“Under a government thus constituted, all would be uncertain and insecure. From the deficiency of one stationary and independent department in its administration, the rights of the people and the best interests of the state would, eventually, become the sport of opposite and contending parties; these rights and interests would be sacrificed at the shrine of some desperate and unprincipled faction; the constitution itself, destitute of any steady disinterested support against their machinations, would be overthrown: till, finally, the people, having no longer any rallying point of security for their persons or property, would be driven from anarchy and licentiousness into the arms of despotism. “It is further worthy of remark, that the council of censors was an inefficient and a nugatory tribunal, in one most important particular: Numerous unconstitutional acts of the legislature might have been carried into effect, and have had their complete operation, attended by the most unjust and ruinous consequences, before they could be even pronounced unconstitutional.” Footnote 236a: In a pamphlet, entitled “The Constitutionalist; addressed to men of all parties in the United States”—published in Philadelphia, in the year 1804. ----- The other was composed of the projectors of the constitution of 1776, and other speculative politicians; together with all those whom they were enabled to influence, through the medium of their prejudices, their inexperience or their interests. These two parties continued to divide the state, until the adoption of the fœderal constitution. The great and multiplied evils which resulted to the people of the United States, after the restoration of peace, and which had also been severely felt during the greater part of the war, from the inefficacy of the original confœderation of the States, had convinced all thinking men of the necessity of forming a more energetic national government, as the only remedy for those evils. And the actual formation of such a government, aided by the long experience which the citizens of Pennsylvania had then acquired, of the injurious effects of their own existing constitution, disposed them soon after to establish the present constitution of the state, which was done in convention on the 2d of September 1790; a form of government, free from the palpable errors of the preceding one, and much more consonant to the genius and spirit of the fœderal constitution. It is, then, a very extraordinary circumstance, and one that reflects great honour on the character of Mr. Rittenhouse, that, in the long course of years during which the people of Pennsylvania were thus divided into two contending parties, he alone could unite the favourable opinion of both parties, respecting his superior claims to hold one of the most important offices in the government.