Philadelphia, August 12th, 1787.
The Convention having agreed upon the outlines of a plan of government for the United States, referred it to a small committee to detail: that committee have reported, and the plan is now under consideration. I am in hopes we shall be able to get through it by the 1st or 15th of September.
It is not probable that the United States will in future be so ideal as to risk their happiness upon the unanimity of the whole; and thereby put it in the power of one or two States to defeat the most salutary propositions, and prevent the Union from rising out of that contemptible situation to which it is at present reduced.