Town voters are partly representatives, i. e. many people pay town taxes who have no right to vote, but the money they vote away is principally their own. The towns in this state tax themselves less willingly than smaller bodies. They generally however tax themselves sufficiently to nearly pay the demands against them within the year, very seldom raise money beforehand by taxes. The General Assembly of this state could never be induced to _attempt_ to do more than pay the annual interest of what they owe, and occasionally sink very small parts of the principal, and they never in fact did thus much, and we are all witnesses that they are full as careful of the public money as we can wish. It never was a complaint that they were too ready to allow individuals large sums. A man who has a claim against a town, and applies to a town-meeting, is very likely to obtain justice: but he who has a claim against the state, and applies to the General Assembly, stands but a poor chance to obtain justice. Some rule will be found to exclude his claim,—or to lessen it,—or he will be paid in a security—not worth half the money. You have uniformly experienced that your representatives are as careful, if not more so, of your money, than you yourselves are in your town-meetings; but still your representatives are generally men of property, and those of them who are most independent, and those whom you have sent to Congress, have not been by any means the least careful. A Countryman, V. The New Haven Gazette, (Number 44) TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1787. TO THE PEOPLE OF CONNECTICUT. You do not hate to read Newspaper Essays on the new constitution, more than I hate to write them. Then _we will be short_—which I have often found the _best_ expression in a dull sermon, except the _last_. Whether the mode of election pointed out in the proposed constitution is well calculated to support the principles which were designed to be established in the different branches of the legislature, may perhaps be justly doubted:—and may perhaps in some future day be discussed. The design undoubtedly was, that the house of representatives should be a _popular_ assembly,—that the senate should, in its nature, be somewhat more permanent, and that the two houses should be completely independent of each other. These _principles_ are right—for the present we will suppose they will be supported—there then remains to be considered no considerable difference between the constitutional government which is proposed, and your present government, except that the time for which you choose your present rulers is only for six and twelve months, and the time for which you are to choose your continental rulers is for two, four and six years.