ADOPTING A NATIONAL CONSTITUTION
The statesmen who had won the fight for a new form of national
government in the Philadelphia Convention lost no time in following
it up through the various stages leading practically to a _plebiscite_
of the people. Madison returned immediately to New York to resume his
seat in Congress, where the first stand must be made. That body had
been engaged during the summer with the Ordinance of 1787, and the
question of the navigation of the lower Mississippi. It was feared
that Richard Henry Lee, who had refused to be a delegate to the
convention, might make the Congress hostile to the new plan, or delay
it until after the fall meetings of the State Legislatures. Fortunately
there was a quorum when Madison arrived from Philadelphia. Through his
personal efforts and private letters from influential men, the Congress
in little more than a week had accepted the report of the convention
and transmitted it to the several State Legislatures for their
consideration. The members of the Legislatures in each State were
requested to call a popular convention to pass upon the new document,
rather than to consider it themselves. The Legislature is created to
make laws and not to judge of constitutions. The Articles had not
observed this canon of political science, but had been adopted by the
State Legislatures. Less haste and more regularity were to characterise
the consideration of the Constitution.
During the nine months following the submission of the Constitution
to the States, while the necessary nine ratifications were being
obtained, hope and fear alternated in the minds of its friends. To
Hamilton, success seemed so assured that he wished they had made the
Constitution "higher toned." Yet the struggle was likely to be arduous
enough under existing conditions. Since the word "Federal" had by
common usage been applied to the national in contradistinction to the
State governments, the new frame was known as "A plan for a new Federal
Government," and those who favoured it styled themselves "Federalists."
Men were known as "warm Federalists" before the discussion was a month
old. On the other hand, Richard Henry Lee had attacked the new idea
under the pseudonym, "The Federal Farmer." His use of the word was
entirely consistent with the desire of the opposition to continue a
federated instead of running the risk of a consolidated government.
As Gerry, an Anti-Federalist, complained later, an injustice was done
them by fastening upon them the word "Anti," when they were in favour
of retaining the Federal Government and the others wished to cast it
aside and to establish a National Government. The Federalists, in the
light of the present day, would be called "Unionists"; but, being
largely city dwellers and having control of the presses, they were
able to assume the less alarming name of "Federalist," and to put upon
their opponents the name "Anti-Federalist."
[Illustration: COPY OF THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION AND THE
CONSTITUTION IN PARALLEL COLUMNS. The foot-notes show that it is an
Anti-Federal print.]
The war between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists was waged chiefly
in the public press. Sixteen editions of the Constitution in pamphlet
form have survived to this day, in addition to those officially struck
off. An edition appeared in London. Another was printed in Albany, New
York, in the Dutch language. Pamphlets without number poured from the
presses. Correspondents occupied columns in the newspapers. When
Governor Clinton, of New York, opened his opposition batteries under
the pen name of "Cato," Hamilton replied vigorously in defence of the
new proposition under the name "Caesar." When George Mason addressed
his fellow-citizens of Virginia in a pamphlet against the Constitution,
he was answered by James Iredell as "Marcus." In other publications,
"Cassius," "Agrippa," "Sidney," and "Civis" filled columns, while
"Plain Dealer," "A Columbian Patriot," and "An American Citizen"
withheld not their pens. Much of the rapid increase in the number of
newspapers and the betterment of printing facilities in the United
States near the close of the century may be attributed directly to
these debates on the proposed Constitution. The religious controversial
literature of colonial days had now been replaced by political
composition.
Not only in the public press and in private letters did the Federalists
further their cause, but they did not hesitate at more cogent arguments.
When seventeen country members of the Pennsylvania Legislature ran
from the Assembly in order to break the quorum and so prevent the call
for a State convention to consider the Constitution, the remaining
members brought back two of them by force. "When perceiving the other
side to have an advantage, they play truant," said Noah Webster, a New
England pedagogue, who had gone to Philadelphia at this time to lecture
and to sell his new _Grammatical Institute_. "An officer or a mob hunts
the absconding members in all the streets and alleys in town." To be
held in their seats and counted as voting affirmatively, the
recalcitrant members declared an outrage. The Federalists thought they
deserved more punishment. When the State convention, thus called, met
in Philadelphia, two of its members, Wilson and McKean, made such
eloquent appeals for a trial of the new form that the auditors broke
into applause. The Anti-Federalist papers said the incident was
pre-arranged to influence the convention and reported that "the gallery
was filled with a rabble, who shouted their applause; and these heroes
of aristocracy were not ashamed, though modesty is their national
virtue, to vindicate such a violation of decency." The final vote of
the Pennsylvania State Convention, forty-six to twenty-three in favour
of the Constitution, was looked upon by the Federalists as a vindication
of their actions. In the Maryland Convention, a majority of sixty-three
refused to hear any compulsory amendments proposed by a minority of
eleven, on the grounds that they had been instructed by their
constituents to ratify or reject a constitution, not to make one.
The "Antis" soon found out, as "Antis" are wont to do, that opposing
a popular movement was an ungrateful, as well as an unpleasant task.
Pamphlets issued by the other side called them a junto of debtors,
knaves, and worthless-moneyists. The Anti-Federalist members of the
Massachusetts Convention complained that they were pointed out and
abused upon the streets. They also charged that the moneyed interests
of New York were trying to bribe the convention with large sums of
money sent to Boston.
"These lawyers and men of learning and moneyed interests," cried a
country delegate in the Boston Convention, "that talk so finely and
gloss over matters so smoothly to make us poor illiterate people swallow
down the pill, expect to get into Congress themselves; they expect to be
the managers of this Constitution and get all the power and the money
into their own hands; and they will swallow up all of us little folk
like the great Leviathan, Mr. President, yes, just as the whale
swallowed up Jonah."
When four hundred mechanics, or tradesmen, of Boston, in a set of
resolutions, demanded a favourable vote on the Constitution, and when
Paul Revere marshalled them at the Green Dragon tavern to shout for
the new frame, the Anti-Federalists called out "Intimidation!" but the
Federalists disclaimed such intention.
Concerted action usually wins over individualism. The Anti-Federalists
showed no such capacity for united efforts as the Federalists displayed.
For instance, Hamilton, with the aid of Madison and Jay, wrote a series
of articles for the New York press, calculated to explain the new
government, to enlighten the people, and to quiet their fears. Collected
into the _Federalist_, they form the best commentary yet written on
the Constitution. Copies of the numbers, as they appeared, were
forwarded from city to city to be reprinted in Federal newspapers.
Nothing was omitted likely to impress the people favourably. Impressive
ceremonies marked the ratification in each State as the news was
received. In Baltimore, a vessel, fifteen feet long, representing the
new frame, fully equipped and rigged, was drawn on wheels through the
streets, then launched on Chesapeake Bay, and navigated to Mt. Vernon,
where Washington received it "as a specimen of American ingenuity."
Even the muse of the Rev. Timothy Dwight was invoked to aid the Federal
cause by begging that all petty views be lost in a national horizon.
Some of his couplets run:
"Each party-view, each private good, disclaim,
Each petty maxim, each colonial aim;
Let all Columbia's weal your views expand
A mighty system rule a mighty land;
Yourselves her genuine sons let Europe own
Not the small agents of a paltry town."
It was a unique warfare. Where a people of different inheritance might
have appealed to arms, the appeal here was to intelligence, argument,
and the ballot. For nine months the struggle went on among the citizens
of the different States to determine whether they should abide by the
National Government they had legally adopted seven years before, or
whether they would exercise the right of peaceful revolution and cast
it aside for another. It was a true revolutionary movement, a turning
upside down, in comparison with which the Revolution of 1776 becomes
a revolt against the King. Recognising the revolutionary action of
annulling one frame of national government by adopting another, a wag
wrote this stanza:
"Here, too, I saw some mighty pretty shows,
A revolution, without blood or blows;
For as I understood the cunning elves,
The people all revolted--from themselves!"
The opposition to a change in the national form of government, as shown
in the debates in the various State conventions, was based upon
expediency among the masses and constitutionality among the few. In
the light of the dangers which have confronted the people during a
century of experience, some of the objections to the Constitution seem
ridiculous. But the objectors were sincere in their apprehensions,
being just emerged from a despotic government, and jealous of their
hard-earned liberty. It was the old story of individualism fearing to
trust its welfare to the general body. That liberty is gained by
entrusting liberty to an efficient government is a truism which it has
taken many years of self-rule to demonstrate.
There was a general cry among the opposition that the convention had
exceeded its powers in casting aside the Articles which it had been
called to correct. In examining the details of the new frame, some
deprecated the large number of Federal officers thus created, who would
form a body independent of the States and fattening on the general
treasury. Others feared the concentration of power in the President,
who would have control of the army, the navy, and the treasury; others
thought the number of terms he could serve should be restricted. Still
others criticised the six years allowed a senator. The saying was
general among the opposition that the individual had no protection
from the General Government; no assurance that his property might not
be seized by it, his worship interfered with, and himself robbed of
all those privileges for which his English forebears had contended.
The keener spirits among the opposition looked above these details and
saw a threatened consolidation of the Central Government. "Give me
leave to inquire," said Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention,
"who authorised them to speak the language of 'We, the people,' instead
of 'We, the States'? States are the characteristics and the soul of
a confederation." "I stumble at the threshold," said Samuel Adams, on
first reading the document. "I meet with a national government, instead
of a federal union of sovereign States." Said a member of the first
North Carolina Convention, "I am astonished that the servants of the
Legislature of North Carolina should go to Philadelphia and, instead
of speaking of the 'State' of North Carolina should speak of the
'people.'" In the Massachusetts Convention it was declared that "We,
the people," created an actual consolidation of the States, and the
moment it was adopted would mean the dissolution of the State
governments.
A few advocates of the new Government did not hesitate to admit that
it was intended to form an efficient government for the entire people
of the United States, regardless of the States. One of the two must
be superior. In the convention, Gouverneur Morris had made this laconic
speech, "Mr. President, if the rod of Aaron do not swallow the rods
of the magicians, the rods of the magicians will swallow the rod of
Aaron." However, the more politic endeavoured to quiet the fears of
the people by explaining that "We, the people," was simply the style
or title of the new form; that the powers given to the Central
Government were entirely national ones; that all the rest were reserved
to the States; and that the people could easily change the Constitution
by amending it if they experienced any danger at any time from the
central authority.
These words of the preamble to the Constitution, so pregnant of future
interpretation, were thus, from the beginning, a cause of alarm to a
few minds. Patrick Henry seemed to feel presciently that the later
theory of an indissoluble union would be based largely upon this phrase,
and that the Civil War to preserve the Union would be justified by it.
Yet its incorporation in the document in that form was due purely to
an accident. The Virginia plan contained no preamble. Pinckney's plan,
as given by Madison, began, "We, the people of the States of New
Hampshire, etc." When the first rough draft of the Constitution had
been put together by the Committee on Detail, during the eleventh week
of the convention, and secretly printed for the use of the members,
the preamble began, "We, the people of the States of New Hampshire,"
etc. Six weeks later, the revised draft was reported with the preamble
changed to "We, the people of the United States," etc. What caused the
change to be made? Chiefly because the blank designating the number
of States required to put the new form into execution had been filled
with the word "nine." No one could tell which nine would ratify first
and, therefore, no list of States could be put into the preamble. A
phrase covering all the people of the United States was substituted.
What slight chances give rise to arguments justifying the making of
a nation!
[Illustration: FIRST DRAFT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
The form of the preamble in this draft is described in the text of
this volume. It was printed for the benefit of the members of the
Convention in making further changes.]
Two factors were potent in securing the final success of the new plan.
One was the provision in the last clause by which the new frame could
be amended easily. The unanimity which the Articles required in order
to correct a mistake had taught a valuable lesson. Three-fourths was
to be the maximum requirement hereafter. It is interesting to note
that a unanimous vote has never been obtained on any amendment thus
far made to the Constitution. The other favourable circumstance was
the tacit understanding that Washington would consent to serve as the
first President, guaranteeing the perpetuity of the Republic by his
past record. His fidelity had been tested at the close of the
Revolutionary War, when a devoted army might have made him a Julius
Caesar or an Oliver Cromwell in the chaotic condition of affairs. That
he had returned to his Virginia farm to become an active citizen was
an assurance that he could now be trusted with the vast powers conferred
on the chief executive under the new plan.
The State conventions were not slow to take advantage of the privilege
of proposing amendments, and these the promoters were too wise to
resist. Proposals to make amendments were non-committal and harmless
where the motto was "Anything to get the new plan in operation."
Massachusetts wished nine additions made, South Carolina four, Virginia
twenty, New Hampshire twelve, New York thirty-two, and North Carolina
twenty-six. Of the 103 propositions submitted to the consideration of
Congress by the conventions, many were duplicates. Only ten were
destined to survive. At the time, they served as a machine of the gods
to avert the dangerous proposition that another convention be held to
draw up a second constitution embracing the desired changes.
No one can read the acts of ratification in which these proposed
amendments were incorporated or added without being impressed by the
fear of the States that they were hazarding their hard-earned liberties
in this experiment. It is easy to make light of them in the successful
experience of a hundred years. It is clear now that whatever precautions
the States took would be swept aside by the hand of necessity, and
that later generations would repudiate some of the principles laid
down in their manifestos. It is useless to demand consistency in a
growing body. How futile for Virginia and Rhode Island, for instance,
to declare that all power granted under the Constitution proceeds from
the people of the United States and that, whenever the same is
perverted, it may be resumed by them! Being adopted in State conventions
and voicing the sentiment of the people in these established groups,
is it unlikely that they meant the people of the United States as
grouped into the several States precisely as they had formed and were
now adopting their Constitution? Yet a generation or two later, Virginia
was to be told that she meant the people of the entire United States,
regardless of State lines, and in this opinion the people of Rhode
Island in that generation would join.
How useless for South Carolina to make as part of her ratification the
precautionary statement that no part of the Constitution should ever
be construed so that the States might be deprived of any power not
expressly relinquished by them! How fruitless for New Hampshire to
stipulate that all powers not expressly delegated by the Constitution
should be reserved to the several States to be exercised by them! How
profitless fate was to make the stipulations of New York that Congress
should never lay any kind of excise except on ardent spirits, and that
the clauses in the Constitution forbidding Congress to do certain
things should not be construed into a permission to do anything except
that which was named in the document! Time was soon to demonstrate the
folly of attempting to place these barriers in the path of progress.
Under such restrictions, the new Government would have been as helpless
as the old, unless new powers had been added to it from time to time
by the precarious method of amendment. Advancement must have been
hindered constantly by waiting on the slow process of adding provisions
to the Constitution. Such crises as the purchase of Louisiana, the
suppression of domestic insurrection, and the adjustment of the national
finances after the War of 1812 could never have been met because of
constitutional limitations.
Several of the States incorporated in their acts of ratification a
kind of political creed of the inalienable rights of the individual.
Although not intended as amendments or even as conditions of
ratification, they were supposed to be a kind of perpetual compact
between the State and the nation. They were modelled after the Bill
or Declaration of Rights in some of the State constitutions. Rhode
Island, for instance, declared that "the rights aforesaid cannot be
abridged or violated and that the explanations aforesaid are consistent
with the said Constitution." Time was to show in seasons of national
aggrandisement, during the reconstruction period, for instance, how
futile such State barriers would be in hedging about the national
powers. These sticklers for individualism and fearing souls could not
see that the central clearing-house, which the people of the respective
States were creating, could not be confined to a few expressed powers;
that unseen situations and sudden emergencies would call for action
not specified; that to make a list of allowable acts in advance was
simply an impossibility. In their alarm, they failed to see that the
individuals of which the States were composed would come in contact
more closely with local than with national affairs; that they would
participate more frequently in State than in Federal Government; and
that this very participation for the regulation of local affairs would
perpetuate a fealty to the State which would guarantee its perpetuity
within its proper sphere. But, at the time, many agreed with Lowndes,
who predicted in the South Carolina Convention that despite all
precautions the State powers under the Constitution would soon be
confined to the regulation of ferries and roads.
All anxiety about ratification ceased on the second day of July, the
anniversary of the motion for independence, when the favourable act
of New Hampshire, the ninth State necessary, reached Congress. The
matter of arranging for putting the new Government into motion was
referred to a committee. In taking this action, the old Congress was
sealing its death-warrant. It would cease to exist, and be replaced
by two houses of Congress under the Constitution. It had served well
its purpose. Called into life by the necessity of colonial co-operation
in 1774, the Continental Congress had gradually assumed sufficient
power to bring a great war to a successful conclusion. Deprived of
much of this power under the Articles, circumscribed by the suspicious
bounds of State sovereignty, the Congress had become a thing of
contempt. Not a member was now present who had been among those
assembled at the hall of the Carpenters' Association in Philadelphia
fourteen years before. Not a man now present was a signer of the
Declaration of Independence.
Nevertheless the body assumed an unwonted activity in these, its last
days. A quorum was had during several of the summer months of 1788.
The business of settling accounts between the Confederation and the
several States was actively carried on, and further arrangement was
made for selling the public lands in the North-West Territory. The
form of levying quotas upon the States, amounting to a million and a
half dollars, was again gone through with. Since it was unlikely that
these assessments would be paid, John Adams borrowed one million
guilders in Holland for ten years with which to inaugurate the new
Government.
A petition for statehood from the settlers in Kentucky, the second in
the long list of additions to the Union, reached Congress, accompanied
by the consent of Virginia to the severance of her western district.
Since the time for the beginning of the new Government was so near at
hand, the petition was returned with the suggestion that it be renewed
after that event.
The principal item of domestic expenditure was found to be that for
supporting the United States army of 595 officers and men scattered
along the frontier. They were garrisoned in Fort Pitt, at the head of
the Ohio River; Fort Franklin and Fort McIntosh, between Pitt and Lake
Erie; Fort Harmar, at the mouth of the Muskingum; Fort Steuben, at the
falls of the Ohio, now Louisville; and Fort Vincennes, on the Wabash,
now in Indiana. Also a force consisting of an officer, one sergeant,
and fifteen privates was stationed at West Point. To meet the expenses
for these troops, and also those for Indians and pensions, there was
available in the domestic treasury the sum total of $22,000.
The committee of Congress to whom had been given the arrangement for
putting the new Government into motion found that the election of
senators and representatives was left by the Constitution to the States;
that the creation of the Federal judiciary belonged to the new Congress;
and that only the measures necessary for the election of a President
were left to them. They therefore set the first Wednesdays of the first
three months in the following year for the three steps of appointing
presidential electors, having them cast their ballots, and for
commencing proceedings under the Constitution. These dates were adjusted
to the meetings of the State Legislatures, as Madison explained to a
correspondent. No objection was found to this arrangement of time, but
the selection of a place in which to begin the new Government aroused
the old sectional fear and avarice, and precipitated a two-months'
contest, during which New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Wilmington,
Lancaster, and Annapolis were considered. "The present seat of Congress"
was finally adopted largely through impossibility of agreeing on
another.
[Illustration: LAST PAGE OF THE MINUTES OF THE OLD CONGRESS. Preserved
in the archives of the Department of State. It shows that members
appeared occasionally as late as March 2, two days before the new
government was to be inaugurated; the printed journals differ, stating
that members appeared until the first of November only.]
Having thus planned for its successor, having arranged the finances,
the army, the post-office, the public land system, and other national
affairs as best it could, the Continental or Confederation Congress
slowly dwindled in membership until it lacked a quorum early in October,
1788. A few members attended at intervals until the beginning of the
following March, when the thirty-nine foolscap volumes recording the
birth of the United States were closed, to be deposited among the
archives of the United States under the Constitution. A successor was
now ready to undertake the task for which the Confederation had been
found inadequate.