An honourable member from Pennsylvania objected against that part of the sixth article which requires an oath to be taken by the persons there mentioned, in support of the constitution, observing (as he justly might from the conduct the convention was then pursuing) how little such oaths were regarded. I immediately joined in the objection, but declared my reason to be, that I thought it such a constitution as no friend of his country ought to bind himself to support. And not more than two days before I left Philadelphia, another honourable member from the same state urged most strenuously that the Convention ought to hasten their deliberations to a conclusion, assigning as a reason that the Assembly of Pennsylvania was just then about to meet, and that it would be of the greatest importance to bring the system before that session of the legislature, in order that a Convention of the State might be immediately called to ratify it, before the enemies of the system should have an opportunity of making the people acquainted with their objections, at the same time declaring that if the matter should be delayed and the people have time to hear the variety of objections which would be made to it by its opposers, he thought it doubtful whether that state or any other state in the union would adopt it.(60) As soon as the honourable member took his seat, I rose and observed, that I was precisely of the same opinion, that the people of America never would, nor did I think they ought to, adopt the system, if they had time to consider and understand it; whereas a proneness for novelty and change—a conviction that some alteration was necessary, and a confidence in the members who composed the Convention—might possibly procure its adoption, if brought hastily before them, but that these sentiments induced me to wish that a very different line of conduct should be pursued from that recommended by the honourable member. I wished the people to have every opportunity of information, as I thought it much preferable that a bad system should be rejected at first, than hastily adopted and afterwards be unavailingly repented of. If these were instances of my “high approbation,” I gave them in abundance as all the Convention can testify, and continued so to do till I left them. That I expressed great regret at being obliged to leave Philadelphia, and a fixed determination to return if possible before the Convention rose, is certain. That I might declare that I had rather lose an hundred guineas than not to be there at the close of the business is very probable—and it is possible that some who heard me say this, not knowing my reasons, which could not be expressed without a breach of that secrecy to which we were enjoined, might erroneously have concluded that my motive was the gratification of vanity, in having my name enrolled with those of a Franklin and a Washington. As to the first, I cordially join in the