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I. ASSEMBLY AND CONSTITUTION
B. THE ADDRESS OF THE SECEDING
ASSEMBLYMEN AND THE REPLY OF SIX
ASSEMBLYMEN
The Address of the Seceding Assemblymen'
Gentlemen: When in consequence of your suffrages at the last
election we were chosen to represent you in the General Assembly
of this Commonwealth, we accepted of the important trust, with a
determination to execute it in the best manner we were able, and
we flatter ourselves we acted in such a manner as to convince you,
that your interests with that of the good of the state has been the
object of our measures.
During the fall and spring sessions of the legislature, on the
recommendation of the Congress of the United States, your represen-
tatives proceeded to the appointment of delegates to attend a con-
vention to be held in the city of Philadelphia, for the purposes of
revising and amending the present Articles of Confederation, and
to report their proceedings to Congress, and when adopted by them,
and ratified by the several states to become binding on them as part
of the Confederation of the United States. We lamented at the time
that a majority of our legislature appointed men to represent this
state who were all citizens of Philadelphia, none of them calculated
to represent the landed interest of Pennsylvania, and almost all of
them of one political party, men who have been uniformly opposed
to that constitution for which you have on every occasion manifested
your attachment. We were apprehensive at the time of the ill conse-
quences of so partial a representation, but all opposition was in vain.
When the Convention met, members from twelve states attended and,
after deliberating upwards of four months on the subject, agreed on
a plan of government which was sent forward by them to Congress,
and which was reported to the House by the delegates of Pennsylvania
as mere matter of information, and printed in the newspapers of the
city of Philadelphia; but the House had not received it officially from
Congress, nor had we the least idea that, as the annual election was
so near, we should be called upon to deliberate, much less to act on
so momentous a business; a business of the utmost importance to you
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