In the event of an extension of your boundary beyond the Congressional line, would it be impracticable for you to have commissioners appointed to adjust any differences which might arise? I presume the principal object with you in the extension of your boundary would be to cover some private interests. This might be matter of negotiation.
There is one thing which I think it proper to mention to you, about which I have some doubt; that is, whether a legislative accession would be deemed valid. It is the policy of the system to lay its foundations in the immediate consent of the people. You will best judge how far it is safe or practicable to have recourse to a convention. Whatever you do, no time ought to be lost. The present moment is undoubtedly critically favorable. Let it by all means be improved. I remain, with esteem, Sir,
Your obedient and humble servant,
A. Hamilton.
Nathaniel Chipman, Esq.
WASHINGTON TO HAMILTON.
Mount Vernon, October 3, 1788.
Dear Sir:
In acknowledging the receipt of your candid and friendly letter of —— by the last post, little more is incumbent on me than to thank you sincerely for the frankness with which you communicated your sentiments; and to assure you that the same manly tone of intercourse will always be more than barely welcome. Indeed, it will be highly acceptable to me. I am particularly glad, in the present instance, you have dealt thus freely and like a friend.
Although I could not help observing from several publications and letters, that my name had been sometimes spoken of, and that it was possible the contingency which is the subject of your letter might happen; yet I thought it best to maintain a guarded silence and to back the counsel of my best friends (which I certainly hold in the highest estimation), rather than to hazard an imputation unfriendly to the delicacy of my feelings. For, situated as I am, I could hardly bring the question into the slightest discussion, or ask an opinion, even in the most confidential manner, without betraying, in my judgment, some impropriety of conduct, or without feeling an apprehension that a premature display of anxiety might be construed into a vain-glorious desire of pushing myself into notice as a candidate. Now, if I am not grossly deceived in myself, I should unfeignedly rejoice in case the Electors, by giving their votes in favor of some other person, would save me from the disagreeable dilemma of being forced to accept or refuse. If that may not be, I am in the next place earnestly desirous of searching out the truth, and of knowing whether there does not exist a probability that the Government would be just as happily and effectually carried into execution without my aid as with it. I am truly solicitous to obtain all the previous information, which the circumstances will afford, and to determine (when the determination can with propriety be no longer postponed) according to the principles of right reason and the dictates of a clear conscience, without too great a reference to the unforeseen consequences which may affect my person or reputation. Until that period, I may fairly hold myself open to conviction, though I allow your sentiments to have weight in them; and I shall not pass by your arguments without giving them as dispassionate a consideration as I can possibly bestow on them.
In taking a survey of the subject in whatever point of light I have been able to place it, I will not suppress the acknowledgment, my dear sir, that I have always felt a kind of gloom upon my mind as often as I have been taught to expect I might, and perhaps must, ere long be called to make a decision. You will, I am well assured, believe the assertion (though I have little expectation it would gain credit from those who are less acquainted with me), that if I should receive and act under the appointment, the acceptance would be attended with more diffidence and reluctance than ever I experienced before in my life. It would be, however, with a fixed and sole determination of lending whatever assistance might be in my power to promote the public weal, in hopes that, at a convenient and an early period, my services might be dispensed with, and that I might be permitted once more to retire, to pass an unclouded evening after the stormy day of life, in the bosom of domestic tranquillity.