the measure proposed by your excellency, if we should now adopt it. Gentlemen may make additional propositions if they think fit. It is presumed that we shall exercise candor towards each other; and that whilst, on the one hand, gentlemen will cheerfully agree to any proposition intended to promote a general union, which may not be inconsistent with their own mature judgment, others will avoid the making such as may be needless, or tend to embarrass the minds of the people of this commonwealth and our sister states, and thereby not only frustrate your excellency's wise intention, but endanger the loss of that degree of reputation, which, I flatter myself, this commonwealth has justly sustained.
Mr. NASON. Mr. President, I feel myself happy that your excellency has been placed, by the free suffrage of your fellow-citizens, at the head of this government. I also feel myself happy that your excellency has been placed in the chair of this honorable Convention; and I feel a confidence that the proposition submitted to our consideration yesterday, by your excellency, has for its object the good of your country. But, sir, as I have not had an opportunity leisurely to consider it, I shall pass it over, and take a short view of the Constitution at large, which is under consideration; though my abilities, sir, will not permit me to do justice to my feelings or to my constituents. Great Britain, sir, first attempted to enslave us, by declaring her laws supreme, and that she had a right to bind us in all cases whatever. What, sir, roused the Americans to shake off the yoke preparing for them? It was this measure, the power to do which we are now about giving to Congress. And here, sir, I beg the indulgence of this honorable body to permit me to make a short apostrophe to Liberty. O Liberty! thou greatest good!
thou fairest property! with thee I wish to live—with thee I wish to die! Pardon me if I drop a tear on the peril to which she is exposed: I cannot, sir, see this brightest of jewels tarnished—a jewel worth ten thousand worlds; and shall we part with it so soon? O no. Gentlemen ask, "Can it be supposed that a Constitution so pregnant with danger could come from the hands of those who framed it?" Indeed, sir, 1 am suspicious of my own judgment, when I contemplate this idea—when I see the list of illustrious names annexed to it; but, sir, my duty to my constituents
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