A Memorandum & Remonstrance

Sir,

It has come to my attention that you persist in the opinion, advanced I trust in jest but defended I fear in earnest, that Central Jersey does not exist. As your partner in trade I am bound by duty, and by the terms of our association, to correct you when you err in matters of fact, lest the error spread to our ledgers. I have weighed your proposition with all the patience our partnership affords, and I find it wanting in law, in evidence, and in common sense. Facts are stubborn things, sir, and I intend to be stubborner still.

First, as to the Law

Be it known that in the year 2023 the Governor of that province did, with the full assent of its assembled legislature, affix his signature to an act declaring Central Jersey to exist, comprising at minimum the counties of Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, and Somerset, and commanding that all maps issued under the authority of the state be redrawn to acknowledge it. The Governor himself pronounced the debate settled, once and for all, upon the signing. Three years have since passed, and the statute stands unrepealed. You may quarrel with my opinion over ale; you may not quarrel with a law duly enacted, unless you propose to take up arms against the government of New Jersey, an enterprise I decline to finance from our common accounts.

Second, as to the Testimony of the Inhabitants

A careful census of opinion, conducted by learned men at a polling institute of considerable reputation, finds that a full third part of the people of the Jerseys, being some three millions of souls, freely declare themselves residents of Central Jersey. Mark the absurdity of your position: no man petitions for citizenship in a phantom. No farmer pays taxes to a fiction. Indeed the evidence runs opposite to your claim entirely, for the inhabitants of neighboring counties now clamor to be counted within Central Jersey rather than without. When men fight to enter a territory, the territory exists. I have yet to meet the soldier who stormed a castle made of air.

Third, as to the Character of the Country Itself

Central Jersey boasts a college at Princeton of the first rank, the state's great university at New Brunswick, lands of remarkable fertility, canals, and an industry in physic and chemistry that would make the natural philosophers of London green with envy. It is true its people divide their loyalties between the metropolis of New York and the city of Philadelphia, cheering the champions of neither with full conviction. But this divided condition is not the absence of a character. It is the character, in the same manner that a man standing between two quarreling brothers is not thereby rendered invisible.

As to Your Strongest Objection

Namely that the borders of Central Jersey are disputed and its definition uncertain, I concede the point and dismiss it in the same breath. The borders of every region known to mankind are disputed. Learned men cannot agree whether Ohio belongs to the Midwest, yet none among them proposes the Midwest is imaginary. Fuzzy edges are the common property of all lands, and of most arguments, including, I note, your own.

I close with this counsel: surrender the position with grace. It is no dishonor to yield to evidence; it is the very definition of reason, and it will cost you nothing but a small measure of pride, of which you keep an ample surplus. Central Jersey exists in law, in the hearts of its people, and upon the honest face of the land. To deny it further is not skepticism but obstinacy, and obstinacy is the armor of a man who has run out of arguments.

I remain, with sincere affection, and with no small satisfaction at having carried this dispute,

Your obedient servant and partner,

Postscript. The people of Central Jersey gather in great numbers at establishments bearing the curious name of “Wawa,” which they esteem above all others. I cannot account for it, but the evidence on every other point being sound, I am inclined to trust them on this also.