the trades, in Baltimore, followed by a banquet, a ball, and an
illumination. In this procession, the miniature ship "Federalist,"
which was afterwards presented to General Washington, and long rode at
anchor in the Potomac opposite Mount Vernon, was carried, as the type
of commerce and the consummate production of American naval
architecture.[425] The next day a packet sailed from the port of
Baltimore for Charleston, carrying the news of the ratification by
Maryland.[426] In how many days this "coaster" performed her voyage
is not known; but it is a recorded, though now forgotten, fact among
the events of this period, that on her return to Baltimore, where she
arrived on Saturday the 31st of May, the same vessel brought back the
welcome intelligence, that on the 23d of that month, "at five o'clock
in the afternoon," the convention of South Carolina had ratified the
Constitution of the United States. A salute of cannon on Federal Hill,
in the neighborhood of Baltimore, spread the joyful news far down the
waters of the Chesapeake to the shores of Virginia, and bold express
riders placed it in Philadelphia before the following Monday evening.
Such was the anxiety with which the friends of the Constitution in the
centre of the Union watched the course of events in the remaining
States. The accession of South Carolina was naturally regarded as very
important. Her delegates in the national Convention had assumed what
might be thought, at home and elsewhere, to be a great responsibility.
They had taken a prominent part in the settlement of the compromises
which became necessary between the Northern and the Southern States.
They had consented to a full commercial power, to be exercised by a
majority in both houses of Congress; to a power to extinguish the
slave-trade in twenty years; and to a power of direct and indirect
taxation, exports alone excepted. Would the people of South Carolina
consider the provisions made for their peculiar demands as equivalents
for what had been surrendered? Would they acquiesce in a system
founded in the necessities for local sacrifices, standing as they did
at the extremity of the interests involved in the Southern side of the
adjustment?
It is not probable that the people of South Carolina, at the time of
their adoption of the Constitution, supposed that they had any solid
reasons for dissatisfaction with such of its arrangements as in any
way concerned the subject of slavery. A good deal was said, _ad
captandum_, by the opponents of the Constitution, on these points, but
it does not appear to have been said with much effect. No man who has
ever been placed by the State of South Carolina in a public position,
has been more true to her interests and rights than General Pinckney;
and General Pinckney furnished to the people of the State--speaking
from his place in the legislature on his return from the national
Convention--what he considered, and they received, as a complete
answer to all that was addressed to their local fears and prejudices,
on these particular topics. When he had shown that, by the universal
admission of the country, the Constitution had given to the general
government no power to emancipate the slaves within the several
States, and that it had secured a right which did not previously
exist, of recovering those who might escape into other States; that
the slave-trade would remain open for twenty years, a period that
would suffice for the supply of all the labor of that kind which the
State would require; and that the admission of the blacks into the
basis of representation was a concession in favor of the State, of
singular importance as well as novelty;--he had disposed of every
ground of opposition relating to these points. And so the people of
the State manifestly considered.
But there was one part of the arrangements included in the
Constitution, on which they appear to have thought that they had more
reason to pause; and it is quite important that we should understand
both the grounds of their doubt, and the grounds on which they yielded
their assent to this part of the system. South Carolina was then, and
was ever likely to be, a great exporting State. Some of her people
feared that, if a full power to regulate commerce by the votes of a
majority in the two houses of Congress were to be exercised in the
passage of a navigation act, the Eastern States, in whose behalf they
were asked to grant such a power, would not be able to furnish
shipping enough to export the products of the planting States. This
apprehension arose entirely from a want of information; which some of
the friends of the Constitution supplied, while it was under
discussion. They showed that, if all the exported products of
Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia were obliged to be carried in
American bottoms, the Eastern States were then able to furnish more
than shipping enough for the purpose; and that this shipping must also
compete with that of the Middle States. Still it remained true, that
the grant of the commercial power would enable a majority in Congress
to exclude foreign vessels from the carrying trade of the United
States, and so far to enhance the freights on the products of South
Carolina. What then were the motives which appear to have led the
convention of that State to agree to this concession of the commercial
power?
It is evident from the discussions which took place in the
legislature, and which had great influence in the subsequent
convention, that the attention of the people of South Carolina was not
confined to the particular terms and arrangements of the compromises
which took place in the formation of the Constitution. They looked to
the propriety, expediency, and justice of a general power to regulate
commerce, apart from the compromise in which it was involved. They
admitted the commercial distresses of the Northern States; they saw
the policy of increasing the maritime strength of those States, in
order to encourage the growth of a navy; and they considered it
neither prudent, nor fit, to give the vessels of all foreign nations a
right to enter American ports at pleasure, in peace and in war, and
whatever might be the commercial legislation of those nations towards
the United States. For these reasons, a large majority of the people
of South Carolina were willing to make so much sacrifice, be it more
or less, as was involved in the surrender to a majority in Congress
of the power to regulate commerce.[427]
Still, the Constitution was not ratified without a good deal of
opposition on the part of a considerable minority. As the convention
drew towards the close of its proceedings, an effort was made to carry
an adjournment to the following autumn, in order to gain time for the
anticipated rejection of the Constitution by Virginia. This motion
probably stimulated the convention to act more decisively than they
might otherwise have done, for it touched the pride of the State in
the wrong direction. After a spirited discussion it was rejected by a
majority of forty-six votes, and the Constitution was thereupon
ratified by a majority of seventy-six. Several amendments were then
adopted, to be presented to Congress for consideration, three of which
were substantially the same with three of those proposed by
Massachusetts.[428]
On the 27th of May, there was a great procession of the trades, in
Charleston, in honor of the accession of the State, in which the ship
Federalist, drawn by eight white horses, was a conspicuous object, as
it had been in the processions of other cities.
FOOTNOTES:
[411] See an account of him, _ante_, Vol. I. Book III. Chap. XIV.
[412] This was a mistake. On the 12th of September, Messrs. Gerry and
Mason moved for a committee to prepare a bill of rights, but the
motion was lost by an equal division of the States. Elliot, V. 538.
[413] Mr. McKean, although his residence was at Philadelphia,
represented the lower counties of Delaware in Congress from 1774 to
1783. In 1777 he was made Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, being at the
same time a member of Congress and President of the State of Delaware.
[414] The Constitution was ratified by a vote of 46 to 23.
[415] This was at a meeting held at Harrisburg, September 3d, 1788.
[416] The opposite parties were so much excited against each other,
and the course of New Jersey was viewed with so much interest at
Philadelphia among the "Federalists," that a story found currency and
belief there, to the effect that Clinton, the Governor of New York,
had offered the State of New Jersey, through one of its influential
citizens, one half of the impost revenue of New York, if she would
reject the Constitution. The preposterous character of such a
proposition stamps the rumor with gross improbability. But its
circulation evinces the anxiety with which the course of New Jersey
was regarded in the neighboring States, and it is certain that the
opposition in New York made great efforts to influence it.
[417] The situation of Georgia was brought to the notice of Washington
immediately after his first inauguration as President of the United
States, in an Address presented to him by the legislature of the
State, in which they set forth two prominent subjects on which they
looked for protection to "the influence and power of the Union." One
of these was the exposure of their frontier to the ravages of the
Creek Indians. The other was the escape of their slaves into Florida,
whence they had never been able to reclaim them. Both of these matters
received the early attention of Washington's administration.
[418] He stated the annual expenditure of the government, including
the interest on the foreign debt, at £260,000 (currency), and then
showed that, in the three States of Massachusetts, New York, and
Pennsylvania, £160,000 or £180,000 per annum had been raised by
impost.
[419] Fragments only of the debates in the convention of Connecticut
are known to be preserved. They may be found in the second volume of
Elliot's collection.
[420] Three of them, Widgery, Thompson, and Nason, were from Maine;
there was a Dr. Taylor from the county of Worcester, and a Mr. Bishop
from the county of Bristol. These gentlemen carried on the greater
part of the discussion against the Constitution.
[421] Theophilus Parsons, afterwards the celebrated Chief Justice of
Massachusetts.
[422] Yeas, 187; nays, 168.
[423] This was the first of a series of similar pageants, which took
place in the other principal cities of the Union, in honor of the
ratification of the Constitution.
[424] The form of ratification and the amendments introduced by
Hancock into the convention of Massachusetts were drawn by Theophilus
Parsons. They were probably communicated to General Sullivan, the
President of the New Hampshire convention, by his brother, James
Sullivan, an eminent lawyer of Boston, afterwards Governor of
Massachusetts. The reader should compare the Massachusetts amendments
with those of the other States whose action followed that of
Massachusetts, for the purpose of seeing the influence which they
exerted. (All the amendments may be found in the Journals of the Old
Congress, Vol. XIII., Appendix.) See also _post_, Chap. III., as to
the effect of the course of Massachusetts on the mind of Jefferson.
[425] This little vessel sailed from Baltimore on the 1st of June, and
arrived at Mount Vernon, "completely rigged and highly ornamented," on
the 8th. It was a fine specimen of the then state of the mechanic
arts. See an account of it in Washington's Works, IX. 375, 376.
[426] There was then no land communication between the two places,
that could have carried intelligence in less than a month. A letter
written by General Pinckney to General Washington on the 24th of May,
announcing the result in South Carolina, was more than four weeks on
its way to Mount Vernon. (Washington's Works, IX. 389.) General
Washington had received the same news by way of Baltimore soon after
its arrival there.
[427] See the course of argument of Edward Rutledge, General Pinckney,
Robert Barnwell, Commodore Gillon, and others, as given in Elliot, IV.
253-316.
[428] See the Amendments, Journals of the Old Congress, Vol. XIII.,
Appendix.
CHAPTER III
RATIFICATIONS OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, VIRGINIA, AND NEW YORK, WITH PROPOSED
AMENDMENTS.
South Carolina was the eighth State that had ratified the
Constitution, and one other only was required for its inauguration. In
this posture of affairs the month of May in the year 1788 was closed.
An intense interest was to be concentrated into the next two months,
which were to decide the question whether the Constitution was ever to
be put into operation. The convention of Virginia was to meet on the
2d, and that of New York on the 17th, of June; the convention of New
Hampshire stood adjourned to the 18th of the same month. The latter
assembly was to meet at Concord, from which place intelligence would
reach the Middle and Southern States through Boston and the city of
New York. The town of Poughkeepsie, where the convention of New York
was to sit, lay about midway between the cities of Albany and New
York, on the east bank of the Hudson. The land route from the city of
New York to Richmond, where the convention of Virginia was to meet,
was of course through the city of Philadelphia. The distance from
Concord to Poughkeepsie, through Boston, Springfield, and Hudson, was
about two hundred and fifty miles. The distance from Poughkeepsie to
Richmond, through the cities of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore,
was about four hundred and fifty miles. The public mails, over any
part of these distances, were not carried at a rate of more than fifty
miles for each day, and over a large part of them they could not have
been carried so fast. The information needed at such a crisis could
not wait the slow progress of the public conveyances.
No one could tell how long the conventions of New York and Virginia
might be occupied with the momentous question that was to come before
them. It was evident, however, that there was to be a great struggle
in both of them, and it was extremely important that intelligence of
the final action of New Hampshire should be received in both at the
earliest practicable moment. For, whatever might be the weight due to
the example of New Hampshire under other circumstances, if, before the
conventions of New York and Virginia had decided, it should appear
that nine States had ratified the Constitution, the course of those
bodies might be materially influenced by a fact of so much consequence
to the future position of the Union, and to the relations in which
those two States were to stand to the new government. It was equally
important, too, that whatever might occur in the conventions of New
York and Virginia should be known respectively in each of them, as
speedily as possible. About the middle of May, therefore, Hamilton
arranged with Madison for the transmission of letters between Richmond
and Poughkeepsie, by horse expresses; and by the 12th of June he had
made a similar arrangement with Rufus King, General Knox, and other
Federalists at the East, for the conveyance from Concord to
Poughkeepsie of intelligence concerning the result in New Hampshire.
A very full convention of delegates of the people of Virginia
assembled at Richmond on the 2d of June, embracing nearly all the most
eminent public men of the State, except Washington and Jefferson. All
parties felt the weight of responsibility resting upon the State.
Every State that had hitherto acted finally on the subject had
ratified the Constitution; in three of them it had been adopted
unanimously; in several of the others it had been sanctioned by large
majorities; and in those in which amendments had been proposed, they
had not been made conditions precedent to the adoption. So far,
therefore, as the voice of any State had pronounced the Constitution
defective, or dangerous to any general or particular interest, the
mode of amendment provided by it, to be employed after it had gone
into operation, had been relied upon as sufficient and safe. The
opposition in Virginia were consequently reduced to this
dilemma;--they must either take the responsibility of rejecting the
Constitution entirely, or they must assume the equally hazardous
responsibility of insisting that the ratification of the State should
be given only upon the condition of previous amendments. They were
prepared to do both, or either, according to the prospects of success;
for their convictions were fixed against the system proposed; their
abilities, patriotism, courage, and personal influence were of a high
order; and their devotion to what they deemed the interests of
Virginia was unquestionable.
They were led, as I have already said they were to be, by Patrick
Henry, whose reputation had suffered no abatement since the period
when he blazed into the darkened skies of the Revolution,--when his
untutored eloquence electrified the heart of Virginia, and became, as
has been well said, even "a cause of the national independence."[429]
He had held the highest honors of the State, but had retired, poor,
and worn down by twenty years of public service, to rescue his private
affairs by the practice of a profession which, in some of its duties,
he did not love, and for which he had, perhaps, a single qualification
in his amazing oratorical powers. His popularity in Virginia was
unbounded. It was the popularity that attends genius, when thrown with
heart and soul, and with every impulse of its being, into the cause of
popular freedom; and it was a popularity in which reverence for the
stern independence and the self-sacrificing spirit of the patriot was
mingled with admiration for the splendid gifts of oratory which
Nature, and Nature alone, had bestowed upon him. But Mr. Henry was
rightly appreciated by his contemporaries. They knew that, though a
wise man, his wisdom lacked comprehensiveness, and that the mere
intensity with which he regarded the ends of public liberty was likely
to mislead his judgment as to the means by which it was to be secured
and upheld. The chief apprehension of his opponents, on this important
occasion, was lest the power of his eloquence over the feelings or
prejudices of his auditory might lead the sober reflections of men
astray.
He was at this time fifty-two years of age. Although feeling or
affecting to feel himself an old and broken man, he was yet
undoubtedly master of all his natural powers. Those powers he exerted
to the utmost, to defeat the Constitution in the convention of
Virginia. He employed every art of his peculiar rhetoric, every
resource of invective, of sarcasm, of appeal to the fears of his
audience for liberty; every dictate of local prejudice and State
pride. But he employed them all with the most sincere conviction that
the adoption of the proposed Constitution would be a wrong and
dangerous step. Nor is it surprising that he should have so regarded
it. He had formed to himself an ideal image which he was fond of
describing as the American spirit. This national spirit of liberty,
erring perhaps at times, but in the main true to right and justice as
well as to freedom, was with him a kind of guardian angel of the
republic. He seems to have considered it able to correct its own
errors without the aid of any powerful system of general
government,--capable of accomplishing in peace all that it had
unquestionably effected for the country in war. As he passed out of
the troubles and triumphs of the Revolution into the calmer atmosphere
of the Confederation, his reliance on this American spirit, and his
jealousy for the maxims of public liberty, led him to regard that
system as perfect, because it had no direct legislative authority. He
could not endure the thought of a government, external to that of
Virginia, and yet possessed of the power of direct taxation over the
people of the State. He regarded with utter abhorrence the idea of
laws binding the people of Virginia by the authority of the people of
the United States; and thinking that he saw in the Constitution a
purely national and consolidated government, and refusing to see the
federal principle which its advocates declared was incorporated in its
system of representation, he shut his eyes resolutely upon all the
evils and defects of the Confederation, and denounced the new plan as
a monstrous departure from the only safe construction of a Union. He
belonged, too, to that school of public men--some of whose principles
in this respect it is vain to question--who considered a Bill of
Rights essential in every republican government that is clothed with
powers of direct legislation.
On the first day of the session, at the instance of Mr. Mason, the
convention determined not to take a vote upon any question until the
whole Constitution had been debated by paragraphs; but the
discussions in fact ranged over the whole instrument without any
restriction. The opposition was opened by Henry, in a powerful speech
of a general nature, in which he demanded the reasons for such a
radical change in the character of the general government. That the
new plan was a consolidated government, and not a confederacy, he held
to be indisputable. The language of the preamble, which said _We, the
People_, and not _We, the States_, made this perfectly clear. But
States were the characteristics and the soul of a confederation. If
States were not to be the agents of this new compact, it must be one
great, consolidated, national government of the people of all the
States. This perilous innovation, altogether beyond the powers of the
Convention which had proposed it, had given rise to differences of
opinion which had gone to inflammatory resentments in different parts
of the country. He denied altogether the existence of any necessity
for exposing the public peace to such a hazard.
As soon as Henry had sat down, the Governor, Edmund Randolph, rose, to
place himself in a position of some apparent inconsistency. He had, as
we have seen, refused to sign the Constitution. On his return to
Virginia, he had addressed a long, exculpatory letter to the Speaker
of the House of Delegates, giving his reasons for this refusal; which
were, in substance, that he considered the Constitution required
important amendments, and that, as it would go to the conventions of
the States to be accepted or rejected as a whole, without power to
amend, he thought that his signature would preclude him from proposing
the changes and additions which he deemed essential. This letter had
attracted much attention both in and out of Virginia, and Randolph was
consequently, up to this moment, regarded as a firm opponent of the
Constitution. He chose, however, to incur the charge of that kind of
inconsistency which a statesman should never hesitate to commit, when
he finds that the public good is no longer consistent with his
adherence to a former opinion. He declared that the day of previous
amendments had passed. The ratification of the Constitution by eight
States had placed Virginia and the country in a critical position. If
the Constitution should not be adopted by the number of States
required to put it into operation, there could be no Union; and if it
were to be ratified by that number, and Virginia were to reject it,
she would have at least two States at the south of her which would
belong to a confederacy of which she would not be a member. He should,
therefore, vote for the unconditional adoption of the Constitution,
looking to future amendments, although he had little expectation that
they would be made.
This announcement took the opposition by surprise. But they relaxed
none of their efforts. They subjected every part of the Constitution
to a rigid scrutiny, and to the most subtle course of reasoning, as
well as to one which addressed the prejudices of the common mind. Some
of the most important only of the topics on which they enlarged can be
noticed here.
Their first and chief object was to show that the Constitution
presented a national and consolidated government, in the place of the
Confederation, and that under such a government the liberties of the
people of the States could not be secure. This character of the
proposed government Mr. Mason deduced from the power of direct
taxation, which, he contended, entirely changed the confederacy into
one consolidated government. This power, being at discretion and
unrestrained, must carry everything before it. The general government
being paramount to, and in every respect more powerful than, the State
governments, the latter must give way; for two concurrent powers of
direct taxation cannot long exist together. Assuming that taxes were
to be levied for the use of the general government, the mode in which
they were to be assessed and collected was of the utmost consequence,
and it ought not to be surrendered by the people of Virginia to those
who had neither a knowledge of their situation nor a common interest
with them. He would cheerfully acquiesce in giving an effectual
alternative for the power of direct taxation. He would give the
general government power to demand their quotas of the States, with an
alternative of laying direct taxes in case of non-compliance. The
certainty of this conditional power would, in all probability, prevent
the application of it, and the sums necessary for the Union would then
be raised by the States, and by those who would best know how they
could be raised.
Mr. Henry took a broader ground. He argued that the Constitution
presented a consolidated government, because it spoke in the name of
the People, and not in the name of the States. It was neither a
monarchy like England,--a compact between prince and people, with
checks on the former to secure the liberty of the latter; nor a
confederacy like Holland,--an association of independent States, each
retaining its individual sovereignty; nor yet a democracy, in which
the people retain securely all their rights. It was an alarming
transition from a confederacy to a consolidated government. It was a
step as radical as that which separated us from Great Britain. The
rights of conscience, trial by jury, liberty of the press, all
immunities and franchises, all pretensions to human rights and
privileges, were rendered insecure, if not lost, by such a transition.
It was said that eight States had adopted it. He declared that, if
twelve States and a half had adopted it, he would, with manly
firmness, and in spite of an erring world, reject it. "You are not to
inquire," said he, "how your trade may be increased, or how you are to
become a great and prosperous people, but how your liberties may be
secured";--and then, kindling with the old fire of his earlier days,
and with the recollection of what he had done and suffered for the
liberties of his country, he broke forth in one of his most indignant
and impassioned moods.[430]
Madison, always cool, clear, and sensible, answered these objections.
He described the new government as having a mixed character. It would
be in some respects federal, in others consolidated. The manner in
which it was to be ratified established this double character. The
parties to it were to be the people, but not the people as composing
one great society, but the people as composing thirteen sovereignties.
If it were a purely consolidated government, the assent of a majority
of the people would be sufficient to establish it. But it was to be
binding on the people of a State only by their own separate consent;
and if adopted by the people of all the States, it would be a
government established, not through the intervention of their
legislatures, but by the people at large. In this respect, the
distinction between the existing and the proposed governments was very
material.
The mode in which the Constitution was to be amended also displayed
its mixed character. A majority of the States could not introduce
amendments, nor yet were all the States required; three fourths of
them must concur in alterations; and this constituted a departure from
the federal idea. Again, the members of one branch of the legislature
were to be chosen by the people of the States in proportion to their
numbers; the members of the other were to be elected by the States in
their equal and political capacities. Had the government been
completely consolidated, the Senate would have been chosen in the same
way as the House; had it been completely federal, the House would have
been chosen in the same way as the Senate. Thus it was of a complex
nature; and this complexity would be found to exclude the evils of
absolute consolidation and the evils of a mere confederacy. Finally,
if Virginia were separated from all the States, her power and
authority would extend to all cases; in like manner, were all powers
vested in the general government, it would be a consolidated
government; but the powers of the general government are enumerated;
it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on
defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its
jurisdiction.
With respect to the powers proposed to be conferred on the new
government, he conceived that the question was whether they were
necessary. If they were, Virginia was reduced to the dilemma of either
submitting to the inconvenience which the surrender of those powers
might occasion, or of losing the Union. He then proceeded to show the
necessity for the power of direct taxation; and in answer to the
apprehended danger arising from this power united with the
consolidated nature of the government,--thus giving it a tendency to
destroy all subordinate or separate authority of the States,--he
admitted that, if the general government were wholly independent of
the governments of the States, usurpation might be expected to the
fullest extent; but as it was not so independent, but derived its
authority partly from those governments, and partly from the
people,--the same source of power,--there was no danger that it would
destroy the State governments.
In this manner, extending to all the details of the Constitution, the
discussion proceeded for nearly a week, the opposition aiming to show
that at every point it exposed the liberties of the people to great
hazards; Henry sustaining nearly the whole burden of the argument on
that side, and fighting with great vigor against great odds.[431] At
length, finding himself sorely pressed, he took advantage of an
allusion made by his opponents to the debts due from the United States
to France, to introduce the name of Jefferson.
"I might," said he, "not from public authority, but from good
information, tell you that his opinion is that you reject this
government. His character and abilities are in the highest estimation;
he is well acquainted in every respect with this country; equally so
with the policy of the European nations. This illustrious citizen
advises you to reject this government till it be amended. His
sentiments coincide entirely with ours. His attachment to, and
services done for, this country are well known. At a great distance
from us, he remembers and studies our happiness. Living in splendor
and dissipation, he thinks yet of Bills of Rights,--thinks of those
little, despised things called _maxims_. Let us follow the sage
advice of this common friend of our happiness."[432]
At the time when Mr. Henry made this statement, he had seen a letter
written by Mr. Jefferson from Paris, in the preceding February, which
was much circulated among the opposition in Virginia, and in which Mr.
Jefferson had expressed the hope that the first nine conventions might
accept the Constitution, and the remaining four might refuse it, until
a Declaration of Rights had been annexed to it.[433] Mr. Henry chose
to construe this into an advice to _Virginia_ to reject the
Constitution. But this use of Mr. Jefferson's opinion was not strictly
justifiable, since Virginia, in the actual order of events, might be
the ninth State to act; for the convention of New Hampshire was not to
reassemble until nearly three weeks after the first meeting of that of
Virginia, in which Mr. Henry was then speaking. The friends of the
Constitution, therefore, became somewhat restive under this attempt to
employ the influence of Jefferson against them. Without saying
anything disrespectful of him, but, on the contrary, speaking of him
in the highest terms of praise and honor, they complained of the
impropriety of introducing his opinion,--saying that, if the opinions
of important men not within that convention were to govern its
deliberations, they could adduce a name at least equally great on
their side;[434] and they then contended that Mr. Jefferson's letter
did not admit of the application that had been given to it.[435] But
the truth was, that the assertions of his opponents respecting New
Hampshire, and the ambiguous form of Mr. Jefferson's opinion, gave
Henry all the opportunity he wanted to employ that opinion for the
purpose for which he introduced it. "You say," said he, "that you are
absolutely certain New Hampshire will adopt this government. Then she
will be the ninth State; and if Mr. Jefferson's advice is of any
value, and this system requires amendments, we, who are to be one of
the four remaining States, ought to reject it until amendments are
obtained."[436]
Notwithstanding the efforts of Madison to counteract this artifice, it
gave the opposition great strength, because it enabled them to throw
the whole weight of their arguments against the alleged defects and
dangers of the Constitution into the scale of an absolute rejection.
Mr. Jefferson's subsequent opinion, formed after he had received
intelligence of the course of Massachusetts, had not then been
received, and indeed did not reach this country until after the
convention of Virginia had acted.[437] The opposition went on,
therefore, with renewed vigor, to attack the Constitution in every
part which they considered vulnerable.
Among the topics on which they expended a great deal of force was
that of the navigation of the Mississippi. They employed this subject
for the purpose of influencing the votes of members who represented
the interests of that part of Virginia which is now Kentucky. They
first extorted from Madison, and other gentlemen, who had been in the
Congress of the Confederation, a statement of the negotiations which
had nearly resulted in a temporary surrender of the right in the
Mississippi to Spain.[438] They then made use of the following
argument. It had appeared, they said, from those transactions, that
the Northern and Middle States, seven in number,[439] were in favor of
bartering away this great interest for commercial privileges and
advantages; that those States, particularly the Eastern ones, would be
influenced further by a desire to suppress the growth of new States in
the Western country, and to prevent the emigration of their own people
thither, as a means of retaining the power of governing the Union; and
that the surrender of the Mississippi could be made by treaty, under
the Constitution, by the will of the President and the votes of ten
Senators,[440] whereas, under the Confederation, it never could be
done without the votes of nine States in Congress.
It must be allowed that there had been much in the history of this
matter on which harsh reflections could be made by both sections of
the Union. But it was not correct to represent the Eastern and Middle
States as animated by a desire to prevent the settlement of the
Western country, or to say that they would be ready at any time to
barter away the right in the Mississippi. Seven of the States had
consented, in a time of war and of great peril, to the proposal of a
temporary surrender of the right to Spain, just when it was supposed
that negotiations between Spain and Great Britain might result in a
coalition which would deprive us of the river for ever, and when it
was thought that a temporary cession would fix the permanent right in
our favor.[441] This was undoubtedly an error; but it was one from
which the country had been saved, by the disputes which arose
respecting the constitutional power of seven States to give
instructions for a treaty, and by the prospect of a reconstruction of
the general government.[442] Now, therefore, that an entirely new
constitutional system had been prepared, the real question, in
relation to this very important subject, was one of a twofold
character. It involved, first, the moral probabilities respecting the
wishes and policy of a majority of the States; and, secondly, a
comparison of the means afforded by the Constitution for protecting
the national right to the Mississippi, with those afforded by the
Confederation,--assuming that any State or States might wish to
surrender it.
Upon this question Mr. Madison made an answer to the opposition, which
shows how accurately he foresaw the relations between the western and
the eastern portions of the Union, and how justly he estimated the
future working of the Constitution with respect to the preservation of
the Mississippi, or any other national right.
If interest alone, he said, were to govern the Eastern States, they
must derive greater advantage from holding the Mississippi than even
the Southern States; for if the carrying trade were their natural
province, it must depend mainly on agriculture for its support, and
agriculture was to be the great employment of the Western country. But
in addition to this security of local interest, the Constitution would
make it necessary for two thirds of all the Senators present--and those
present would represent all the States, if all attended to their
duty--to concur in every treaty. The President, who would represent the
people at large, must also concur. In the House of Representatives, the
landed, rather than the commercial interest, would predominate; and the
House of Representatives, although not to be directly concerned in the
making of treaties, would have an important influence in the
government. A weak system had produced the project of surrendering the
Mississippi; a strong one would remove the inducement.[443]
In the midst of these discussions, and while the opposition were
making every effort to protract them until the 23d of June,--when the
assembling of the legislature would afford a colorable pretext for an
adjournment,--Colonel Oswald of Philadelphia arrived at Richmond, with
letters from the Anti-Federalists of New York and Pennsylvania to the
leaders of that party at Richmond, for the purpose of concerting a
plan for the postponement of the decision of Virginia until after the
meeting of the convention of New York. It was supposed that, if this
could be effected, the opponents of the Constitution in New York would
be able to make some overture to the opposition in Virginia, for the
same course of action in both States. If this could not be brought
about, it was considered by the opposition at Richmond that the
chances of obtaining a vote for previous amendments would be
materially increased by delay. The parties in their convention were
nearly balanced, at this time. Mr. Madison estimated the Federal
majority at not more than three or four votes, if indeed the
Federalists had a majority, on the 17th of June, the day on which the
convention of New York was to meet.[444]
But we must now leave the convention of Virginia, and turn our eyes to
the pleasant village on the banks of the Hudson, where the convention
of New York was already assembling. Hamilton was there, and was its
leading spirit. How vigilant and thoughtful he was, we know;--sometimes
watching for the messenger who might descend the eastern hills with
reports from New Hampshire,--sometimes turning to the South and
listening for the footfall of his couriers from Virginia;--but always
preparing to meet difficulties, always ready to contest every inch of
ground, and never losing sight of the great end to be accomplished. The
hours were slow and heavy to him. The lines of horse-expresses which he
had so carefully adjusted, and at whose intersection he stood to
collect the momentous intelligence they would bring him, were indeed a
marvel of enterprise at that day; but how unlike were they to the
metallic lines that now daily gather for us, from all the ends of the
land and with the speed of lightning, minute notices of the most
trivial or the most important events! Still, such as his apparatus was,
it was all that could be had; and he awaited, alike with a firm
patience and a faithful hope, for the decisive results. Even at this
distance of time, we share the fluctuations of his anxious spirit, and
our patriotism is quickened by our sympathy.
Rarely, indeed, if ever, was there a statesman having more at stake in
what he could not personally control, or greater cause for solicitude
concerning the public weal of his own times or that of future ages,
than Hamilton now had. His own prospects of usefulness, according to
the principles which had long guided him, and the happiness or the
misery of his country, were all, as he was deeply convinced, involved
in what might happen within any hour of those few eventful days. The
rejection of the Constitution by Virginia would, in all probability,
cause its rejection by New York. Its rejection by those States would,
as he sincerely believed, be followed by eventual disunion and civil
war. But if the Constitution could be established, he could see the
way open to the happiness and welfare of the whole Union; for although
it was not in all respects the system that he would have preferred, he
had shown, in the Federalist, how profoundly he understood its bearing
upon the interests of the country, into what harmony he could bring
its various provisions, and what powerful aid he could give in
adjusting it into its delicate relations to the States. He had, too,
already conceived the hope that its early administration might be
undertaken by Washington; and with the government in the hands of
Washington, Hamilton could foresee the success which to us is now
historical.
To say that Hamilton was ambitious, is to say that he was human; and
he was by no means free from human imperfections. But his was the
ambition of a great mind, regulated by principle, and made incapable,
by the force and nature of his convictions, of seeking personal
aggrandizement through any course of public policy of which those
convictions were not the mainspring and the life. In no degree is the
character of any other American statesman undervalued or disparaged,
when I insist on the importance to all America, through all time, of
Hamilton's public character and conduct in this respect. It was
because his future opportunities for personal distinction and
usefulness were now evidently at stake in the success of a system that
would admit of the exercise of his great powers in the service of the
country,--a system that would afford at once a field for their
exercise and for the application of his political principles,--and
because he could neither seek nor find distinction in a line of
politics which tended to disunion,--that his position at this time is
so interesting and important. As a citizen of New York, too, his
position was personally critical. He had carried on a vigorous contest
with the opponents of the Constitution in that State; he had
encountered obloquy and misrepresentation and rancor,--perhaps he had
provoked them. He had told the people of the State, for years, that
they had listened to wrong counsels, when they had lent themselves to
measures that retarded the growth of a national spirit and an
efficient general government. The correctness of his judgment was now,
therefore, openly and palpably in the issue. His public policy, with
reference to the relations of the State to the Union, was now to
stand, or to fall, with the Constitution proposed.
When he entered the convention of the State, he was convinced that the
Anti-Federalists were determined that New York should not become a
member of the new Union, whatever might be done by the other
States.[445] He had also received information, which led him to
believe that the Governor, Clinton, had in conversation declared the
Union unnecessary; but of this, if true, he could make no public use.
His suspicions were certainly justified by the tendency of the
arguments made use of by the opposition, during the few first days of
the session; for it was the tendency of those arguments to maintain
the idea that New York could very well stand alone, even if the
Constitution should be established by nine States, she refusing to be
one of them. With this view, they pressed the consideration under
which they had all along acted, that the Confederation, if amended,
would be sufficient for all the proper purposes of a general
government; and their plan for such an amendment of the Confederation
was, to provide that its requisitions for money should continue to be
made as they had been, and that Congress should have the new power of
compelling payment by force, when a State had refused to comply with a
requisition.
Hamilton answered this suggestion with great energy. It is
inseparable, he said, from the disposition of bodies which have a
constitutional power of resistance, to inquire into the merits of a
law. This had ever been the case with the federal requisitions. In
this examination, the States, unfurnished with the lights which
directed the deliberations of the general government, and incapable of
embracing the general interests of the Union, had almost uniformly
weighed the requisitions by their own local interests, and had only
executed them so far as answered their particular convenience or
advantage. But if we have national objects to pursue, we must have
national revenues. If requisitions are made and are not complied with,
what is to be done? To coerce the States would be one of the maddest
projects ever devised. No State would ever suffer itself to be used as
the instrument of coercing another. A federal standing army, then,
must enforce the requisitions, or the federal treasury would be left
without supplies and the government without support. There could be no
cure for this great evil, but to enable the national laws to operate
on individuals, like the laws of the States. To take the old
Confederation as the basis of a new system, and to trust the sword and
the purse to a single assembly organized upon principles so
defective,--giving it the full powers of taxation and the national
forces,--would be to establish a despotism. These considerations
showed clearly that a totally different government, with proper powers
and proper checks and balances, must be established.
The convention soon afterwards passed to an animated discussion on the
system of representation proposed in the Constitution, and while an
amendment relating to the Senate was pending, on the 24th of June,
Hamilton received intelligence from the East, that on the 21st the
convention of New Hampshire had ratified the Constitution. Up to this
moment, the opposition, while disclaiming earnestly all wish to bring
about a dissolution of the Union, or to prevent the establishment of
some firm and efficient government, had still continued, in every
form, to press a line of argument which tended to produce the
rejection of the Constitution proposed; and it was evident that their
opponents could throw upon them the responsibility of a dissolution of
the Union only by a deduction from the tendency of their reasoning.
But now that the Constitution had been adopted by the number of States
which its provisions required for its establishment, the Federalists
determined that the opposition should publicly meet the issue raised
by the new aspect of affairs, which was to determine whether the State
of New York should or should not place itself out of the pale of the
new confederacy,--whether it should or should not stand in a hostile
attitude towards the nine States which had thus signified their
determination to institute a new government. Accordingly, on the next
day, Chancellor Livingston formally announced in the convention the
intelligence that had been received from New Hampshire, which, he
said, had evidently changed the circumstances of the country and the
ground of the present debate. He declared that the Confederation was
now dissolved. Would they consider the situation of their country?
However some might contemplate disunion without pain, or flatter
themselves that some of the Southern States would form a league with
them, he could not look without horror at the dangers to which any
such confederacy would expose the State of New York.
This dilemma embarrassed, but did not subdue, the opposition. They
reiterated their denial of a purpose to produce a dissolution of the
Union, doubtless with entire sincerity; but they continued the
argument which was designed to show that the State ought not to adopt
a system dangerous to liberty, under a fear of the situation in which
it might be placed.
Here, then, the reader should pause for a moment, in order to form a
just appreciation of the course pursued by Hamilton, in this altered
aspect of affairs, when nothing remained to be done but to get the
State of New York, if possible, into the new Union. We have now the
means of knowing precisely how he estimated the chances of succeeding
in this effort. On the 27th, while the discussion was still going on,
he wrote to Madison as follows: "There are some slight symptoms of
relaxation in some of the leaders, which authorizes a gleam of hope,
if you do well; but certainly I think not otherwise."[446] At the same
time, we know that his latest news from Virginia was not
encouraging.[447]
How easy, then, perhaps natural, it would have been for him to have
abandoned this "gleam of hope,"--to have turned his back upon the
State and all its cabals,--to have left the Anti-Federalists to
determine the fate of New York, and to have transferred himself to
what was then the larger community, the great State of Pennsylvania,
or to any of the other States which had adopted the Constitution! He
must have been received anywhere with the consideration due to his
high reputation, his abilities, his public services, and his
acknowledged patriotism. He must have been regarded, in any State that
had accepted the new government, as a person whose assistance was
indispensable to its success; and so he would have been looked upon by
the main body of the people throughout the new confederacy. He had no
ties of office to bind him to the State of New York. He held one of
her seats in the Congress of the Confederation, but that was a body
which must soon cease to exist. His political opponents had an
undoubted majority in the State. The social ties which had bound him
to her soil could have been severed. He could have left her,
therefore, to the counsels of his adversaries, and could have sought
and found for himself a career of ambition in the new sphere that was
open to receive him. That career would have tempted men of an inferior
mould, and would have seen them yield to the temptation perhaps the
more readily, because the conflicts that would have been inevitable
between rival confederacies would have presented fresh fields for
exertion and personal energy, new excitements and new adventures. It
is, too, a mournfully interesting reflection, that if Hamilton had
then cut himself free from the entanglements of the local politics of
New York by a change of residence, he probably could never have been
drawn into that miserable quarrel with the wretch who in after years
planned his destruction, and who gained by it the execrable
distinction of having taken the most important life that has ever
fallen by the assassination of the duel, since its opportunities for
murder have been known among men.
But with whatever melancholy interest we may pursue such a suggestion
of what Hamilton might have done, it needs but to be made, in order to
show how far he stood above the reach of such a temptation. From his
first entrance, in boyhood, into public life, his patriotism had
comprehended nothing less than the whole of the United States.
Whatever may be thought of his policy, either before or after the
Constitution was established, no just man will deny its comprehensive
nationality. He now saw that no partial confederacy of the States
could be of any permanent value. He had no favorite theories involved
in the Constitution, no peculiar experiments that he wished to try. He
embraced it, because he believed in its capacity to unite the whole of
the States, to concentrate and harmonize their interests, and to
accomplish national objects of the utmost importance to their welfare.
It could, without doubt, be inaugurated and put into operation without
the concurrence of New York. But to leave that, or any other State
near the geographical centre of the Union, out of the confederacy,
would be to leave its sovereignty and rights exposed to perpetual
collision with the new government. No public or private purpose could
have induced Hamilton to abandon any effort that might prevent such a
result. He still labored, therefore, with those who were associated
with him, to procure an adoption of the Constitution by the State of
New York; and we must bear in mind the vast importance of her action,
and the difficulties with which he had to contend, that we may take a
just view of the concessions to the opposition which he seems at one
stage of the crisis to have been obliged to consider.
But we must now leave him in the midst of the embarrassments by which
he was surrounded, to follow his messenger, whom he instantly
despatched, on the 24th, with letters to Madison at Richmond,
announcing the news of the ratification by New Hampshire. The courier
passed through the city of New York on the 25th, and reached
Philadelphia on the 26th. The newspapers of the latter city
immediately cried out, "The reign of anarchy is over," and the popular
enthusiasm rose to the highest point. The courier passed on to the
South; but the convention of Virginia had, in fact, ratified the
Constitution before he arrived in Philadelphia. Thus, while New
Hampshire, in the actual order of events, was the ninth State to adopt
the Constitution, yet Virginia herself, so far as the members of her
convention were informed, appeared at the time of their voting to be
the ninth adopting State. It is certain that they acted without any
real knowledge of what had taken place in New Hampshire, although
there may have been random assertions of what nobody at Richmond could
then have known.[448]
The result was brought about in Virginia by the force of argument, and
because the friends of the Constitution were at last able to reduce
the issue to the single question of previous or subsequent, that is,
of conditional or recommendatory, amendments. As the State appeared
likely to be the ninth State to act, and they could insist that, if
she rejected the Constitution, she must bear the responsibility of
defeating the establishment of the new government,--a consequence
which they could reasonably predict,--they had a high vantage-ground
from which to address the reason and patriotism of the assembly.
Henry and the other leaders of the opposition fought valiantly to the
last. When the whole subject had been exhausted, the friends of the
Constitution presented the propositions on which they were willing to
rest the action of the State, and which declared, in substance, that
the powers granted under the proposed Constitution are the gift of the
people, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them,
and at their will,--consequently that no right can be abridged,
restrained, or modified by the general government or any of its
departments, except in those instances in which power is given by the
Constitution for those purposes; and that, among other essential
rights, liberty of conscience and of the press cannot be cancelled,
abridged, restrained, or modified, by any authority of the United
States; that the Constitution ought, therefore, to be ratified, but
that whatsoever amendments might be deemed necessary ought to be
recommended to the consideration of the first Congress that should
assemble under the Constitution, to be acted upon according to the
mode prescribed therein.
Mr. Henry, on the other hand, brought forward a counter project, by
which he proposed to declare that, previous to the ratification of the
Constitution, a Declaration of Rights, asserting and securing from
encroachment the great principles of civil and religious liberty, and
the inalienable rights of the people, together with amendments to the
most exceptionable parts of the Constitution, ought to be referred by
the convention of Virginia to the other States in the American
confederacy for their consideration.
The issue was thus distinctly made between previous or conditional and
subsequent or unconditional amendments, and made in a form most
favorable to the friends of the Constitution; for it enabled them to
present so vigorously and vividly the consequences of suspending the
inauguration of the new government until the other States could
consider the amendments desired by Virginia, that they procured a
rejection of Mr. Henry's resolution by a majority of eight, and a
ratification of the Constitution by a majority of ten votes. A long
list of amendments, together with a Bill of Rights, was then adopted,
to be presented to Congress for its consideration.[449]
The conduct of Mr. Henry, when he saw that the adoption of the
Constitution was inevitable, was all that might have been expected
from his patriotic and unselfish character. "If I shall be in the
minority," he said, "I shall have those painful sensations which arise
from a conviction of being overpowered in a good cause. Yet I will be
a peaceable citizen. My head, my hand, and my heart shall be free to
retrieve the loss of liberty, and remove the defects of this system in
a constitutional way. I wish not to go to violence, but will wait with
hopes that the spirit which predominated in the Revolution is not yet
gone, nor the cause of those who are attached to the Revolution yet
lost. I shall, therefore, patiently wait in expectation of seeing this
government so changed as to be compatible with the safety, liberty,
and happiness of the people."[450] This noble and disinterested
patriot lived to find the Constitution all that he wished it to be,
and to enroll himself, in the day of its first serious trial, among
its most vigorous and earnest defenders.
But some of the members of the opposition were not so discreet.
Immediately after the adjournment of the convention, they prepared an
address to the people, intended to produce an effort to prevent the
inauguration of the new government by a combined arrangement among the
legislatures of the several States. But this paper, which never saw
the light, was rejected by their own party, and the opposition in
Virginia subsided into a general acquiescence in the action of the
convention.[451]
The ratification of Virginia took place on the 25th of June; the news
of this event was received and published in Philadelphia on the 2d of
July. The press of the city was at once filled with rejoicings over
the action of Virginia. She was the tenth pillar of the temple of
liberty. She was Virginia,--eldest and foremost of the States,--land
of statesmen whose Revolutionary services were as household words in
all America,--birthplace and home of Washington! We need not wonder,
when she had come so tardily, so cautiously, into the support of the
Constitution, that men should have hailed her accession with
enthusiasm. The people of Philadelphia had been for some time
preparing a public demonstration, in honor of the adoption of the
Constitution by nine States. Now that Virginia was added to the
number, they determined that all possible magnificence and splendor
should be given to this celebration, and they chose for it the
anniversary day of the National Independence.
A taste for allegory appears to have been quite prevalent among the
people of the United States at this period. Accordingly, the
Philadelphia procession of July 4, 1788, was filled with elaborate and
emblematic representations. It was a long pageant of banners, of
trades, and devices. A decorated car bore the Constitution framed as a
banner and hung upon a staff. Then another decorated car carried the
American flag and the flags of all friendly nations. Then followed the
judges in their robes, and all the public bodies, preceding a grand
federal edifice, which was carried on a carriage drawn by ten horses.
On the floor of this edifice were seated, in chairs, ten gentlemen,
representing the citizens of the United States at large, to whom the
Federal Constitution had been committed before its ratification. When
it arrived at "Union Green," they gave up their seats to ten others
representing the ten States which had ratified the instrument. The
federal ship, "The Union," came next, followed by all the trades,
plying their various crafts upon elevated platforms, with their
several emblems and mottoes, strongly expressing confidence in the
protection that would be afforded under the Constitution to all the
forms of American manufactures and mechanic arts. Ten vessels paraded
on the Delaware, each with a broad white flag at its masthead, bearing
the name of one of the ten States in gold letters; and, as if to
combine the ideas both of the absence and the presence of the ten
States, ten carrier-pigeons were let off from the printers' platform,
each with a small package bearing "the ode of the day" to one of the
ten rejoicing and sympathizing States.
Thus did ingenuity and mechanical skill exert themselves in quaint
devices and exhibitions, to portray, to personify, and to celebrate
the vast social consequences of an event which had then no parallel in
the history of any other country,--the free and voluntary adoption by
the people of a written constitution of government framed by the
agents and representatives of the people themselves. The carrier birds
are not known to have literally performed their tasks, but as rapidly
as horse and man could carry it, the news from Virginia pressed on to
the North, and reached Hamilton at Poughkeepsie on the 8th of July.
It found him still surrounded by the same difficulties that existed
when he received the result of the convention of New Hampshire. The
opposition had relaxed none of their efforts to prevent the adoption
of the Constitution; they had only become somewhat divided respecting
the method to be pursued for its defeat. Some of them were in favor of
conditions precedent, or previous amendments; some, of conditions
subsequent, or the proposal of amendments upon the condition that, if
they should not be adopted within a certain time, the State should be
at liberty to withdraw from the Union; and all of them were
determined, in case the Constitution should be ratified, to carry
constructive declarations of its meaning and powers as far as
possible. Hamilton was conscious that the chief danger to which the
Constitution itself was now exposed, was that a general concurrence in
injudicious recommendations might seriously wound its power of
taxation, by causing a recurrence, in some shape, to the system of
requisitions. The danger to which the State of New York was exposed,
was that it might not become a member of the new Union, in any form.
The leading Federalists who were united with Hamilton in the effort to
prevent such a disastrous issue of this convention were John Jay, the
Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, and James Duane. A few days after the
intelligence from New Hampshire was received, these gentlemen held a
consultation as to the most effectual method of encountering the
objections made to the general power of taxation that would be
conferred by the Constitution upon the general government. The
legislative history of the State, from 1780 to 1782, embraced a series
of official acts and documents, showing that the State had been
compelled to sustain a very large share of the burden of the
Revolutionary war; that requisitions had been unable to call forth the
resources of the country; and that, in the judgment of the State,
officially and solemnly declared in 1782, and concurred in by those
who now resisted the establishment of the Constitution, it was
necessary that the Union should possess other sources of revenue. The
Federalists now resolved that these documents be formally laid before
the convention, and Hamilton undertook to bring them forward.
On the 27th of June, he commenced the most elaborate and important of
the speeches which he made in this assembly, for the purpose of
showing that in the construction of a government the great objects to
be attained are a free and pure representation, and a proper balance
between the different branches of administration; and that when these
are obtained, all the powers necessary to answer, in the most ample
manner, the purposes of government, may be bestowed with entire
safety. He proceeded to argue, not only that a general power of
taxation was essential, but that, under a system so complex as that of
the Constitution,--so skilfully endowed with the requisite forms of
representation and division of executive and legislative power,--it
was next to impossible that this authority should be abused. In the
course of this speech, and for the purpose of showing that the State
had suffered great distresses during the war from the mode of raising
revenues by requisitions, he called for the reading at the clerk's
table of a series of documents exhibiting this fact. Governor Clinton
resisted their introduction, but they were read; and Hamilton and his
friends then contended, that they proved beyond dispute that the State
had once been in great peril for want of an energetic general
government.
This movement produced a warm altercation between the leading
gentlemen on the opposite sides of the house. But while it threw a
grave responsibility upon the opposition, it did not conquer them; and
by the day on which the intelligence from Virginia arrived, they had
heaped amendments upon the table on almost every clause and feature of
the Constitution, some one or more of which it was highly probable
they would succeed in making a condition of its acceptance.
This critical situation of affairs led Hamilton to consider, for a
short time, whether it might not be necessary to accede to a plan, by
which the State should reserve the right to recede from the Union, in
case its amendments should not have been decided upon, in one of the
modes pointed out by the Constitution, within five or six years. He
saw the objections to this course; and he was determined to leave no
effort untried to bring the opposition to an unqualified ratification.
But the danger of a rejection of the Constitution was extreme; and as
a choice of evils, he thought that, if the State could in the first
instance be received into the Union under such a reserved right to
withdraw, succeeding events, by the adoption of all proper and
necessary amendments, would make the reservation unimportant, because
such amendments would satisfy the more reasonable part of the
opposition, and would thus break up their party. But he determined not
to incur the hazard of this step upon his own judgment alone, or that
of any one else having a personal interest in the question; and
accordingly, on the 12th of July, he despatched a letter to Madison,
who was then attending in Congress at the city of New York, asking
his opinion upon the possibility of receiving the State into the Union
in this form.[452]
Madison instantly replied, that, in his opinion, this would be a
conditional ratification, and would not make the State of New York a
member of the new Union; that the Constitution required an adoption
_in toto_ and for ever; and that any condition must vitiate the
ratification of any State.[453]
Before this reply could have been received at Poughkeepsie, the
Federalists had introduced their proposition for an unconditional
ratification, and this was followed by that of the Anti-Federalists
for a conditional one. The former was rejected by the convention on
the 16th of July. The opposition then brought forward a new form of
conditional ratification, with a Bill of Rights prefixed, and with
amendments subjoined. After a long debate, the Federalists succeeded,
on the 23d of July, in procuring a vote to change this proposition, so
that, in place of the words "on condition," the people of the State
would be made to declare that they assented to and ratified the
Constitution "in full confidence" that, until a general convention
should be called for proposing amendments, Congress would not exercise
certain powers which the Constitution conferred upon them. This
alteration was carried by thirty-one votes against twenty-seven. A
list of amendments was then agreed upon, and a circular letter was
adopted, to be sent to all the States, recommending a general
convention; and on Saturday, the 26th of July, the ratification, as
thus framed, with the Bill of Rights and the amendments, was carried
by thirty affirmative against twenty-seven negative votes.[454]
By this slender majority of her delegates, and under circumstances of
extreme peril of an opposite decision, did the State of New York
accept the Constitution of the United States, and become a member of
the new government. The facts of the case, and the importance of her
being brought into the new Union, afford a sufficient vindication of
the course pursued by the Federalists in her convention. But it is
necessary, before closing the history of these events, to consider a
complaint that was made at the time, by some of the most zealous of
their political associates in other quarters, and which touched the
correctness of their motives in assenting to the circular letter
demanding a general convention for the amendment of the Constitution.
That there was danger lest another general convention might result in
serious injury to the Constitution, perhaps in its overthrow, was a
point on which there was probably no difference of opinion among the
Federalists of that day. Washington regarded it in this light; and
there is no reason to doubt that Hamilton and Jay, and many others of
the friends of the Constitution, would have felt great anxiety about
its result. But there were some members of the Federal party, in
several of the States, who do not seem to have fully appreciated the
importance of conceding to the opposition, at the time of the adoption
of the Constitution, the use of any and every form of obtaining
amendments which the Constitution itself recognized. This was true
everywhere, where serious dissatisfaction existed, and it was
especially true in the State of New York. It was impossible to procure
a ratification in that State, without an equivalent concession; and if
the Federal leaders in that convention assented to the proposal of a
course of amending the Constitution for which the instrument itself
provided, however ineligible it might be, their justification is to be
found in the circumstances of their situation. Washington himself,
when all was over, wrote to Mr. Jay as follows:--"Although I could
scarcely conceive it possible, after ten States had adopted the
Constitution, that New York, separated as it is from the others, and
peculiarly divided in sentiments as it is, would withdraw from the
Union, yet, considering the great majority which appeared to cling
together in the convention, and the decided temper of the leaders, I
did not, I confess, see how it was to be avoided. The exertion of
those who were able to effect this great work must have been equally
arduous and meritorious."[455]
But others were not so just. The Federalists of the New York
convention were complained of by some of their friends for having
assented to the circular letter, for the purpose of procuring a
ratification at any price, in order to secure the establishment of the
new government at the city of New York. It was said that the State had
better have remained out of the Union, than to have taken a course
which would prove more injurious than her rejection would have
done.[456]
With respect to these complaints and the accompanying charge, it is
only necessary to say, in the first place, that Hamilton and Jay and
their associates believed that there was far less danger to be
apprehended from a mere call for a second general convention, than
from a rejection of the Constitution by the State of New York; and
they had to choose between these alternatives. The result shows that
they chose rightly; for the assembling of a general convention was
superseded by the action of Congress upon the amendments proposed by
the States. In the second place, the alleged motive did not exist. We
now know that Hamilton certainly, and we may presume his friends also,
did not expect or desire the new government to be more than
temporarily placed at the city of New York. He himself saw the
impolicy of establishing it permanently either at that place or at
Philadelphia. He regarded its temporary establishment at the city of
New York as the certain means of carrying it farther south, and of
securing its final and permanent place somewhere upon the banks of the
Delaware within the limits of New Jersey, or upon the banks of the
Potomac within the limits of Virginia.[457]
The people of the city of New York had waited long for the decision of
their State convention. They had postponed several times their
intended celebration in honor of the Constitution, which, as it was to
be the last, they determined should be the most imposing of these
ceremonies. When the day at length came, on the 5th of August, 1788,
it saw a population whose mutual confidence and joy had absorbed every
narrow and bigoted distinction in that noblest of all the passions
that a people can exhibit,--love of country. It were a vain and
invidious task to attempt to determine, from the contemporary
descriptions, whether this display exceeded that of all the other
cities in variety and extent. But there was one feature of it so
striking, so creditable to the people of the city of New York, that it
should not be passed over. It consisted in the honors they paid to
Hamilton.
He must have experienced on that day the best reward that a statesman
can ever find; for there is no purer, no higher pleasure for a
conscientious statesman, than to know, by demonstrations of public
gratitude, that the humblest of the people for whose welfare he has
labored appreciate and are thankful for his services. Public life is
often represented, and often found, to be a thankless sphere, for men
of the greatest capacity and the highest patriotism; and the
accidents, the defeats, the changes, the party passions and
obstructions of the political world, in a free government, frequently
make it so. But mankind are neither deliberately heartless nor
systematically unthankful; and it has sometimes happened, in popular
governments, that statesmen of the first order of mind and character
have, while living, received the most unequivocal proofs of feeling
directly from the popular heart, while the sum total of their lives
appears in history to be wanting in evidences of that personal success
which is attained in a constant triumph over opponents. Such an
expression of popular gratitude and sympathy it was now the fortune of
Hamilton to receive.
The people of the city did not stop to consider, on this occasion,
whether he was entitled, in comparison with all the other public men
in the United States, to be regarded as the chief author of the
blessings which they now anticipated from the Constitution. And why
should they? He was their fellow-citizen,--their own. They remembered
the day when they saw him, a mere boy, training his artillerymen in
their public park, for the coming battles of the Revolution. They
remembered the youthful eloquence and the more than youthful power
with which he encountered the pestilent and slavish doctrines of their
Tories. They thought of his career in the army, when the extraordinary
maturity, depth, and vigor of his genius, and his great
accomplishments, supplied to Washington, in some of the most trying
periods of his vast and prolonged responsibility, the assistance that
Washington most needed. They recollected his career in Congress, when
his comprehensive intellect was always alert, to bear the country
forward to measures and ideas that would concentrate its powers and
resources in some national system. They called to mind how he had kept
their own State from wandering quite away into the paths of
disunion,--how he had enlightened, invigorated, and purified public
opinion by his wise and energetic counsels,--how he had led them to
understand the true happiness and glory of their country,--how he had
labored to bring about those events which had now produced the
Constitution,--how he had shown to them the harmony and success that
might be predicted of its operation, and had taught them to accept
what was good, without petulantly demanding what individual opinion
might claim as perfect.
What was it to them, therefore, on this day of public rejoicing, that
there might be in his policy more of consolidation than in the policy
of others,--that he was said to have in his politics too much that was
national and too little that was local,--that some had done as much as
he in the actual construction of the system which they were now to
celebrate? Such controversies might be for history, or for the
contests of administration that were soon to arise. On this day, they
were driven out of men's thoughts by the glow of that public
enthusiasm which banishes the spirit of party, and touches and opens
the inmost fountains of patriotism. Hamilton had rendered a series of
great services to his country, which had culminated in the adoption of
the Constitution by the State of New York; and they were now
acknowledged from the very hearts of those who best knew his motives
and best understood his character.
The people themselves, divided into their respective trades, evidently
undertook the demonstrations in his honor, and gave them an emphasis
which they could have derived from no other source. They bore his
image aloft upon banners. They placed the Constitution in his right
hand, and the Confederation in his left. They depicted Fame, with her
trumpet, crowning him with laurels. They emblazoned his name upon the
miniature frigate, the federal ship of state. They anticipated the
administration of the first President, by uniting on the national flag
the figure of Washington and the figure of Hamilton.[458] All that
ingenuity, all that affection, that popular pride and gratitude could
do, to honor a public benefactor, was repeated again and again through
the long line of five thousand citizens, of all orders and conditions,
which stretched away from the shores of that beautiful bay, where
ocean ascends into river and river is lost in ocean,--where Commerce
then wore her holiday attire, to prefigure the magnificence and power
which she was to derive from the Constitution of the United States.
FOOTNOTES:
[429] Notice of Henry, in the National Portrait Gallery of
Distinguished Americans, Vol. II. Mr. Jefferson has said that Henry's
power as a popular orator was greater than that of any man he had ever
heard, and that Henry "appeared to speak as Homer wrote." (Jefferson's
Works, I. 4.)
[430] It is said in the newspapers of that period that Henry was on
his legs in one speech for seven hours. I think it must have been the
one from which I have made the abstract in the text. But he made a
great many speeches, quite as earnest.
[431] There has been, I am aware, a modern scepticism concerning
Patrick Henry's abilities; but I cannot share it. He was not a man of
much information, and he had no great breadth of mind. But he must
have been, not only a very able debater, but a good parliamentary
tactician. The manner in which he carried on the opposition to the
Constitution in the convention of Virginia, for nearly a whole month,
shows that he possessed other powers besides those of great natural
eloquence.
[432] Elliot, III. 152, Debates in the Virginia Convention.
[433] Under date of February 7, 1788, Mr. Jefferson wrote from Paris,
in a private letter to a gentleman in Virginia, as follows:--"I wish,
with all my soul, that the nine first conventions may accept the new
Constitution, because this will secure to us the good it contains,
which I think great and important. But I equally wish that the four
latest conventions, whichever they be, may refuse to accede to it till
a Declaration of Rights be annexed. This would probably command the
offer of such a Declaration, and thus give to the whole fabric,
perhaps, as much perfection as any one of that kind ever had. By a
Declaration of Rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of
religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against
monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the
_habeas corpus_, no standing armies. These are fetters against doing
evil, which no honest government should decline. There is another
strong feature in the new Constitution which I as strongly dislike.
That is, the perpetual re-eligibility of the President. Of this, I
expect no amendment at present, because I do not see that anybody has
objected to it on your side the water. But it will be productive of
cruel distress to our country, even in your day and mine. The
importance to France and England to have our government in the hands
of a friend or foe, will occasion their interference by money, and
even by arms. Our President will be of much more consequence to them
than a king of Poland. We must take care, however, that neither this
nor any other objection to the new form produces a schism in our
Union. That would be an incurable evil, because near friends falling
out never reunite cordially; whereas, all of us going together, we
shall be sure to cure the evils of our new Constitution before they do
great harm." (Jefferson's Works, II. 355.) That Mr. Jefferson intended
this letter should be used as it was in the convention of Virginia, is
not probable; but it would seem from the care he took to state a plan
of proceeding in the adoption of the Constitution, that he intended
his suggestions should be known. His subsequent opinion will be found
in a note below.
[434] Alluding, evidently, to Washington.
[435] See the speeches of Pendleton and Madison, in reply to Henry.
Elliot, III. 304, 329.
[436] Elliot, III. 314.
[437] On the 27th of May, 1788, Mr. Jefferson wrote from Paris to
Colonel Carrington, as follows:--"I learn with great pleasure the
progress of the new Constitution. Indeed, I have presumed it would
gain on the public mind, as I confess it has on my own. At first,
though I saw that the great mass and groundwork was good, I disliked
many appendages. Reflection and discussion have cleared off most of
those. You have satisfied me as to the query I had put to you about
the right of direct taxation. My first wish was that nine States would
adopt it, and that the others might, by holding off, produce the
necessary amendments. But the plan of Massachusetts is far preferable,
and will, I hope, be followed by those who are yet to decide," &c.
(Jefferson's Works, II. 404.) Colonel Carrington, the person to whom
this letter was addressed, was a member of Congress, and received it
at New York, about the 2d of July, when it was seen by Madison. (See a
letter from Madison to E. Randolph of that date, among the Madison
papers. Elliot, V. 573.)
[438] See an account of this matter, _ante_, Vol. I. Book III. Chap.
V. pp. 309-327.
[439] They meant the four New England States and New York,
Pennsylvania, and Maryland. New Jersey and Delaware were supposed to
be with the four Southern States on this question.
[440] Ten would be two thirds of the constitutional quorum of
fourteen; so that the argument supposed only a quorum to be present.
[441] See Mr. Madison's explanation in the convention of Virginia.
Elliot, III. 346.
[442] _Ante_, Book III. Chap. V., Vol. I. pp. 324-327.
[443] Debates in the Virginia Convention, Elliot, III. 344-347.
[444] He thought at this moment that if the Constitution should be
lost, the Mississippi question would be the cause. The members from
Kentucky were then generally hostile. (See a letter from Madison to
Hamilton, of June 16th, Hamilton's Works, I. 457.)
[445] See his correspondence with Madison, Works, I. pp. 450-469.
[446] Works, I. 462.
[447] See the latest letter which he had then received from Madison.
Ibid. 461.
[448] It has been supposed that this was not so, but that Hamilton's
messenger arrived at Richmond before the final action of the Virginia
convention, and so that the decision of New Hampshire had an important
influence. I think this is clearly a mistake. I have traced the
progress of the messenger in the newspapers of that time, and find his
arrival at New York and Philadelphia chronicled as it is given in the
text. The dates are therefore decisive. It appears also from Mr.
Madison's correspondence with Hamilton, that he did not receive the
despatch about New Hampshire until the 31st. (Hamilton's Works, I.
463.) The ratification passed the Virginia convention on the 25th, and
that body was dissolved on the 27th. There is no trace in the Virginia
debates of any authentic news from New Hampshire. On the contrary, it
was assumed by one of the speakers, Mr. Innes, on the day of their
ratification, that the Constitution then stood adopted by _eight_
States. (Elliot, III. 636.)
[449] The form of ratification embraced the recitals given in the text
respecting the powers of Congress. It was adopted by a vote of 89 to
79, on the 25th of June, 1788. I do not go into the particular
consideration of the amendments proposed by several of the State
conventions, because the present work is confined to the origin, the
formation, and the adoption of the Constitution, and no State that
ratified the instrument proposed by the national Convention made
amendments a condition. The examination of the amendments proposed,
therefore, belongs to the history of the Constitution subsequent to
its inauguration. They may all be found in the Appendix to the
thirteenth volume of the Journals of the Old Congress.
[450] Debates in Virginia Convention, Elliot, III. 652.
[451] Madison's letters to Hamilton, Works of Hamilton, I. 462, 463.
[452] Letter to Madison, Works of Hamilton, I. 464.
[453] Ibid. 465.
[454] It was reported in the newspapers of that period that the
Constitution was adopted in this convention by 30 yeas against 25
nays. But the official record gives the several votes as they are
stated in the text; from which it appears that, on the critical
question of a conditional or unconditional ratification, the majority
was only 2. In truth, the ratification of New York barely escapes the
objection of being a qualified one, if it does in fact escape it.
[455] Works of Washington, IX. 408.
[456] Madison's letter to Washington, August 24, 1788, Works of
Washington, IX. 549.
[457] See his letter to Governor Livingston of New Jersey, August 29,
1788, Works, I. 471.
[458] Some of the most elaborate of these devices were borne by the
"Block and Pump Makers" and the "Tallow-Chandlers."
CHAPTER IV.
ACTION OF NORTH CAROLINA AND RHODE ISLAND.--CONCLUSION.
Thus had eleven States, at the end of July, 1788, unconditionally
adopted the Constitution; five of them proposing amendments for the
consideration of the first Congress that would assemble under it, and
one of the five calling for a second general convention to act upon
the amendments desired. Two other States, however, North Carolina and
Rhode Island, still remained aloof.
The legislature of North Carolina, in December, 1787, had ordered a
State convention, which assembled July 21, 1788, five days before the
convention of New York ratified the Constitution. In this body the
Anti-Federalists obtained a large majority. They permitted the whole
subject to be debated until the 2d of August; still it had been
manifest from the first that they would not allow of an unconditional
ratification. They knew what had been the result in New Hampshire and
Virginia; but the decision of New York had, of course, not reached
them. Their determination was not, however, to be affected by the
certainty that the new government would be organized. Their purpose
was not to enter the new Union, until the amendments which they
desired had been obtained. They assumed that the Congress of the
Confederation would not provide for the organization of the new
government until another general convention had been held; or, if they
did, that such a convention would be called by the new Congress;--and
it appeared to them to be the most effectual mode of bringing about
one or the other of these courses, to remain for the present in an
independent position. The inconvenience and hazard attending such a
position do not seem to have had much weight with them, when compared
with what they regarded as the danger of an unconditional assent to
the Constitution as it then stood.
The Federalists contended strenuously for the course pursued by the
other States which had proposed amendments, but they were overpowered
by great numbers, and the convention was dissolved, after adopting a
resolution declaring that a Bill of Rights, and certain amendments,
ought to be laid before Congress and the convention that might be
called for amending the Constitution, previous to its ratification by
the State of North Carolina.[459] But in order, if possible, to place
the State in a position to accede to the Constitution at some future
time, and to participate fully in its benefits, they also declared,
that, having thought proper neither to ratify nor to reject it, and as
the new Congress would probably lay an impost on goods imported into
the States which had adopted it, they recommended the legislature of
North Carolina to lay a similar impost on goods imported into the
State, and to appropriate the money arising from it to the use of
Congress.[460]
The elements which formed the opposition to the Constitution in other
States received in Rhode Island an intense development and
aggravation, from the peculiar spirit of the people, and from certain
local causes, the history of which has never been fully written, and
is now only to be gathered from scattered sources. Constitutional
government was exposed to great perils, in that day, throughout the
country, in consequence of the false notions of State sovereignty and
of public liberty which prevailed everywhere. But it seemed as if all
these causes of opposition and distrust had centred in Rhode Island,
and had there found a theatre on which to exhibit themselves in their
worst form. Fortunately, this theatre was so small and peculiar, as to
make the display of these ideas extremely conspicuous.
The Colony of Rhode Island was established upon the broadest
principles of religious and civil freedom. Its early founders and
rulers, flying from religious persecution in the other New England
Colonies, had transmitted to their descendants a natural jealousy of
other communities, and a high spirit of individual and public
independence. In the progress of time, as not infrequently happens in
such communities, the principles on which the State was founded were
falsely interpreted and applied, until, in the minds of a large part
of the people, they had come to mean a simple aversion to all but the
most democratic form of government. No successful appeal to this
hereditary feeling could be made during the early part of the
Revolution, against the interests and influence of the confederacy,
because the early and local effect of the Revolution in fact coincided
with it. But when the Revolution was fairly accomplished, and the
State had assumed its position of absolute sovereignty, what may be
called the extreme _individualism_ of the people, and their old
unfortunate relations with the rest of New England, made them
singularly reluctant to part with any power to the confederated
States. The manifestations of this feeling we have seen all along,
from the first establishment of the Confederation down to the period
at which we are now arrived.
The local causes which gave to this tendency its utmost activity, at
the time of the formation of the Constitution of the United States,
were the following.
First, there had existed in the State, for a considerable period, a
despotic and well-organized party, known as the paper-money party.
This faction had long controlled the legislation of the State, by
furnishing the agricultural classes, in the shape of paper money, with
the only circulating medium they had ever had in any large quantity;
and they were determined to extinguish the debt of the State by this
species of currency, which the legislature could, and did, depreciate
at pleasure.
Secondly, there existed, to a great and ludicrous extent, a constant
antagonism between town and country,--between the agricultural and the
mercantile or trading classes; and this hostility was especially
violent and active between the people of the towns of Providence and
Newport and the people of the surrounding and the more remote rural
districts.[461] The paper-money question divided the inhabitants of
the State in the same way. The loss of this circulation would deprive
the agricultural classes of their sole currency. They kept their
paper-money party, therefore, in a state of constant activity; and
when the Constitution of the United States appeared, this was an
organized and triumphant party, ready for any new contest. Finally,
there prevailed among the country party a notion that the maritime
advantages of the State ought in some way to be made use of, for
obtaining better terms with the general government than could be had
under the Constitution, and that by some such means funds could be
obtained for paying their most urgent debts.
If we may judge of the spirit and the acts of the majority of the
people of Rhode Island, at this time, by the manner in which they were
looked upon throughout the rest of the Union, no language of censure
can be too strong to be applied to them. They were regarded and spoken
of everywhere, among the Federalists, with contempt and abhorrence.
Even the opposition in other States, in all their arguments against
the Constitution, never ventured to defend the people of Rhode Island.
Ridicule and scorn were heaped upon them from all quarters of the
country, and ardent zealots of the Federal press urged the adoption of
the advice which they said the Grand Seignior had given to the king of
Spain, with respect to the refractory States of Holland, namely, to
send his men with shovels and pickaxes, and throw them all into the
sea. Such an undertaking, we may suppose, might have proved as
difficult on this, as it would have been on the other side of the
Atlantic. But however this might have been, it is probable that the
natural effect of their conduct on the minds of men in other States,
and the treatment they received, reacted upon the people of Rhode
Island, and made them still more tenacious and persistent in their
wrongful course.
But we need not go out of the State itself, to find proof that a
majority of its people were at this time violent, arbitrary, and
unenlightened, both as to their true interests and as to the
principles of public honesty. Determined to adhere to their
paper-money system, they did not pause to consider and to discuss the
great questions respecting the Constitution,--its bearing upon the
welfare of the States,--its effect upon public liberty and social
order,--the necessity for its amendment in certain particulars,--which
led, in the conventions of the other States, to some of the most
important debates that the subjects of government and free
institutions have ever produced. Indeed, they resolved to stifle all
such discussions at once; or, at any rate, to prevent them from being
had in an assembly whose proceedings would be known to the world. When
the General Assembly received the Constitution, at their session in
October, 1787, they directed it to be published and circulated among
the inhabitants of the State. In February, 1788, instead of calling a
convention, they referred the adoption of the Constitution to the
freemen in their several town meetings, for the purpose of having it
rejected. There were at this time a little more than four thousand
legal voters in the State. The Federalists, a small minority,
indignant at the course of the legislature, generally withdrew from
the meetings and refused to vote. The result was, that the people of
the State appeared to be nearly unanimous in rejecting the
Constitution.[462]
The freemen of the towns of Providence and Newport, thereupon
presented petitions to the General Assembly, complaining of the
inconvenience of acting upon the proposed Constitution in meetings in
which the people of the seaport towns and the people of the country
could not hear and answer each other's arguments, or agree upon the
amendments that it might be desirable to propose, and praying for a
State convention. Their application was refused, and Rhode Island
remained in this position, at the time when the question of organizing
the new government came before the Congress of the Confederation, in
July, 1788.
Better counsels prevailed with her people, at a later period, and the
same redeeming virtue and good sense were at length triumphant, which,
in still more recent trials, have enabled her to overcome error, and
party passion, and the false notions of liberty that have sometimes
prevailed within her borders. As the stranger now traverses her little
territory, in the journey of a day, and beholds her ample enjoyment of
all civil and religious blessings,--her busy towns, her fruitful
fields, her fair seat of learning, crowning her thriving capital, her
free, happy, and prosperous people, her noble waters where she sits
enthroned upon her lovely isles,--and remembers her ancient and her
recent history, he cannot fail, in his prayer for her welfare, to
breathe the hope that an escape from great social perils may be found
for her and for all of us, in the future, as it has been in the past.
But the attitudes taken by North Carolina and Rhode Island--although
in truth quite different and taken from very different motives--placed
the Union in a new crisis, involving the Constitution in great danger
of being defeated, notwithstanding its adoption by more than nine
States. Both of them were members of the existing confederacy; both
had a right to vote on all questions coming before the Congress of
that confederacy; and it was to this body that the national
Convention itself had looked for the initiatory measures necessary to
organize the new government under the Constitution. The question
whether that government should be organized at all, was necessarily
involved with the question as to the place where it should be directed
to assemble and to exercise its functions. This latter topic had often
been a source of dissension between the States; and there was much
danger lest the votes of North Carolina and Rhode Island, in the
Congress of the Confederation, by being united with the votes of
States opposed to the selection of the place that might be named as
the seat of the new government, might prevent the Constitution from
being established at all.
* * * * *
But now, the pen that has thus traced these great events, and has
sought to describe them in their true relations to the social welfare
of the American people, must seek repose. How the Constitution was
inaugurated,--by whom and upon what principles it was put into
operation,--how and why it was amended or altered,--when and under
what circumstances the two remaining States accepted its
benefits,--what development and what direction it received from the
generation of statesmen who made and established it,--belongs to the
next epoch in our political history, the Administration of
Washington.
FOOTNOTES:
[459] This resolution was adopted August 2, 1788, by 184 yeas to 84
nays. North Carolina Debates, Elliot, IV. 250, 251.
[460] North Carolina Debates, Elliot, IV. 250, 251.
[461] The march of the country people upon Providence, on the 4th of
July, 1788, and the manner in which they compelled the inhabitants of
the town to abandon their purpose of celebrating the adoption of the
Constitution by nine States,--dictating even their toasts and
salutes,--reads more like a page in Diedrich Knickerbocker's History
of New York than like anything else. But it is a veracious as well as
a most amusing story. (See Staples's Annals of Providence, pp.
329-335.)
[462] There were 2,708 votes thrown against it, and 232 in its favor.
This occurred in March, 1788.
APPENDIX.
NOTE
ON THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE ORDINANCE OF 1787.
(See page 344, _ante_.)
When writing this volume, I prepared an elaborate note, for the
purpose of proving that the Ordinance of 1787 was drawn up by Nathan
Dane. The subsequent publication by Mr. Charles King, of New York, of
an autograph letter of Mr. Dane's to his father, the Hon. Rufus King,
written a few days after the passage of the Ordinance, put an end to
all possibility of controversy on this subject, and made it
unnecessary for me to burden my readers with a discussion of Mr.
Dane's claim to be regarded as the author of that instrument.
The following sentence in Mr. Dane's letter to Mr. King is decisive of
the point which has sometimes been controverted:--
"When I drew the Ordinance, (which passed, a few words
excepted, as I originally formed it,) I had no idea the
States would agree to the sixth article, prohibiting slavery,
as only Massachusetts, of the Eastern States, was present,
and therefore omitted it in the draft; but finding the House
favorably disposed on the subject, after we had completed the
other parts, I moved the article, which was agreed to without
opposition."
FIRST DRAFT OF THE CONSTITUTION,
AS REPORTED BY THE COMMITTEE OF DETAIL.
MONDAY, _August 6_.
_In Convention._--Mr. RUTLEDGE delivered in the report of the
committee of detail, as follows,--a printed copy being at the same
time furnished to each member:--
We, the people of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia,
North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, do ordain,
declare, and establish the following Constitution for the
government of ourselves and our posterity:--
ARTICLE I.--The style of the government shall be, "The United
States of America."
ART. II.--The government shall consist of supreme
legislative, executive, and judicial powers.
ART. III.--The legislative power shall be vested in a
Congress, to consist of two separate and distinct bodies of
men, a House of Representatives and a Senate; each of which
shall in all cases have a negative on the other. The
legislature shall meet on the first Monday in December in
every year.
ART. IV.--Sect. 1. The members of the House of
Representatives shall be chosen, every second year, by the
people of the several States comprehended within this Union.
The qualifications of the electors shall be the same, from
time to time, as those of the electors, in the several
States, of the most numerous branch of their own
legislatures.
Sect. 2. Every member of the House of Representatives shall
be of the age of twenty-five years at least; shall have been
a citizen in the United States for at least three years
before his election; and shall be, at the time of his
election, a resident of the State in which he shall be
chosen.
Sect. 3. The House of Representatives shall, at its first
formation, and until the number of citizens and inhabitants
shall be taken in the manner hereinafter described, consist
of sixty-five members, of whom three shall be chosen in New
Hampshire, eight in Massachusetts, one in Rhode Island and
Providence Plantations, five in Connecticut, six in New York,
four in New Jersey, eight in Pennsylvania, one in Delaware,
six in Maryland, ten in Virginia, five in North Carolina,
five in South Carolina, and three in Georgia.
Sect. 4. As the proportions of numbers in different States
will alter from time to time; as some of the States may
hereafter be divided; as others may be enlarged by addition
of territory; as two or more States may be united; as new
States will be erected within the limits of the United
States,--the legislature shall, in each of these cases,
regulate the number of representatives by the number of
inhabitants, according to the provisions hereinafter made, at
the rate of one for every forty thousand.
Sect. 5. All bills for raising or appropriating money, and
for fixing the salaries of the officers of government, shall
originate in the House of Representatives, and shall not be
altered or amended by the Senate. No money shall be drawn
from the public treasury, but in pursuance of appropriations
that shall originate in the House of Representatives.
Sect. 6. The House of Representatives shall have the sole
power of impeachment. It shall choose its speaker and other
officers.
Sect. 7. Vacancies in the House of Representatives shall be
supplied by writs of election from the executive authority of
the State in the representation from which they shall happen.
ART. V.--Sect. 1. The Senate of the United States shall be
chosen by the legislatures of the several States. Each
legislature shall choose two members. Vacancies may be
supplied by the executive until the next meeting of the
legislature. Each member shall have one vote.
Sect. 2. The senators shall be chosen for six years; but
immediately after the first election, they shall be divided,
by lot, into three classes, as nearly as may be, numbered
one, two, and three. The seats of the members of the first
class shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year;
of the second class at the expiration of the fourth year; of
the third class at the expiration of the sixth year; so that
a third part of the members may be chosen every second year.
Sect. 3. Every member of the Senate shall be of the age of
thirty years at least; shall have been a citizen in the
United States for at least four years before his election;
and shall be, at the time of his election, a resident of the
State for which he shall be chosen.
Sect. 4. The Senate shall choose its own President and other
officers.
ART. VI.--Sect. 1. The times, and places, and manner, of
holding the elections of the members of each House, shall be
prescribed by the legislature of each State; but their
provisions concerning them may, at any time, be altered by
the legislature of the United States.
Sect. 2. The legislature of the United States shall have
authority to establish such uniform qualifications of the
members of each House, with regard to property, as to the
said legislature shall seem expedient.
Sect. 3. In each House a majority of the members shall
constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may
adjourn from day to day.
Sect. 4. Each House shall be the judge of the elections,
returns, and qualifications of its own members.
Sect. 5. Freedom of speech and debate in the legislature
shall not be impeached or questioned in any court or place
out of the legislature; and the members of each House shall,
in all cases, except treason, felony, and breach of the
peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at
Congress, and in going to and returning from it.
Sect. 6. Each House may determine the rules of its
proceedings; may punish its members for disorderly behavior;
and may expel a member.
Sect. 7. The House of Representatives, and the Senate when it
shall be acting in a legislative capacity, shall keep a
journal of their proceedings; and shall, from time to time,
publish them; and the yeas and nays of the members of each
House, on any question, shall, at the desire of one fifth
part of the members present, be entered on the Journal.
Sect. 8. Neither House, without the consent of the other,
shall adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other
place than that at which the two Houses are sitting. But this
regulation shall not extend to the Senate when it shall
exercise the powers mentioned in the ---- Article.
Sect. 9. The members of each House shall be ineligible to,
and incapable of holding, any office under the authority of
the United States, during the time for which they shall
respectively be elected; and the members of the Senate shall
be ineligible to, and incapable of holding, any such office
for one year afterwards.
Sect. 10. The members of each House shall receive a
compensation for their services, to be ascertained and paid
by the State in which they shall be chosen.
Sect. 11. The enacting style of the laws of the United States
shall be, "Be it enacted, and it is hereby enacted, by the
House of Representatives, and by the Senate of the United
States, in Congress assembled."
Sect. 12. Each House shall possess the right of originating
bills, except in the cases before mentioned.
Sect. 13. Every bill which shall have passed the House of
Representatives and the Senate shall, before it becomes a
law, be presented to the President of the United States for
his revision. If, upon such revision, he approve of it, he
shall signify his approbation by signing it. But if, upon
such revision, it shall appear to him improper for being
passed into a law, he shall return it, together with his
objections against it, to that House in which it shall have
originated; who shall enter the objections at large on their
Journal, and proceed to reconsider the bill. But if, after
such reconsideration, two thirds of that House shall,
notwithstanding the objections of the President, agree to
pass it, it shall, together with his objections, be sent to
the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered,
and, if approved by two thirds of the other House also, it
shall become a law. But, in all such cases, the votes of both
Houses shall be determined by yeas and nays; and the names of
the persons voting for or against the bill shall be entered
on the Journal of each House respectively. If any bill shall
not be returned by the President within seven days after it
shall have been presented to him, it shall be a law, unless
the legislature, by their adjournment, prevent its return, in
which case it shall not be a law.
ART. VII.--Sect. 1. The legislature of the United States
shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties,
imposts, and excises;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the
several states;
To establish an uniform rule of naturalization throughout the
United States;
To coin money;
To regulate the value of foreign coin;
To fix the standard of weights and measures;
To establish post-offices;
To borrow money, and emit bills, on the credit of the United
States;
To appoint a treasurer by ballot;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the supreme court;
To make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To declare the law and punishment of piracies and felonies
committed on the high seas, and the punishment of
counterfeiting the coin of the United States, and of offences
against the law of nations;
To subdue a rebellion in any State on the application of its
legislature;
To make war;
To raise armies;
To build and equip fleets;
To call forth the aid of the militia, in order to execute the
laws of the Union, enforce treaties, suppress insurrections,
and repel invasions;
And to make all laws that shall be necessary and proper for
carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other
powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the
United States, or in any department or office thereof.
Sect. 2. Treason against the United States shall consist only
in levying war against the United States, or any of them; and
in adhering to the enemies of the United States, or any of
them. The legislature of the United States shall have power
to declare the punishment of treason. No person shall be
convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two
witnesses. No attainder of treason shall work corruption of
blood, nor forfeiture, except during the life of the person
attainted.
Sect. 3. The proportions of direct taxation shall be
regulated by the whole number of white and other free
citizens and inhabitants of every age, sex, and condition,
including those bound to servitude for a term of years, and
three fifths of all other persons not comprehended in the
foregoing description (except Indians not paying taxes);
which number shall, within six years after the first meeting
of the legislature, and within the term of every ten years
afterwards, be taken in such a manner as the said legislature
shall direct.
Sect. 4. No tax or duty shall be laid by the legislature on
articles exported from any State; nor on the migration or
importation of such persons as the several States shall think
proper to admit; nor shall such migration or importation be
prohibited.
Sect. 5. No capitation tax shall be laid, unless in
proportion to the census hereinbefore directed to be taken.
Sect. 6. No navigation act shall be passed without the assent
of two thirds of the members present in each House.
Sect. 7. The United States shall not grant any title of
nobility.
ART. VIII.--The acts of the legislature of the United States
made in pursuance of this Constitution, and all treaties made
under the authority of the United States, shall be the
supreme law of the several States, and of their citizens and
inhabitants; and the judges in the several States shall be
bound thereby in their decisions, anything in the
constitutions or laws of the several States to the contrary
notwithstanding.
ART. IX.--Sect. 1. The Senate of the United States shall have
power to make treaties, and to appoint ambassadors, and
judges of the supreme court.
Sect. 2. In all disputes and controversies now subsisting, or
that may hereafter subsist, between two or more States,
respecting jurisdiction or territory, the Senate shall
possess the following powers:--Whenever the legislature, or
the executive authority, or lawful agent of any State, in
controversy with another, shall, by memorial to the Senate,
state the matter in question, and apply for a hearing, notice
of such memorial and application shall be given, by order of
the Senate, to the legislature, or the executive authority,
of the other State in controversy. The Senate shall also
assign a day for the appearance of the parties, by their
agents, before that House. The agents shall be directed to
appoint, by joint consent, commissioners or judges to
constitute a court for hearing and determining the matter in
question. But if the agents cannot agree, the Senate shall
name three persons out of each of the several States; and
from the list of such persons, each party shall alternately
strike out one, until the number shall be reduced to
thirteen; and from that number not less than seven, nor more
than nine, names, as the Senate shall direct, shall, in their
presence, be drawn out by lot; and the persons whose names
shall be so drawn, or any five of them, shall be
commissioners or judges to hear and finally determine the
controversy; provided a majority of the judges who shall hear
the cause agree in the determination. If either party shall
neglect to attend at the day assigned, without showing
sufficient reasons for not attending, or being present shall
refuse to strike, the Senate shall proceed to nominate three
persons out of each State, and the Clerk of the Senate shall
strike in behalf of the party absent or refusing. If any of
the parties shall refuse to submit to the authority of such
court, or shall not appear to prosecute or defend their claim
or cause, the court shall nevertheless proceed to pronounce
judgment. The judgment shall be final and conclusive. The
proceedings shall be transmitted to the President of the
Senate, and shall be lodged among the public records, for the
security of the parties concerned. Every commissioner shall,
before he sit in judgment, take an oath, to be administered
by one of the judges of the supreme or superior court of the
State where the cause shall be tried, "well and truly to hear
and determine the matter in question, according to the best
of his judgment, without favor, affection, or hope of
reward."
Sect. 3. All controversies concerning lands claimed under
different grants of two or more States, whose jurisdictions,
as they respect such lands, shall have been decided or
adjusted subsequently to such grants, or any of them, shall,
on application to the Senate, be finally determined, as near
as may be, in the same manner as is before prescribed for
deciding controversies between different States.
ART. X.--Sect. 1. The executive power of the United States
shall be vested in a single person. His style shall be, "The
President of the United States of America," and his title
shall be, "His Excellency." He shall be elected by ballot by
the legislature. He shall hold his office during the term of
seven years; but shall not be elected a second time.
Sect. 2. He shall, from time to time, give information to the
legislature of the state of the Union. He may recommend to
their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary
and expedient. He may convene them on extraordinary
occasions. In case of disagreement between the two Houses,
with regard to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them
to such time as he thinks proper. He shall take care that the
laws of the United States be duly and faithfully executed. He
shall commission all the officers of the United States; and
shall appoint officers in all cases not otherwise provided
for by this Constitution. He shall receive ambassadors, and
may correspond with the supreme executives of the several
States. He shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons,
but his pardon shall not be pleadable in bar of an
impeachment. He shall be commander-in-chief of the army and
navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several
States. He shall, at stated times, receive for his services a
compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished
during his continuance in office. Before he shall enter on
the duties of his department, he shall take the following
oath or affirmation, "I ---- solemnly swear (or affirm) that
I will faithfully execute the office of President of the
United States of America." He shall be removed from his
office on impeachment by the House of Representatives, and
conviction, in the supreme court, of treason, bribery, or
corruption. In case of his removal, as aforesaid, death,
resignation, or disability to discharge the powers and duties
of his office, the President of the Senate shall exercise
those powers and duties until another President of the United
States be chosen, or until the disability of the President be
removed.