In thus adopting the project of Timothy Pickering for a New England convention, Otis was not less careful than Pickering himself to suggest that the new Union should be consistent with the old one. American constitutional lawyers never wholly succeeded in devising any form of secession which might not coexist with some conceivable form of Union, such as was recognized by the Declaration of July 4, 1776; but no form of secession ever yet devised could coexist with the Union as it was settled by the Constitution of 1789; and the project of a New England convention, if carried out, dissolved that Union as effectually as though it had no other object. “No State shall, without the consent of Congress, ... enter into an agreement or compact with another State.”[348] Such was the emphatic interdict of the Constitution, and its violation must either destroy the Union or give it new shape. Doubtless the Union had existed before the Constitution, and might survive it; but a convention of the New England States could not exist under the Union of 1789. Another Boston Federalist, second to none in standing, who unlike Otis was implicitly trusted by the Essex Junto, wrote a letter to Senator Pickering, dated five days later:-- “Our Legislature will convene on January 24,” began Christopher Gore,[349] “and what will be proper for us to do under the circumstances of our times is doubtful. To ascertain the most useful course to be pursued on this occasion fills our minds with deep and anxious solicitude.... By conversing with our friends from the other New England States you might be able to know in what measures and to what extent they would be willing to co-operate with Massachusetts. The opposition, to be effectual of any change in our rulers, should comprehend all New England. These men, I fear, are too inflated with their own popularity to attend to any call short of this.” The action of Massachusetts was to be concerted with Connecticut; and the leading senator from Connecticut was Pickering’s very intimate friend, James Hillhouse, whose amendments to the Constitution, proposed to the Senate in an elaborate speech April 12, 1808, were supposed by his enemies to be meant as the framework for a new confederacy, since they were obviously inconsistent with the actual Union. Hillhouse and Pickering stood in the most confidential relations. From their common chamber in the “Six Buildings” they carried on their joint campaign against the embargo;[350] and with this advantage, Pickering in due time wrote his reply to Christopher Gore for the guidance of the Massachusetts General Court:--