Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-three, by THEODORE DWIGHT, in the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York.

HISTORY

OF THE

HARTFORD CONVENTION.

No political subject that has ever occupied the attention, or excited the feelings of the great body of the people of these United States, has ever been the theme of more gross misrepresentation, or more constant reproach, than the assembly of delegates from several of the NewEngland states, which met at Hartford, in the state of Connecticut, in December, 1814, commonly called the "Hartford Convention." It has been reviled by multitudes of persons who were totally unacquainted with its objects, and its proceedings, and by not a few who probably were ignorant even of the geographical position of the place where the convention was held. And it was sufficient for those who were somewhat better informed, but equally regardless of truth and justice, that it afforded an opportunity to kindle the resentments of party against men whose talents they feared, whose respectability they could not but acknowledge, whose integrity they dare not impeach, and the purity of whose principles they had not the courage even to question. A great proportion of those who, at the present time, think themselves well employed in railing at the Hartford Convention, were school-boys at the time of its session, and, of course, incapable of forming opinions entitled to the least respect in regard to the objects which it had in view, or of the manner in which its duties

were performed. In the meantime, men of more age, and greater opportunities for acquiring knowledge, have stood calmly by, and have coolly heard the general falsehoods and slanders that have been uttered against the convention, giving them at least their countenance, if not their direct and positive support.

In these, and in various other ways, the Hartford Convention, from the time of its coming together to the present hour, has been the general topic of reproach and calumny, as well as of the most unfounded and unprincipled misrepresentation and falsehood.

In the meantime, very little has been done, or even attempted, by any person, to stem the general torrent of reproach by which that assembly have been assailed. Conscious of their own integrity, and the purity of their motives and objects, the members, with a single exception, have remained silent and tranquil, amidst the long series of efforts to provoke them to engage in a vindication of their characters and conduct. One able and influential member of the convention, a number of years since, published a clear and satisfactory account of its objects and its proceedings. But it was deemed sufficient for those who did not believe the accusations which had been so lavishly preferred against that body, and who, of course, had no intention of engaging seriously in a discussion of the general subject, to reply, that the author of the vindication was one of the accused, and on trial upon the charge of sedition, at least, if not meditated treason, against the United States, and therefore not entitled to credit.

This mode of replying to an unanswerable vindication of the convention, as might have been expected, satisfied the feelings of interested and devoted partizans; of course, that publication had no tendency to check the utterance or the circulation of party virulence, or vulgar detraction. Revilings of the convention have been continued in common conversation, in newspapers, in Fourth of July ora