blessings. These may in time outnumber those who are placed above the feelings of indigence. According to the equal laws of suffrage, the power will slide into the hands of the former. No agrarian attempts have yet been made in this Country, but symptoms, of a levelling spirit, as we have understood, have sufficiently appeared in certain quarters, to give notice of the future danger. How is this danger to be guarded ag^{st} on the republican principles? How is the danger in all cases of interested coalitions to oppress the minority to be guarded ag^{st}? Among other means by the establishment of a body in the Gov^t sufficiently respectable for its wisdom & virtue, to aid on such emergencies, the preponderance of justice by throwing its weight into that scale. Such being the objects of the second branch in the proposed Gov^t he thought a considerable duration ought to be given to it. He did not conceive that the term of nine years could threaten any real danger; but in pursuing his particular ideas on the subject, he should require that the long term allowed to the 2^d branch should not commence till such a period of life, as would render a perpetual disqualification to be re-elected little inconvenient either in a public or private view. He observed that as it was more than probable we were now digesting a plan which in its operation w^d decide for ever the fate of Republican Gov^t we ought not only to provide every guard to liberty that its preservation c^d require, but be equally careful to supply the defects which our own experience had particularly pointed out. M^r Sherman. Gov^t is instituted for those who live under it. It ought therefore to be so constituted as not to be dangerous to their liberties. The more permanency it has the worse if it be a bad Gov^t. Frequent elections are necessary to preserve the good behavior of rulers. They also tend to give permanency to the Government, by preserving that good behavior, because it ensures their re-election. In Connecticut elections have been very frequent, yet great stability & uniformity both as to persons & measures have been experienced from its original establishm^t to the present time; a period of more than a 130 years. He wished to have provision made for steadiness & wisdom in the system to be adopted; but he thought six or four years would be sufficient. He sh^d be content with either. M^r Read wished it to be considered by the small States that it was their interest that we should become one people as much as possible; that State attachments sh^d be extinguished as much as possible; that the Senate, sh^d be so constituted as to have the feelings of Citizens of the whole.