you had brought upon yourselves, be the curse of posterity, and the scorn and scoff of nations. Deliberate, therefore, on this new national government with coolness; analize it with criticism; and reflect on it with candor: if you find that the influence of a powerful few, or the exercise of a standing army, will always be directed and exerted for your welfare alone, and not to the aggrandizement of themselves, and that it will secure to you and your posterity happiness at home, and national dignity and respect from abroad, adopt it; if it will not, reject it with indignation—better to be where you are for the present, than insecure forever afterwards. Turn your eyes to the United Netherlands, at this moment, and view their situation; compare it with what yours may be, under a government substantially similar to theirs. Beware of those who wish to influence your passions, and to make you dupes to their resentments and little interests—personal invectives can never persuade, but they always fix prejudices, which candor might have removed—those who deal in them have not your happiness at heart. Attach yourselves to measures, not to men. This form of government is handed to you by the recommendations of a man who merits the confidence of the public; but you ought to recollect that the wisest and best of men may err, and their errors, if adopted, may be fatal to the community; therefore, in principles of _politics_, as well as in religious faith, every man ought to think for himself. Hereafter, when it will be necessary, I shall make such observations on this new constitution as will tend to promote your welfare and be justified by reason and truth. CATO. _Sept. 26, 1787._ Cato, II. The New York Journal, (Number 2136) THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1787. For the New York Journal. _To the_ CITIZENS _of the_ STATE _of_ NEW YORK: “Remember, O my friends! the laws, the rights, The generous plan of power deliver’d down, By your renown’d Forefathers; So dearly bought, the price of so much blood! O let it never perish in your hands! But piously transmit it to your children.”