As it was the earliest of these measures, it became the instrument for producing the rest, and would be the instrument for producing in future, a king, lords, and commons; or whatever else those who directed it might choose.

Withdrawn such a distance from the eye of their constituents, they would form the most corrupt government on earth, if the means of their corruption were not prevented.
These strictures on the conduct of administration were principally directed against measures which had originated with the secretary of the treasury, and had afterwards received the sanction of the legislature.

In the southern division of the continent, that officer was unknown, except to a few military friends, and to those who had engaged in the legislative or executive departments of the former or present government.

His systems of revenue having been generally opposed by the southern members, and the original opposition to the constitution having been particularly great in Virginia and North Carolina, the aspersions on his views, and on the views of the eastern members by whom his plans had been generally supported, were seldom controverted.

The remote tendency of particular systems, and the motives for their adoption, are so often subjects of conjecture, that the judgment, when exercised upon them, is peculiarly exposed to the influence of the passions; and where measures are in themselves burdensome, and the necessity for their adoption has not been appreciated, suspicions of their unknown advocates, can seldom be unsuccessfully urged by persons, in whom the people have placed their confidence.