Otis' Letters in Defence of the Hartford Convention: And the People of Massachusetts

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S. Gardner, 1824 - Hartford Convention - 103 pages

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Page 28 - I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.
Page iv - A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves...
Page 28 - I am not ripe to pass sentence on the gravest public bodies, intrusted with magistracies of great authority and dignity, and charged with the safety of their fellowcitizens, upon the very same title that I am. I really think that for wise men this is not judicious, for sober men not decent, for minds tinctured with humanity not mild and merciful.
Page 17 - ... discountenance whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can, in any event, be abandoned...
Page 83 - Resolved, As the sense of the Senate of Massachusetts, that in a war like the present, waged without justifiable cause and prosecuted in a manner which indicates that conquest and ambition are its real motives, it is not becoming a moral and religious people to express any approbation of military or naval exploits which are not immediately connected with the defence of the sea coast and the soil.
Page 38 - States any corps of troops which may have been or may be raised, organized, and officered, under the authority of any of the states...
Page 6 - At their command to hear the monarch plead, By their decrees to see that monarch bleed. What though thy faults were many and were great ? What though they shook the basis of the state ? In royalty secure thy person stood, And sacred was the fountain of thy blood. Vile ministers, who dared abuse their trust, Who dared seduce a King to be unjust, Vengeance, with justice leagued, with power made strong, Had nobly crushed : the King could do no wrong.
Page 38 - Massachusetts, separately, or in concert with neighbouring states, may be enabled to assume the defence of their territories against the enemy ; and that to this end a reasonable portion of the taxes collected within said states may be paid into the respective treasuries thereof, and appropria ted to tbp payment of the balance due to the paid states, and to the future defence of the same; the amount, so paid into the said treasuries to be credited, and the disbursements so made as aforesaid to be...
Page 33 - Isthmus against invasion of either domestic or foreign disturbers of the peace of the State of Panama. . . . Neither the text nor the spirit of the stipulation in that article by which the United States engages to preserve the neutrality of the Isthmus of Panama...
Page 35 - States, such measures as they may deem expedient; and also to take measures, if they shall think it proper, for procuring a convention of delegates from all the United States in order to revise the Constitution thereof and more effectually to secure the support and attachment of all the people by placing all upon the basis of fair representation.

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