the name of the people, were determined to complete their work. In this small State, they deemed it necessary that the voting upon its adoption should go on for six days! On the first three days, the people were to hand in their votes to their moderators, but, on the last three days, votes might be collected by any person who had voted, in any place, in any numbers, and by him handed to their moderators, with no other check than signing his own name upon such votes as a witness. Here was room enough for fraud, and for the voting of the same person, again and again; for, in voting, no one was confined to the town in which he lived. And how could the moderators judge whether the votes which were thus brought in to them, contained the names of real or fictitious persons, or whether, if real, they were signed by these persons? In Newport, it is said, that the graveyards were ransacked for names to give to the returns some semblance of truth! When the tomb stones failed, imagination was drawn upon, and the returns exhibit the names of those who were never heard of before, and have not been seen since. More than one third of the votes returned from that town have been discovered to be fraudulent.* The history of this matter has never been fully told. All, however must know that such a machine for fraud never would have been contrived, if it had not been intended to put it in operation. Men would not gratuitously have subjected themselves to the imputation of opening the door so widely to fraud, if they had not been conscious that frauds were necessary to crown their labors, and finish their work, in the name of the people.

In this way, the requisite number of votes was returned and counted by this "People's Convention" and the Constitution declared by them to be the supreme law of the land.

Is so solemn an instrument as a Constitution of Government to be thus formed, thus proposed, and thus imposed upon the people of a State? We all know what would be the answer of the people of Massachusetts, if such a fraud had been attempted upon them, and they may well under-

* See the Pamphlet of Elisha R. Potter, Esq. App. No. 4, page 57.

stand that the people of Rhode Island are as little willing to submit to pretensions which they well know are as unfounded in fact, as they are monstrous in principle.

Yet, Sir, you have the boldness to say, this Constitution "was adopted by the votes of a large majority of all the adult male population of the State." And in another part of your letter, you say :

"Let it not be denied that a majority of all the people voted for the Constitution. The returns shew about three fifths. They have been in the power of the opponents of the new Constitution."

"Let it not be denied!" This, Sir, is arrogance itself! By what authority do you place your veto upon us, and deny to us the right to deny what you have had the boldness to assert without any legal evidence? "The returns?" Are we to be concluded by such returns, made under no legal sanctions; if false, subjecting no one to any legal penalties, and made by those who, if honest themselves, were in a situation, for three days and more, to be imposed upon by the dishonesty of others, without the means of detecting it ? Returns made by those and counted by those who had every thing at stake in the shape of political power, who had the management of every thing to themselves, and who had pre-determined that their Constitution should be the people's Constitution! And are our mouths to be stopped by such returns?

But you say these returns "have been in the power of the opponents of the new Constitution." Do you know what you say, and whereof you affirm?

It is true, Sir, that the Suffrage-Convention, just before their dissolution, authorised their Secretaries" to copy any part of the registry of said votes or the votes themselves, upon the application of any person." But it is also true that, in a short time afterwards, the Suffrage Association annulled this resolution!

Before this was done, copies of the list of votes, in some of the towns, had been obtained, and such frauds discovered, that it may have been thought most prudent to close the avenue to all further inquiry.

But if this large majority ever existed, as you, in your impartiality, are so willing to believe it did, what has become of it? In the voting for and against the Constitution framed and proposed by the legal Convention, under a system of suffrage as extended in relation to native born American citizens as that under the Suffrage Constitution, except that the former required one year's longer residence in the State, the friends of the latter, though they rallied all their force, were found in the minority. It was only by the aid of those who were opposed to both Constitutions, that the legally proposed Constitution was defeated by a majority of 676.

In the voting under the Suffrage Constitution for Governor and Senators, but 6,500 votes were given.

The result, too, of the attempt to enforce the Suffrage Constitution by a resort to force, plainly shows the sentiments of the real people of Rhode Island. You say, in reference to the voting on the Suffrage Constitution:

"Doubtless errors were committed, but they have not been pointed out; and it would be unreasonable to suppose that they existed to the extent of the thousands which composed the majority. Besides, it is a common presumption that those who omit to vote intend to acquiesce in the decision of those who choose to exercise that right. And this is believed to be the first instance in which a majority of all the qualified voters ever was required, or obtained, in favor of any Constitution. If a majority of all the people were opposed to the adoption of the new Constitution, why did they not turn out and reject it?"

Your zeal, in behalf of the Rhode Island revolutionists, has carried you beyond what they were satisfied was correct. They acted upon the principle that a bare majority of those who voted, was not sufficient for their purpose, and in this were more consistent than yourself. You say, the people acted in their "original sovereign capacity," and so they pretended; they, therefore, were more consistent than yourself in believing that, to establish their constitution, it was necessary to obtain the votes of a majority of the whole people who, according to their theory, had the natural right of voting.

You have overlooked, in your desire to establish the Suffrage Constitution, the principle upon which you started— the "act of the people of Rhode Island, in their original sovereign capacity." In voting under the sanction of law, and a regular government, it is very true that a majority of those who vote may be all that is necessary, and usually it is all that is required; those who are present, and act, are authorised, by the compact of government, and the law, to bind those who are absent, or who do not act. But when men act in their "original sovereign capacity," by what law do you determine "the qualified voters?" When they act in this capacity, they can act for none but themselves; they can bind none but themselves; society is then resolved into its original elements; a new compact is then to be formed which is binding only upon those who agree to it; if this new compact is attempted to be enforced upon those who do not agree to it, they have a right to resist it, and this brings every thing to the test of force, and this is revolution.

Man acting in his "original capacity," is "sovereign" only over himself. If, in this capacity, he undertakes to exercise sovereignty over another without his consent, he may be lawfully resisted, and the union of many, acting in this capacity, cannot give to the mass a right which none of them individually possessed— the right of exercising power over others, equally free with themselves, to which they have never expressly or impliedly assented.

Your absurdity, therefore, is this: you resolve society in Rhode Island into its original elements; you decide that the people there acted in their "original capacity," and before the formation of a new social compact, you claim for a majority of the male population over twenty-one years of age the right to govern all the rest! Your absurdity goes farther than this; you would give this right, under such circumstances, to a minority of the people, if they are a majority of those who assume to themselves the right to vote upon such a question! And this power you would confer on such a minority by virtue of their "sovereign capacity!"

Sovereignty comes by compact or by force. There was no compact in Rhode Island which gave to those who voted for the Suffrage Constitution the right to impose it on the State, even if they were the majority you pretend. The setting up of such a right against the established government was necessarily an appeal to force. You set up this right, and yet pretend to deprecate an appeal to "the God of battles." We have much reason to believe that if those men whose cause you advocate had succeeded in their appeal to arms, you would have been as ready to interpret in their behalf the Vox Dei, as you now are the Vox Populi.

You very formally state three "great principles, opposition to which (you say) is implied in opposition to the People's Constitution." They are,

" I. The right of the people to govern themselves, and to establish their own forms of government.

II. Free Suffrage.

III. Equality of representation."

These, you say, "are the vital principles of government, which the one party is supposed to maintain, and the other to deny."

You take the liberty, Sir, to suppose and to impute many things which are not true.

I have never heard any body deny "the right of the people to govern themselves, and to establish their own form of government." We claim for the people of Rhode Island this right, and we have just reason to complain that so many of the citizens, and some of the Governors and would-be Governors of other States, have assumed the right to decide for us, what we have the right of deciding for ourselves.

We say that the people of Rhode Island established, for themselves, a democratic form of government, under which they have lived, from the days of Roger Williams, and Clarke, and Coddington, to the present. And if you wish to know how well they prospered under it, and how much liberty they enjoyed, I will refer you to the history of Mr. Bancroft, written .when he was a more impartial judge of our affairs than he now appears to be.

You add your voice to the slang which has been uttered in reference to that Charter which yet remains the .basis of our Constitution, and exclaim,— "One man grant rights to millions! Liberties depending on the Charter of a King !"

This may do very well, Sir, for a clam bake, but it comes with a very bad grace from a late Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts!

Did the people of Rhode Island ever pretend that their rights were granted by one man, or were dependent upon the Charter of a King? You are either very ill read in our history, or not very well disposed to do us justice.

The Charter which, so far as it goes, is our written Constitution of government, did not originally derive all its authority from the crown. The King had no right to force his Charter upon any body without their consent. If the people of Rhode Island had not consented to this Charter, and accepted the same as their Constitution of government, it could not have been imposed upon them. It was granted to the people of Rhode Island at their request, and was accepted by them, at a great meeting of the freemen of the colony, after it was granted. When they accepted it, they agreed with each other, and they agreed with the King, to accept of it as their internal form of government. Because the King was a party to this instrument, it was none the less binding upon the people as their social compact, made with each other, with the consent and grant of the King. When the people of Rhode Island, by their delegates in Congress, declared their independence, did they suppose that they thereby annulled their Charter, a compact of government, made with each other? Such a supposition is contrary to all their acts during the war of the revolution, and since. These very delegates were chosen by the General Assembly under the Charter.

The people of this State never considered the Charter as annulled by the Declaration of Independence, but only the authority of the crown; that portion of the sovereignty which the crown had a right to exercise over them, under the Charter, was gone, but their agreement with each other remained. The powers of self- government which their had, previously to the Declaration of Independence, in conformity with this social compact, now became absolute and independent of all foreign control, and have ever since been exercised by the people of Rhode Island in conformity to the Charter, as their compact or Constitution of government. Under this form of government, Rhode Island adopted the Constitution of the United States, and has been since represented in the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, for nearly half a century, the Senators being chosen by the Legislature, which we are now told has no authority except under a charter, which was annulled by the Declaration of Independence. What next are we to learn, in this age of progress, will no doubt very much depend upon that necessity which is the mother of invention.

The Supreme Court of the United States, when they shall have the benefit of this new light, will no doubt reverse their own decision. In the case of Leland vs. Wilkinson (2 Peters, S. C. R. page 656) they say: "Rhode Island is the only State in the Union which has not a written Constitution of government, containing its fundamental laws and institutions. Until the revolution in 1776, it was governed by the Charter granted by Charles II, in the fifteenth year of his reign. That Charter has since continued, in its general provisions, to regulate the exercise and distribution of the powers of government. It has never been formally abrogated by the people; and except so far as it has been modified to meet the exigencies of the revolution, may be considered as now a fundamental law. By this Charter, the power to make laws is granted to the General Assembly in the most ample manner, so as such laws, &c. be not contrary and repugnant unto, but as near as may be agreeable to the laws, &c. of England, considering the nature and constitution of the place and people there."

You say: "The several charters never contemplated the establishment of independent governments, and never authorised the charter officers to take any step towards the formation of democratic constitutions."

Rhode Island and Connecticut already had democratic constitutions under their charters. On the declaration of Independence, there was no necessity for them to form new constitutions, as in Massachusetts, and those States where the Governors were appointed by the Crown. Mr. Rawle, on the Constitution of the United States, page 9, says: "The provincial Constitutions of America were, with two exceptions, modelled with some conformity to the English theory; but the colonists of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations were empowered to choose all their officers, legislative, executive, and judicial, and about the same time a similar charter was granted to Connecticut. And thus, complains Chalmers, a writer devoted to regal principles, 'A mere democracy, or rule of the people, was established. Every power, deliberative and active, was invested in the freemen or their delegates, and the supreme executive magistrate of the empire, by an inattention which does little honor to the statesmen of those days, was wholly excluded.' He expresses his own doubts whether the King had a right to grant such charters."

"But although in all the other provinces," Mr. Rawle continues," the charters were originally granted, or subsequently modified, so as to exclude the principle of represention from the executive department, these two provinces, at the time of our revolution, retained it undiminished. The suggestion of the full unqualified extension of the principle of representation, may therefore be justly attributed to the example of Rhode Island and Connecticut, which, when converted into States, found it unnecessary to alter the nature of their governments, and continued the same forms in all respects except the nominal recognition of the king's authority, till 1818, when Connecticut made some minor changes, and adopted a formal Constitution. Rhode Island, however, is still satisfied with the Charter of Charles II., from which it has been found sufficient to expunge the reservation of allegiance, the required conformity of its legislative acts to those of Great Britain, and the royal right to a certain portion of gold and silver ores, which, happily for that State, have never been found within it."

You further say; "It will not be pretended that the Rhode Island Charter conferred upon the legislature the power to propose a Constitution or to call a Convention for the purpose." Why not? You do not seem to be well acquainted with the Rhode Island Charter, and have probably taken this matter on trust.

The Rhode Island Charter contains, among other enumerated powers granted to the General Assembly, the following: "and, from time to time, to make, ordain, constitute or repeal, such laws, statutes, orders and ordinances, forms and ceremonies of government and magistracy, as to them shall seem meet, for the good and welfare of the said Company, and for the government and ordering of the lands and hereditaments, hereinafter mentioned to be granted, and of the people that do, or at any time hereafter shall, inhabit or be within the same; so as such laws, ordinances and constitutions, so made, be not contrary and repugnant unto, but as near as may be, agreeable to the laws of this our realm of England, considering the nature and constitution of the place and people there."

If the Legislature of Rhode Island had the power to "make, ordain, and constitute forms of government" and "constitutions" under certain restrictions, these restrictions, beginning, in the above recited clause, with the words— "so that," were done away by the declaration of Independence, and left the power of the Legislature unrestrained by the Charter in this respect. If the Legislature possessed the greater power, to form a Constitution, they possessed the lesser powers contained within the greater, the power to propose a Constitution to the people, or to call a Convention for the purpose of framing a Constitution to be proposed to the people. If the Charter had not contained the above provision, unless the Charter prohibited the General Assembly from the exercise of this power, it belonged to them since the revolution, as incidental to the legislative power.

The power of making "such laws as to them shall seem meet for the good and welfare of the State, includes the power of providing for the call of a Convention of the delegates of the, people to form a Constitution, and of making those regulations which may be necessary for taking the sense of the people upon the Constitution which might be proposed to them, and carrying the same into effect. This power the Legislature of Rhode Island exercised in calling that Convention which adopted, in the name of the people of Rhode Island, the Constitution of the United States.

You have resorted to this argument, borrowed from a Rhode Island man, to justify the assumption of power on the part of those who called that Convention which framed what they chose to call "the People's Constitution."

But is it a necessary inference that, because there is no written provision which gives to a government the power of reforming its Constitution, it has no power to do any thing in this respect? Is not this power necessarily incidental to every government. Revolution and reform are in their nature very distinct. Revolution comes from without, and overturns government, but reform originates with or is consummated by the government. If, therefore, every government must necessarily have within itself the "power of originating or sanctioning reform, where does it exist? Not in the judiciary, nor in the Executive, but in that legislative power which can command what is right and expedient, and prohibit what is wrong.

You farther say: "But the assumption that the Legislature alone can initiate proceedings for the formation of a Constitution, and that none can be formed without their consent and preliminary action, seems to me to be founded in the most palpable usurpation;" and you close the paragraph in which this sentence is found, after endeavoring to frighten us with the doctrine of the dark ages, with the following: "Will the American people, or the friends of free government, any where, acknowledge, the principle that the people can only make or amend their Constitutions by the permission of their rulers?"

And in a former part of your letter you say: "But what are the forms prescribed to regulate the action of the people in the exercise of their highest sovereign power? Who can establish forms to govern their proceedings?"

This is very specious, and no doubt very flattering to those who are disposed to consider all legal restraints as so many infringements upon liberty.

Who shall question the prerogative of the king? said the courtiers of Charles I., and their flatteries cost the king his crown and his head.

Who shall question the power of the people? say the "demagogues of our day, as they said in former days, and as we fear they will continue to say, until licentiousness shall destroy all the security and happiness of regulated liberty.

Whom, Sir, do you call the "rulers" of the people in this country? Those who, for a short period, by the free choice of the people, are entrusted with certain powers, to be exercised for the public good, and who are governed by the same laws which they enact for the community? We have been in the habit of calling such men our servants, and not our "rulers."

But there is one sovereign to which we all have hitherto professed to owe obedience. There is one, power which ought to govern the people. It is the sovereignty of the law, "the State's collected will."

If the doctrine is to prevail, that the majority, for the time being, may act their pleasure, and that they are above the law, there will be an end to all constitutional freedom. Constitutions have been considered, in this country, as the great security of persons and property, giving to minorities and individuals a protection from the power of a factious majority. In many of the State Constitutions, it has been provided that a larger number than a majority should be necessary for their amendment. This secures individuals, from oppression, and the State from the evils of perpetual change. In the Constitution of the United States, this principle is carried very far, and the small States are thereby protected against the power and ambition of the large States, and secured an equal representation in the Senate.

But this new "democratical principle" levels all legal and constitutional barriers, and exposes all things and all persons to the ruling demagogue of the day. Majorities, real or pretended, will find all things lawful and all things expedient, and should they be fettered by Constitutions, or forms of government, they have only to resolve themselves into "their original sovereign capacity" and they may act their pleasure, until another faction, stronger than they, shall arise to make them feel, in their turn, the miseries of such licentiousness and anarchy.

You think it usurpation for the Legislature of a State to claim for itself the right to call a convention to form a Constitution, and to deny this right to a portion of its citizens. Then, Sir, has Virginia been guilty of this usurpation for nearly sixty "years? Strange that George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, and John Marshall, and the other enlightened friends of freedom in that State, did not perceive and endeavor to remove this abomination! And Virginia had no mode of amendment prescribed in her first, nor has she in her present Constitution; yet, by her laws, those who may attempt to set up a Constitution of government, without the permission of the Legislature, are guilty of treason, and are liable to be punished with death! This, I suppose, you would call an Algerine law, but no doubt it has proved a wholesome one, and preserved the public peace without any infringement upon individual liberty, though you may be disposed to consider it unworthy this age of progress.

Why is it not usurpation for the Legislature to claim the exclusive exercise of the legislative power? Why not allow any portion of the people to resolve themselves into "their original sovereign capacity," and to legislate for the community as well as to form Constitutions of government?

You have confounded in your own mind or would confound in the minds of others, the great distinction between revolution and reform. Revolution is not to be regulated by law. This is an appeal to force against the law and the government. With regard to the exercise of, this ultimate right of the people, you may well say, "who can establish forms to govern their proceedings?" In such an appeal there is no law to govern their proceedings; it rides over all the provisions of fundamental or constitutional law, and is not to be regulated or controlled by the decisions of Courts, or the veto of magistracy. As well might you attempt to put a hook into the nose of Leviathan.

But the right of reform is to be exercised in conformity with the fundamental laws of the State, and the rights of the government. And if a portion of the people, under the pretence of reform, violate their allegiance to the government, and set up a government upon their own authority, this is rebellion and treason, and it is the duty of the government to put it down.

Now, Sir, if you mean to put the Rhode Island controversy on the ground of revolution, and to advocate what you call the People's Constitution on that ground, with what consistency do you deprecate an appeal to arms, or suggest, as a better mode of settling the controversy, an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States?

By what rule of law could the Supreme Court decide a question of revolution? The necessity which alone can justify revolution is a political question, and can never be a legal question? Will you submit political questions to the Supreme Court? or would they undertake to determine such questions ?

You say, the people of Rhode Island, "acted in their original sovereign capacity." They acted, therefore, without any law, and against the laws of the State, which in your opinion, were of no more binding effect to control them, than the whips and the cords of the Philistines to control the strength of Samson.

The case you have made is one which is above or against the law, and sets the law at defiance. If judges are obliged to decide upon such a case, as they must decide according to law, and cannot look to questions of political necessity, they must decide in favor of law and government. Dorr had the sagacity to see this, and he scouted the idea of submitting his case to the Supreme Court of the United States, though you have intimated the contrary. To a gentleman who suggested to him this course, before his appeal to arms, he said: "We have nothing to do with the Supreme Court, the People will settle this question for themselves."

But how, think you, would it consist with the dignity of a sovereign State to agree to make a case with its lawless citizens, and submit, to the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, the question whether the government which had existed for nearly two hundred years, and under which the State had become a member of the Confederation, and a party to the Constitution of the United States, whether this government was a lawful government, and had a right to enact and execute laws for its preservation, for the punishment of treason, and for the security of the lives and property of her citizens? To such degradation, I thank God, Rhode Island did not submit, and, I trust in God, she never will!

Yet you intimate as the reason why the "Charter party," as you are pleased to call the government of Rhode Island, did not adopt this course was "from an apprehension that the decision would be against them, and a desire by military operations, martial law, and other arbitrary and oppressive measures to overawe the people into the substitution of a less free and democratic Constitution for the one heretofore adopted by them."

Is this a specimen of your impartiality, or of that zeal in this new school of democracy, which is as regardless of truth as of decency?

You know that the first appeal to arms was made by Dorr and his associates. I speak not now of their military array at the organization of their government, when they marched through the streets of Providence with about 500 men under arms, summoned to overawe the government under the pretence of an escort. This was itself an overt act of treason, not under what has been called the Algerine law merely, but under the criminal code of 1836.

I refer to the events of May, when Dorr returned from New York and summoned his military force for offensive as well as defensive operations. It was not until lie had sent his armed men into the centre of Providence, and took from thence two brass field pieces with which he might attack the arsenal; it was not until he attempted to fire upon the arsenal, that the government and citizens were aroused to arms. Then "the people's Governor" fled from the indignation he had excited, and it was hoped that here the appeal to arms would end. But Dorr found friends in New York and Connecticut, and sympathizers in Massachusetts, and was again encouraged to summon his men to arms, and to form his camp at Chepatchet. It was then that the people of the State poured in from every quarter to defend the State and the government, and the 'people's Governor' fled a second time! It was when the State was thus invaded that martial law was declared by the Legislature, and the crisis fully justified it. What you are pleased to call "arbitrary and oppressive measures," were necessary to protect the lives and the property of our citizens, and our city from devastation and plunder. Yet you have not a word of censure for those who thus invaded the State; all your sympathies are enlisted in their behalf, and all your censure is reserved for those measures which so successfully defended our State and our city from the invasion, with scarcely the sacrifice of a single life!

But it is worse than ridiculous to hear you talk of "the leaders of the Charter party overawing the people by military operations!" How have these military operations been executed, but by the people themselves? The people overawe the people!!

The proposition you speak of to submit this controversy to the Supreme Court of the United States had never the sanction of Dorr. He spurned all terms of compromise which did not acknowledge his Constitution. His letter published in New York, after his attempt upon the arsenal, is sufficient evidence of this.

By what rule of charity or justice do you impute such motives to the government and freeholders of Rhode Island? You know, or ought to know, that a majority of the freeholders, so far from being disposed by force to hold on to the Charter and the freehold qualification, have been compelled to do so by the act of those men who have endeavored to force their Constitution on the State. A majority of the freeholders voted for the Constitution which was proposed by the legal Convention, and which gave to native American citizens as free a suffrage as the so called People's Constitution, except that it required a longer residence in the State of one year. And you know, or ought to know, that at the time you penned this letter, the Legislature of Rhode Island had passed an act for calling another Convention upon a very liberal basis. This basis was satisfactory to the suffrage men, until they .received other instructions, and were encouraged, by men out of the State, from such motives as are most apparent in your letter, to persevere in their revolutionary pretensions. It was for this purpose, that these clam-bakes have been got up. The gathering, to which your letter was written, was on the borders of the State, and on the very day when the people of Rhode Island were to vote for delegates to the Convention; and there is no doubt that this day was fixed upon to withdraw the suffrage men from the polls and prevent them from voting upon this question. Such are the means, adopted by yourself and others, which may render a resort to arms again necessary, in Rhode Island; yet you deprecate an appeal to force!!

I have a few words to say upon the questions of "free suffrage" and "equality of representation," which are held up by. you as "great principles" of division between the friends and the opposers of the suffrage Constitution!

The last is a question about which the freeholders of Providence county feel as great an interest as the non-freeholders, for they have quite as much at stake. But they do not feel that they have suffered any such practical grievance, in this respect, as to justify revolution; and they trust that, by legitimate reform, they will be able to obtain what they ought to ask, and live in peace with their southern brethren. But this is a very local question, and I do not see how it affects the United States at large, or Massachusetts in particular, so as to give you a right to interfere with it. If you deem it your duty to interfere wherever this inequality prevails, you will have work enough, and will no doubt feel yourself called upon, by a sacred regard for this "great principle," to endeavor to destroy the right which Rhode Island and Delaware and the smaller States have to an equal representation with the largest States in the Senate of the United States.

In the Senate of Rhode Island, under the Charter, all the voters are equally represented, for the Senators are chosen by a general ticket. In this branch, therefore, there is a greater equality of representation than exists under most of the State Constitutions, and the inequality which exists, in the House of Representatives, is the result of circumstances, and not of any original inequality in the provisions of the Charter.

I have, however, been not a little surprised at the fact, that those who talk so much about the democratical principle are so much disposed to forget it, when it becomes necessary to secure to themselves the power, in dividing a State into senatorial or representative districts. Then it is perfectly lawful and proper to secure to that party which may be a minority of the people, the greater number of senators and representatives.

If, by free suffrage, you mean universal suffrage, I suppose you know the "People's Constitution" excluded persons who were not white. If by free suffrage you mean a suffrage extending beyond the freehold qualification, there are but few, in our State, who are not willing to extend suffrage very much beyond this; and if our State were as large as Massachusetts, or had the conservatism of her Judiciary, there would not be on this point that difficulty in the minds of many, which there now is. Those who believe that the great security and conservatism of our republican institutions, are the virtuous and intelligent yeomanry which compose a majority of the people of the-United States, are desirous, that, in the extension of suffrage, this class of the Rhode Island people should not be put down by the stranger and sojourner, or by those who may be imported for the occasion.

That Convention, which, in the name of the people of Rhode Island, adopted the Constitution of the United States, declared, "that all men having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with, and attachment to the community, are entitled to the right of suffrage." A similar declaration is in the declaration of rights in the Virginia Consitution.

What this "sufficient evidence" is, it is for those to decide, where the Constitution has not decided it, who are entrusted with the other powers of government.

"The right of self government (you say) belongs to man as man and does not depend upon the accidents of birth or of real or personal estate."

The right of self government is one thing, but the right to govern others, is another. The one may belong to man as man, but the right of suffrage is a right to govern others, to control the destinies of thousands. It is a right to take the property of others, by taxes, and to dispose of it to such uses as the majority may prescribe. It is a political power, upon the judicious and virtuous exercise of which the well being of the community essentially depends, and the community have a right so to regulate it, as may best promote the public good.

Thus thought and thus acted the people of Rhode Island. The freehold qualification was their own act, not imposed upon them by a King, as it was originally in Virginia. It made no part of the Charter, but the people of Rhode Island, finding that it was necessary for their security, adopted it in 1724.

You say this right does not depend "upon the accident of birth." Do you mean to say that free States have no right to exclude foreigners from voting in their political affairs? Have not all independent States a right to say whom they will admit into, and whom they will exclude from, their body politic? All States have a right to exclude foreigners from their dominions, and to admit them on such terms as they please. If States are willing to suffer foreigners to reside in their territory, but are not willing to extend to them their political privileges, have these foreigners a right, as men, to these political privileges, in opposition to the laws of the State, and to assert this right by the right of revolution?

This, Sir, would have been thought strange doctrine if you had proclaimed it from the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and it is not entitled to more reverence, because it was communicated to a clam-bake "gathering," by a candidate for popular favor.

You may have thought the doctrine was necessary for the case. You may have heard how many foreigners residing in Rhode Island, acted as "the people of Rhode Island in their original sovereign capacity," in the making and adoption of "the People's Constitution!"

We say that persons bom out of the State, have no right to come into the State, and in violation of its laws, set up a natural right to become members of our body politic, and enforce it by revolution. If they are disposed to act in their "original capacity," and to claim their birthright, they should go to the land of their birth.

When they came into Rhode Island they were bound to know our laws, and they virtually submitted to them, and owed allegiance to the government of the State. They had no right to violate this allegiance, because they became dissatisfied with those institutions to which they originally assented and came to live under.

I now come towards the close of your letter. You say, "it is one of the beauties and excellencies of our admirable system of government, that it provides for the redress of all grievances, and the settlement of all controversies, without a resort to physical force" And then follows a lamentation over the military movements in Rhode Island, which you think "have added nothing to the happiness of the people, or the reputation of the State."

Sir, I do not rejoice at the cause of those military movements; and that we have been rendered very unhappy as a people, by the threats and forcible attempts of those with whom you so much sympathize, is very true. But I do rejoice that Rhode Island has manifested a portion of her ancient spirit, and I trust she will be able to defend her soil against invasion, and establish and maintain, for herself, Constitutions for her own government.

But what provision is there "in our admirable system of government," for such a case as has happened in Rhode Island," without a resort to physical force?" The remedies you have pointed out, the resignation of a Senator! and the making a case by agreement for the Supreme Court! are not provided for in our system of government.

There is a remedy provided "in our admirable system of government," but it is "a resort to force," the force of the Union, to preserve the State from "domestic violence." Read that provision of the Constitution of the United States, and then read the 43d number of the Federalist, written by Mr. Madison, which is a commentary upon it, and you will there see the Rhode Island case supposed almost by the spirit of prophecy, and provided for.

"At first view, (said Mr. Madison) it might seem not to square with the republican theory, to suppose either that a majority have not the right, or that a minority will have the force to subvert a government, and consequently that the federal interposition will never be required but when it be would improper. But theoretic reasoning in this, as in most cases, must be qualified by the lessons of practice."

Did Mr. Madison, and the wise master builders who framed the Constitution of the United States, dare to question the right of a majority to subvert a government? Had they the folly to prefer the school of practical wisdom to the "reasoning" of theorists? How unworthy were they to lay the foundations of our "admirable system of government!" What a pity that they could not have been initiated into the mysteries of democracy by Thomas W. Dorr, and our clam-bake orators! Then the Constitution of the United States would not have been so unworthy this age of progress.

But to proceed with Mr. Madison— "Why," said he, "may not illicit combinations for purposes of violence, be formed as well by a majority of a State, especially a small State, as by a majority of a county, or a district of the same State; and if the authority of the State ought in the latter case to protect the local magistracy, ought not the federal authority, in the former, to support the authority of the State?"

Mr. Madison asks— "Is it true that force and right are necessarily on the same side in republican governments?" He puts several cases to show they are not, and then the following, which is the Rhode Island case, supposing the Suffrage men had the majority which they claim:

"May it not happen, in fine, that the minority of citizens may become a majority of persons by the accession of alien residents, of a casual concourse of adventurers, or of those whom the Constitution of the State has not admitted to the right of Suffrage?"

Such was the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, when it was formed and adopted. Is it now to be interpreted in a different sense, and by those who have sworn to support it?

Mr. Madison thought the existence of this power in the general government would generally prevent the necessity of its exercise.

The government of Rhode Island, not wishing to resort to force, and believing that this appeal to the general government would prevent a resort to force by the revolutionists, called upon the President of the United States to protect the State from "domestic violence." The answer of the President was in conformity with the Constitution, but how we have been protected, we all know.

Rhode Island has been left, a prey to domestic and foreign violence, to fight her own battles. God be thanked, she has nevertheless been preserved! And we trust the same power which scattered our enemies, and gave us our bloodless victories, will still preserve us. We trust that the land which has been the cradle of religious liberty, is not to be the grave of Constitutional freedom. We trust that the spirit of party will pause before it sanctions doctrines so subversive of the Constitution of the United States, of the rights of Rhode Island as one of the States of the Union, and so destructive of social order and legitimate government.

But, whatever may come, we trust that Rhode Island will be true to herself, and maintain those rights which she has never surrendered— the right of legislating in reference to her internal concerns, of vindicating her authority over her own citizens, of judging for herself, and establishing such republican Constitutions as she may deem best fitted to promote her own happiness, and resisting all attempts, under whatever sanction, to impose upon her a Constitution which was conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity, and has been the fruitful parent of so many abominations.

If you are really the friend of peace you profess to be, and would promote the welfare of our State, you might have found a better mode of accomplishing both, than by encouraging with your presence and your pen, those men who have already been so much deluded. You may urge them on to scenes of bloodshed which may bring your own soul to a fearful account. The cant of democracy may here varnish over the crimes of rebellion and treason, but, in that day when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, the crimes of unprincipled ambition will receive their merited punishment. Towards yourself, Sir, I have no feelings of personal hostility, but I have felt it my duty to comment freely upon a letter which has been industriously circulated throughout our State, which so misrepresents facts, and advocates such dangerous principles. May "even-handed justice" never "commend the poisoned chalice to your own lips" May Massachusetts never feel the evil consequences of your doctrines. She has had her troubles, and may have them again, if your principles prevail. She had her agrarians, during the rebellion of Shays. When Constitutions and laws are not strong enough to govern the people, what is to protect our persons or our property? Free Suffrage lies now on the surface, but there are other principles and feelings which lie beneath. In Rhode Island, we have seen and heard enough to satisfy us that, in the opinion of our radical reformers, it is not the mere fabric of government which is out of joint, but the whole fabric of society. To ensure their success, they have infused into the poorer class those passions which would not only destroy our government, but our property and our lives. Methinks, your house is somewhat too high to suit the taste of the levellers. It might be spared you awhile, as belonging to Monsieur Egalite; but the moment you would stop the ball which you are now putting in motion, you would fall, as did many a French revolutionist, beneath the power of a greater Jacobin than himself.

In this country, our liberty has most to fear, not from the reign of law and order, but from the unrestrained licentiousness of the people. The true friends of liberty, and the best friends of the people are those who would strengthen those principles which are so necessary to restrain the violence of parties, to curb the will of triumphant majorities, and to give that security to minorities which will give security, to all.

One of the Rhode Island People.

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