But what avails it to dwell on these things? The want of a _bill of rights_ is the great evil. There was no occasion for a bill of _wrongs_; for there will be wrongs enough. But oh! a _bill of rights_! What is the nature of a bill of rights? “It is a schedule or inventory of those powers which Congress do not possess.” But if it is clearly ascertained what powers they have, what need of a catalogue of those powers they have not? Ah! there is the mistake. A minister preaching, undertook, first, to show what was in his text; second, what was not in it. When it is specified what powers are given, why not also what powers are not given? A bill of rights is wanting, and all those things which are usually secured under it— 1. The _rights of conscience_ are swept away. The Confession of Faith, the Prayer-Book, the Manual and Pilgrim’s Progress are to go. The psalms of Watts, I am told, are the only thing of the kind that is to have any quarter at all. 2. The _liberty of the press_—that is gone at the first stroke. Not so much as an advertisement for a stray horse, or a runaway negro, can be put in any of the gazettes. 3. The _trial by jury_—that is knocked in the head, and all that worthy class of men, the lawyers, who live by haranguing and bending the juries, are demolished. I would submit it to any candid man, if in this constitution there is the least provision for the privilege of shaving the beard? or is there any mode laid down to take the measure of a pair of breeches? Whence is it then, that men of learning seem so much to approve, while the ignorant are against it? The cause is perfectly apparent, viz., that reason is an erring guide, while instinct, which is the governing principle of the untaught, is certain. Put a pig in a poke, carry it half a day’s journey through woods and by-ways, let it out, and it will run home without deviation. Could Dr. Franklin do this? What reason have we then to suppose that his judgment, or that of Washington, could be equal to that of Mr. Smilie(55) in state affairs? Were it not on this principle that we are able to account for it, it might be thought strange that old Livingston,(56) of the Jersies, could be so hoodwinked as to give his sanction to such a diabolical scheme of tyranny amongst men—a constitution which may well be called hell-born. For if all the devils in Pandemonium had been employed about it, they could not have made a worse. Neil MacLaughlin, a neighbor of mine, who has been talking with Mr. Findley, says that under this constitution all weavers are to be put to death. What have these innocent manufacturers done that they should be proscribed?