Extract of a letter from the Hon. William Pierce, Esq., to St. George Tucker, Esq.,

dated New York, September 28, 1787.

You ask me for such information as I can, with propriety, give you, respecting the proceedings of the Convention: In my letter from Phila­delphia, in July last, I informed you that everything was covered with the veil of secrecy. It is now taken off, and the great work is presented to the public for their consideration. I enclose you a copy of it, with the letter which accompanies the Constitution.

 You will probably be surprised at not finding my name affixed to it; and will, no doubt, be desirous of having a reason for it. Know then, Sir, that I was absent in New York on a piece of business so necessary that it became unavoidable. I approve of its principles, and would have signed it with all my heart, had I been present. To say, however, that I consider it as perfect, would be to make an acknowledgment immedi­ately opposed to my judgment. Perhaps it is the only one that will suit our present situation. The wisdom of the Convention was equal to something greater; but a variety of local circumstances, the inequality of states, and the dissonant interests of the different parts of the Union, made it impossible to give it any other shape or form.

            The great object of this new government is to consolidate the Union, and to give us the appearance and power of a nation. The inconveni­ence of the different states meeting on the footing of compleat equality, and as so many sovereign powers confederated, has been severely felt by the Union at large; and it is to remedy this evil that something like a national institution has become necessary. The condition of America demands a change; we must sooner or later be convulsed if we do not have some other government than the one under which we at present live. The old Federal Constitution is like a ship bearing under the weight of a tempest; it is trembling, and just on the point of sinking. If we have not another bark to take us up we shall all go down together. There are periods in the existence of a political society that require prompt and decisive measures; I mean that point of time between a people's running into anarchy and an anxious state of the public mind to be rescued from its approaching mischiefs by the intervention of some good and efficient government. That is precisely the situation in which we seemed to be placed. A question then arises, shall we have this gov­ernment, or shall we run into confusion? It is with the people to decide the alternative.

I am well aware that objections will be made to this new government when examined in the different states; some will oppose it from pride, some from self‑interest, some from ignorance, but the greater number will be of that class who will oppose it from a dread of its swallowing up the individuality of the states. Local circumstances will weigh against the general interest, and no respect will be paid to all the parts aggregated which compose the Confederacy. Good a5 well as bad men will probably unite their interest to oppose it, and some small convulsions may possibly happen in some of the states before it is adopted, but I am certain it is the ark that is to save us. I therefore hope and trust it will be accepted. It is a difficult point to concentrate thirteen different interests so as to give general and compleat satisfaction. But as individuals in society (to use an old hackneyed and well known principle) give up a part of their national rights to secure the rest, so the different states should render a portion of their interests to secure the good of the whole. Was this ques­tion proposed to each of the states separately,  "What kind of govern­ment is best calculated for the people of the United States? " there would be as many different opinions as there are different interests. It would be like the decisions of the seven wise men of Greece, who were called on, at the Court of Periander, to give their sentiments on the nature of a perfect commonwealth ‑- they all judged differently, but they all judged right, in the view each man had of it.

Many objections have been already started to the Constitution be­cause it was not founded on a Bill of Rights; but I ask how such. a thing could have been effected ; I believe it would have been difficult in the extreme to have brought the different states to agree in what probably would have been proposed as the very first principle, and that is, "that all men are born equally free and independent." Would a Virginian have accepted it in this form? Would he not have modified some of the expressions in such a manner as to have injured the strong sense of then, if not to have buried them altogether in ambiguity and uncertainty.

In my judgment, when there are restraints on power, to prevent its invading the positive rights of a people, there is no necessity for any such thing as a Bill of Rights. I conceive civil liberty is sufficiently guarded when personal security, personal liberty, and private property, are made the peculiar care of government. Now the defined powers of each de­partment of the government, and the restraints that naturally follow, wily be sufficient to prevent the invasion of either of those rights. Where then can be the necessity for a Bill of Rights ? It is with diffidence I start this question ; I confess I cannot help doubting the negative quality which it conveys, as some of the greatest men I ever knew have objected to the government for no other reason but because it was not buttoned i with a Bill of Rights ; men whose experience and wisdom are sufficient to give authority and support to almost any opinion they may choose to advance.

I set this down as a truth founded in nature, that a nation habituated to freedom will never remain quiet under an invasion of its liberties. The English history presents us with a proof of this. At the Conquest that nation lost their freedom, but they never were easy or quiet until the true balance between liberty and prerogative was established in the reign of Charles the second. The absolute rights of Englishmen are founded in nature and reason, and are coeval with the English Constitution itself. They were always understood and insisted on by them as well without as with a Bill of Rights. This same spirit was breathed into the Americans, and they still retain it, nor will they, I flatter myself, ever resign it to any power, however plausible it may seem. The Bill of Rights was not in­troduced into England until the Revolution of 1688, (upwards of Goo years after the Conquest) when the Lords and Commons presented it to the Prince and Princess of Orange. And afterwards the same rights were asserted in the Act of Settlement at the commencement of the present century, when the crown was limited to the House of Hanover. It was deemed necessary to introduce such an instrument to satisfy the public mind in England, not as a bottom to the Constitution, but as a prop to it; and hereafter, if the same necessity should exist in America, it may be done by an act of the Legislature here, so that the Constitution not be­ing founded on a Bill of Rights I conceive will not deprive it at any fu­ture time of being propt by one, should it become necessary.

A defect is found by some people in this new Constitution, because it has not provided, except in criminal cases, for Trial by Jury. I ask if the trial by jury in civil cases is really and substantially of any security to the liberties of a people. In my idea the opinion of its utility is founded more in prejudice than in reason. I cannot but think that an able judge is better qualified to decide between man and man than any twelve men possibly can be. The trial by jury appears tome to have been introduced originally to soften some of the rigors of the feudal system, as in all the countries where that strange policy prevailed, they had, according to Blackstone, °' a tribunal composed of twelve good men, true boni homines, usually the vassals or tenants of the Lord, being the equals or peers of the parties litigant." This style of trial was evidently meant to give the ten­ants a check upon the enormous power and influence of their respective Lords; and, considered in that point of view, it may be said to be a wise scheme of juridical polity; but applied to us in America, where every man stands upon a footing of independence, and where there is not, and I trust never will be, such an odious inequality between Lord and tenant as marked the times of a Regner or an Egbert, is useless, and I think altogether unnecessary ; and, if I was not in the habit of respecting some of the prejudices of very sensible men, I should declare it ridiculous. An Englishman to be sure will talk of it in raptures; it is a virtue in him to do so, because it is insisted on in Magna Charta (that favorite instrument of English liberty) as the great bulwark of the nation's happiness. But we in America never were in a situation to feel the same benefits from it that the English nation have. We never had anything like the Norman trial by battle, nor great Lords presiding at the heads of numerous tribes of tenants whose influence and power we wished to set bounds to.

As to trial by jury in criminal cases, it is right, it is just, perhaps it is indispensable,‑the life of. a citizen ought not to depend on the fiat of a single person. Prejudice, resentment, and partiality, are among the weaknesses of human nature, and are apt to pervert the judgment of the greatest and best of men. The solemnity of the trial by jury is suited to the nature of criminal cases, because, before a man is brought to answer the indictment, the fact or truth of every accusation is inquired into by the Grand jury, composed of his fellow citizens, and the same truth or fact afterwards (should the Grand Jury find the accusation well founded) is to be confirmed by the unanimous suffrage of twelve good men, 1' su­perior to all suspicion." I do not think there can be a greater guard to the liberties of a people than such a mode of trial on the affairs of life and death. But here let it rest.

The most solid objection I think that can be made to any part of the new government is the power which is given to the Executive Depart­ment; it appears rather too highly mounted to preserve exactly the equi­librium. The authority which the President holds is as great as that possessed by the King of England. Fleets and armies must support him in it. I confess however that I am at a loss to know whether any gov­ernment can have sufficient energy to effect its own ends without the aid of a military power. Some of the greatest men differ in opinion about this point. I will not pretend to decide it.

It requires very little wisdom or forethought to see into the conse­quences of the government when put compleatly in motion. You will observe that one branch of the Legislature is to come from the People, the other from the several State Legislatures; one is to sympathize with the people at large, the other with the sovereignty of the states, but the suffrages of the two are unequal; the House of Commons will have sixty‑five votes, while the Senate has only twenty‑six. Some of the states will have eight and ten Members in the Lower House, some only two or three, but all will have an equal number in the Senate. The ju­dicial Power is to extend 'Ito controversies between two or more states, between a state and citizens of another state, between citizens of different states, and between a state and the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens, or subjects." And the President is to be Commander in Chief of the Fleets and Armies of the United States, and the Militia of the states when called into the service of the Union. All this taken col­lectively forms such a power independent of the states as must eventu­ally draw from them all their remaining sovereignty. Whether such a thing is desirable or not let every man appeal to his own judgment to de­termine. It is clearly my opinion that we had better be consolidated than to remain any longer a confederated republic.

I would say something about the Article of Commerce, but it involves in it so much inquiry and calculation that I will reserve it for another letter. I know the most popular opposition in Virginia will be founded on this head, but I think it can be proven beyond a doubt that a uniform regulation of its principles will secure lasting and equal advantages to every part of the empire. If this right pact at first been lodged in the hands of Congress we should not at this day be in the condition we are.