The letter printed below, running to seventeen manuscript pages, contains JM’s detailed explanation of that opinion and reveals that the man who later became an indefatigable publicist in support of the new Constitution was in fact profoundly disappointed with the results of the convention. Shortly before the Philadelphia convention adjourned, JM confided to Jefferson his opinion that the proposed Constitution would “neither effectually answer its national object nor prevent the local mischiefs which every where excite disgusts agst the state governments” (6 Sept.
