READINGS AND QUESTIONS- RATIFICATION

“Sunrise at Philadelphia” by Brian McGinty (PORTRAIT I- CONSTITUTION)Once the Revolution began, American set about creating the political machinery necessary to sustain an independent nation. The

Second Continental Congress, called in 1775, continued as an emergency, all-purpose central government until 1781, when the Articles of Confederation were finally ratified and a new one-house Congress was elected to function as the national government. Wary of central authority because of the British experience, Americans now had precisely the kind of government most of them wanted: an impotent Congress that lacked the authority to tax, regulate commerce, or enforce its own ordinances and resolutions. Subordinate to the states, which supplied it with funds as they chose, Congress was powerless to run the country. Indeed, its delegates wandered from Princeton to Annapolis to Trento to New York, endlessly discussing where they should settle.

Patriots such as James Madison of Virginia, Alexander Hamilton of New York, and the venerable George Washington fretted in their correspondence about the near paralysis of the central government and the unstable conditions that plagued the land. “An opinion begins to prevail, that a General Convention for revising the Articles of Confederation would be expedient,” John Jay wrote Washington in March 1787. Washington agreed that the “fabric” was “tottering.” When Massachusetts farmers rose in rebellion under Daniel Shays, Washington was horror stricken. “Are your people getting mad?... What is the cause of all this? When and how is it to end?... What, gracious God, is man! That there should be inconsistency and perfidiousness in his conduct?... We are fast verging to anarchy and confusion!”

Many of his colleagues agreed. There followed a series of maneuvers and meetings that culminated in the great convention of 1787, a gathering of 55 notables sent to Philadelphia to overhaul the feeble Articles of Confederation. Without authority, they proceeded to draft an entirely new constitution that scrapped the Articles, created a new government, and undoubtedly saved the country and America’s experiment in popular government. As James McGregor Burns has noted, it was a convention of “the well-bred, the well-fed, the well-read, and the well-wed.” Most delegates were wealthy, formally educated, and youngish (their average age was the early forties), and more than a third of them were slave owners. The poor, the uneducated, the backcountry farmers, and women, blacks, and Indians were not represented. Throughout their deliberations, moreover, they compromised on the volatile slavery issue. “For these white men,” wrote one scholar, “the black man was always a brooding and unsettling presence (the black woman, even more than the white woman, who was beyond the pale, beyond calculation).” For most of the framers of the Constitution, order and national strength were more important than the inalienable rights of blacks or women. Like their countrymen, most could simultaneously love liberty, recognize the injustice of slavery, yet tolerate bondage as a necessary evil.

As we enter our third century under the Constitution, we need more than ever to remember that the framers were not saints but human beings- paradoxical, complex, unpredictable, and motivated by selfishness as well as high idealism. Yet, as Brian McGinty shows in his account of “the miracle of Philadelphia,” the founders were able to rise above petty self-interest to fashion what remains the oldest written national constitution, which in turn created one of the oldest and most successful federal systems in history. McGinty tells the full story of the great convention; he describes the remarkable personalities gathered there, the debates and the compromises that shaped the new Constitution, the battle for ratification, and the forging of the Bill of Rights in the form of the first ten amendments.

As Benjamin Franklin looked over the roster of delegates at the start of the Constitutional Convention, he confessed that he was well pleased. “We have here a present,” Franklin wrote a friend, “what the French call une assemblee des notables, a convention composed of some of the principal people from the several states of our Confederation.” [Thomas] Jefferson, examining the same roster in Paris, proclaimed the convention “an assembly of demi-gods.”

Most prominent among the “demi-gods” was George Washington. Early on the morning of May 9, 1787, he had left Mount Vernon in his carriage. Washington was no stranger to the road from the Potomac to Philadelphia, for he had traveled it often during the days of the First and Second Continental Congresses, oftener still while he was leading the military struggle for independence. He would have liked to travel with Martha this time, but the mistress of the plantation on the Potomac had “become too domestic and too attentive to her two little grandchildren to leave home.” The retired general’s progress was impeded more than a little by the joyful greetings he received at every town and stage stop along the way. When he arrived in Philadelphia on May 13, the biggest celebration of all began. Senior officers of the Continental Army greeted him on the outskirts of the city, and citizens on horseback formed an escort. Guns fired a salute and the bells of Christ Church pealed as the great man rode into the city.

Washington had reflected carefully before deciding to attend the Philadelphia convention. He was 55 years old now, and his once-powerful physique was wracked with rheumatism. He was far from certain that the Philadelphia convention would find a solution to the nation’s political problems and had little wish to risk his reputation in an effort that might be doomed to failure. More important, when he had resigned his military commission in December 1783 he had clearly stated his intention of spending the rest of his days in private life. But his friends had urged him to reconsider his decision and lend his commanding influence and prestige to the Philadelphia assembly.

Despite his lingering doubts about the convention’s ultimate outcome, Washington had no reservations about its purpose. “The discerning part of the community,” he wrote a friend, “have long since seen the necessity of giving adequate powers to Congress for national purposes; and the ignorant and designing must yield to it ere long.” What most troubled the Virginian was the realization that his failure to go to Philadelphia might be interpreted as a rejection of the convention. And so he decided, more out of a sense of duty than with any enthusiasm, to make the long trip to Philadelphia. Although Washington arrived there the day before the assembly was set to convene, he found that some delegates were already in the city. The Pennsylvania delegates, who all lived in Philadelphia, were there, of course, headed by the venerable Dr. Benjamin Franklin. Franklin received Washington in the courtyard of his home just off Market Street above Third, after which the general repaired to the luxurious home of Robert Morris on Market just east of Sixth, where he was to be a guest during the convention.

Franklin was 81-years old and beset by infirmities (gout and gallstones) that made it all but impossible for him to walk. But his mind was bright and alert, and he continued to play an active role in the affairs of his city and state. He had returned in 1785 from Paris, where he had been American minister to France, to enjoy comforts of a well-earned retirement, but relented when members of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania asked him to accept the post of president, an office that corresponded to the position of governor in other states. By late March, on the motion of Robert Morris, Franklin had accepted a commission to attend the upcoming convention as a Pennsylvania delegate…

Although Washington was the most celebrated of the Virginia delegates, he was not the first to arrive in Philadelphia. Thirty-six-year-old James Madison of Montpelier in the Old Dominion’s Orange County arrived in Philadelphia on May 3, 1787, from New York, where he had been serving in Congress. A slight man, barely five feet, six inches tall, Madison was shy and bookish. What he lacked in force and dynamism,

the little Virginian made up in thought and scholarship. After graduating from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), he had returned to his home state to take an active interest in public affairs. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates and Council of State before accepting election to Congress, where he served twice (1780-83 and 1786-88). A close friend of Thomas Jefferson, Madison came to the convention with well-developed ideas about democratic processes and republican institutions…

In all, 74 delegates were selected to attend the convention, and 55 actually appeared in Philadelphia. Although not all of the 55 would attend all of the sessions, it was a sizable group- large enough to give the spacious, paneled assembly room on the east side of the ground floor of the Pennsylvania State House (the same room in which the Declaration of Independence had been signed in 1776) an air of excitement when the convention was in session.

In some ways the convention was as notable for the men who were not there as for those who were. The absence of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson was sharply felt, for both of these veterans of 1776 were widely regarded as American giants. Important diplomatic assignments kept them away from Philadelphia: Jefferson was American minister in Paris, while Adams filled the same post in London. Both were apprised of developments in the Pennsylvania city by faithful correspondents on the scene. Adam’s intellectual presence was strongly felt at the convention, for he had recently published A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, a treatise that explained and analyzed the constitutional structures of a half-dozen American states. Jefferson exchanged letters with James Madison and, at the younger man’s request, sent him books on constitutional theory and history, for Madison was particularly interested in the histories of ancient confederacies..

George Washington’s presence in Philadelphia was enough to reassure all those who worried about the absence of Adams, Jefferson, [Richard Henry] Lee, [Patrick] Henry, and [John] Jay. When the hero of the Revolution entered Philadelphia at the head of a parade of cheering well-wishers, nearly everyone in the city was able to breathe more easily. If anyone could guarantee the results of the Philadelphia assembly, surely the Squire of Mount Vernon could. New York’s Henry Knox wrote the Marquis de Lafayette; “George Washington’s attendance at the convention adds, in my opinion, new luster to his character. Secure as he was in his fame, he has again committed it to the mercy of events.” “This great patriot,” said the Pennsylvania Herald, “will never think his duty performed, while anything remains to be done.”

It is not surprising that so many of the delegates (more than half) were lawyers, for members of the legal profession had long led the struggle for independence. Nor was it remarkable that many were present of former public officials. Fully four-fifths of the delegates were serving in or had been members of Congress, while even more had been involved, at one time or another, in colonial, state, and local governments. Many had helped draft their states’ constitutions, and about half were veterans of military service. There were merchants, farmers, and one or two men who described themselves as “bankers” in this group. Three of the delegates were physicians, and one, Franklin, was a printer.

On the whole, the delegates were remarkable young. The average age was forty-three. Jonathon Dayton of New Jersey, at 26, was the youngest; Franklin, at 81, the oldest. Many had humble origins. Franklin had once been an indentured servant, and [Roger] Sherman of Connecticut had begun his working life as a cobbler’s apprentice. But most delegates had acquired comfortable positions in life. A few ranked among the richest men in the country.

In a letter to Jefferson, Franklin expressed cautious optimism about the convention. The delegates were men of character and ability, Franklin said, “so that I hope Good from their meeting. Indeed,” he added, “if it does not do good it must do Harm, as it will show that we have not Wisdom enough among us to govern ourselves; and will strengthen the opinion of some Political writers, that popular Governments cannot long support themselves”…

George Washington appeared regularly in the State House (the historic building would not be known as Independence Hall until the 19th century) at the appointed time each day, waiting patiently for the stragglers to appear and be recorded as present. When on May 25, the delegates of seven states were at last in their chairs, the convention was ready to begin.

First, a presiding officer had to be selected. Nobody in attendance had any doubt that the honor would be conferred on Washington; the only uncertainty was who would nominate him. Benjamin Franklin had planned to do so, but it was raining on May 25 and he was not well enough to make the trip from his home to the State House in poor weather. The motion was made in his stead by Robert Morris (Pennsylvania) and seconded by John Rutledge (South Carolina). Without discussion, the question was put to a vote, and Washington was unanimously elected president of the convention. Morris and Rutledge escorted the Virginian to the President’s Chair. The chair belonged to the Pennsylvania Assembly and had been used by al the presidents of the Continental Congress when it had met in Philadelphia. Surmounting its back was the carved and gilded image of a sun that, before the assembly was concluded, would become a symbol for the convention and its work.

Second, rules for the convention’s proceedings had to be adopted. One rule… was readily approved. It provided that “no copy be taken of any entry on the journal during the sitting of the House without the leave of the House. That members only be permitted to inspect the journal. That nothing spoken in the House be printed, or otherwise published, or communicated without leave”…

To impress on the delegates the seriousness with which the rule of secrecy was to be enforced, armed sentries were posted in the hall beyond the assembly chamber and on the street outside the State House…

The delegates, on the whole, were scrupulous in their observance of the “rule of secrecy”; so scrupulous, in fact, that for nearly a generation after the convention the positions taken during the debates were still largely unknown to the public. Washington even refused to write about the debates in his diary. A few delegates kept private records that found their way into print long after the events at Philadelphia had become history. The best record was kept by James Madison. “I choose a seat,” the Virginia lawyer explained, “in front of the presiding member, with the other members on my right hand and left hand. In this favorable position for hearing all that passed I noted in terms legible and abbreviations and marks intelligible to [no one but] myself what was read from the Chair or spoken by the members; and losing not a moment unnecessarily between the adjournment and reassembling of the Convention I was enabled to write out my daily notes during the session or within a few finishing days after its close… I was not absent a single day, nor more than a casual fraction of any hour in any day, so that I could not have lost a single speech, unless a very short one.” Published in 1840, Madison’s notes form the single best record of the convention’s proceedings.

The Virginia delegates came to the convention’s first deliberative session on May 29 equipped with a comprehensive plan for a new charter of government. Although the “Virginia Plan” had been discussed at length by members of that state’s delegation, it bore the mark of Madison’s careful thought and planning on every page. Edmund Randolph, who, as governor of the state, was titular leader of the Virginia delegation, presented the plan to the convention. The Virginia Plan proclaimed that it was designed to “correct and enlarge” the Articles of Confederation, but it was actually a blueprint for a whole new structure of government. Under it, the “national legislature” would consist of not one, but two houses, with the lower elected by the people and the upper chosen by the lower. There would be a “national executive,” with veto power over legislative acts, and a “national judiciary” with authority to decide cases involving “national peace or harmony.”

The Virginia plan was a tempting subject for debate, but the convention’s leaders believed more fundamental questions had to be decided first- questions upon which all other as yet undecided questions depended.

First among these threshold questions was whether the convention ought to content itself with revising the Articles of Confederation or propose an entirely new government with truly national purposes and powers. Delegates from at least 4 of the states had been sent to Philadelphia with strict instructions to consider revisions of the Articles and nothing else; and Congress, in its resolution approving the convention, had purported to limit the convention to revising the old charter.

Next the delegates resolved to organize into a Committee of the Whole. The purpose of this parliamentary maneuver was to keep discussions informal and to allow the representatives to change their votes until near the end of the convention. The device promoted open minds and frank speech.

As discussion began, South Carolina’s Charles Pinckney expressed concern that, if the convention proposed a national government, the states might cease to exist. But Edmund Randolph (Virginia) assured him that a national government would not prevent the states from continuing to exercise authority in their proper spheres. John Dickinson (Delaware) and Elbridge Gerry (Massachusetts) admitted that the Articles of Confederation were defective, but they thought that the convention should correct their defects, not toss them aside.

Governor Morris (Pennsylvania) expressed his belief that a national government was essential to the future of the country. “We had better take a supreme government now, “ Morris warned his fellow-delegates, “than a despot twenty years hence- for come he must.” Agreeing with Morris, George Mason (Virginia) argued that the country needed a government that could govern directly, without the intervention of the states.

On May 30, on the motion of Governor Morris, the convention decided, by a vote of 6 states to 1, that “a national government ought to be established consisting of a supreme Legislative, Executive and Judiciary.” Almost before they knew it, the delegates had decided what was to be the single most important issue of the convention. From that day forward, the convention would be irrevocably dedicated to the construction of a national government for the United States.

On May 31 the Committee of the Whole (the convention delegates) proceeded to consider other potentially explosive questions: whether the “national legislature” should have two houses or one; whether either or both houses should be elected by the people; and how the national government should function in terms of the citizens and the states…. Surprisingly, the delegates quickly agreed that there should be two houses in the legislature, that the lower house should be popularly elected, and that the legislature should have broad powers “to legislate in all cases to which the separate States are incompetent.”

After deliberating for two weeks, the Committee of the Whole presented its recommendations to the convention. The proposed form of government followed the terms of the “Virginia Plan” closely- too closely, some delegates thought. Elbridge Gerry (Massachusetts) protested that some decisions might have been made too hastily, “that it was necessary to consider what the people would approve.” Taking his cue from Gerry, William Paterson (New Jersey) proposed an alternative to the “Virginia Plan.” Introduced on June 15, Paterson’s “New Jersey Plan” suggested an entirely different frame of government: a unicameral legislature with members chosen by the state legislatures but with powers to “pass Acts for the regulation of trade and commerce”…

The delegates now decided to refer both the New Jersey Plan and the Virginia Plan to the Committee of the Whole for discussion. The debates were now becoming contentious. The large states, led in size by Virginia, believed it was essential to do away with the old principle embodied in the Articles of Confederation of “one state, one vote.” Under this rule, voters in the large states were effectively disenfranchised by those in the small states. For their part, the small states insisted they could never consent to any rule that would deprive them of an equal voice in the federal government. If such a resolution were passed, Delaware’s George Read announced, he would have no choice but to leave the convention, for his credentials forbade him to consent to such a measure.

Washington had been pleased when, in the early days of the convention, the delegates quickly and readily reached agreement on difficult questions. Now, it seemed, they were arguing about every issue that came before them. Discouraged, he wrote home for additional clothing, explaining that he saw “no end to my staying here.” The sweltering heat (some Philadelphians thought the summer of 1787 was the worst since 1750) added to the bad humor of the delegates. Franklin, noting the rancor of the debates, suggested the representatives invite clergymen to attend their sessions and offer daily prayers. Roger Sherman (Connecticut) seconded the motion, but Alexander Hamilton (New York) doubted the wisdom of calling for “foreign aid.” Many different faiths were represented among the delegates, and it would have been difficult to meet the demands of them all. Besides, a call for prayer might signal to the public outside the hall that all was not well inside. After some discussion, Franklin’s proposal was dropped.

Sensing that the convention was approaching an impasse, Roger Sherman (Connecticut) rose to propose the convention’s first important compromise. Representation in the lower house, Sherman suggested, should be based on population, while representation in the upper house should be equal. Sherman’s proposal was ingenious. Its chief virtue was that it satisfied neither the large states nor the small states. Hamilton called it a “motley measure,” and Madison said it was a “novelty and compound.” Because it met the demands of neither interest, however, it was acceptable to both. On July 16, by a vote of 5 states in favor, 4 states against, and 1 (Massachusetts) evenly divided, the “Connecticut Compromise” was passed. Another major hurdle to agreement had been overcome.

But many difficult questions still remained to be resolved. After spirited debate, the convention decided that each state would be allotted two representatives (senators) in the upper house of the national legislature and that the senators would vote “per capita,” that is, individually. Additional debate prompted the delegates to decide that the “national executive” (the president) would be chosen neither by the national legislature nor by the people directly, but by a body of men (the Electoral College) specifically chosen for the purpose. George Mason (Virginia) proposed that membership in the national legislature be limited to “citizens of the United States,” and no one objected.

By July 26, the convention felt it had made enough progress on the broad questions that faced it to safely proceed to more particular issues. To this end, it referred the proposed Constitution to a Committee of Detail with instructions to report back on August 6 with specific proposals to implement the convention’s broad intentions. Its five members, John Rutledge (South Carolina), Edmund Randolph (Virginia), James Wilson (Pennsylvania), Oliver Ellsworth (Connecticut), and Nathaniel Gorham (Massachusetts) represented all sections of the country; the committee constituted a kind of “miniature convention.”

From July 26 to August 6, the committee proposed, debated, revised, and finally, resolved a host of important questions. It spelled out the powers of the national legislature, including a power that the Articles of Confederation had never given the old Congress: “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises.” The committee proposed to grant the national legislature the power to make all laws that should be “necessary and proper” for carrying out its specific powers. The “necessary and proper” clause would later become one of the chief building blocks of a strong government. The committee decided the Supreme Court should have jurisdiction to decide all “Cases arising under the Laws

passed by the general Legislature.” And, significantly, the Committee of Detail provided that acts of the national legislature, treaties, and “this Constitution” should all be the “supreme Law of the Land.”

With the basic structure of the proposed government now agree upon, the convention appointed a Committee of Style and Arrangement to draft the Constitution. Some of the best penmen of the convention were appointed to the committee- James Madison (Virginia), Alexander Hamilton (New York), William Samuel Johnson (Connecticut), and Rufus King (Massachusetts). But the chief responsibility for drafting the document fell to the talented Governor Morris (Pennsylvania). Years later, Morris would write that the Constitution “was written by the fingers, which write this letter.” Madison, who was responsible for much of the substance of the document, admitted “the finish given to the style and arrangement of the Constitution fairly belongs to the pen of Mr. Morris.”

Morris worked quickly and apparently with inspiration. One of the last sections he composed was the Preamble. As originally drafted by the Committee of Detail, the Preamble had stated:

“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.”

The Committee of Style and Arrangement rewrote the same passage to read:“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide

for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Prosperity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The change from “We the People” of named states to “We the People of the United States” did not seem particularly significant to the delegates when they read and considered Morris’ draft. To history, however, it became one of the single most important acts of the Constitutional Convention. It would signify that the Union was the product, not of thirteen states, but of more than three million citizens. It was not a compact between sovereign governments, but a contract to which the citizens were parties.

When the Committee of Style presented its draft to the convention, there was a flurry of last-minute objections. Some delegates thought that Congress’s right to overrule presidential vetoes should be by a vote of 2/3 rather than ¾ of both houses. Others thought the document ought to guarantee the right of trial by jury in all civil cases. George Mason (Virginia) demanded that a bill of rights (similar to the precedent-setting Bill of Rights he drafted for the Virginia Constitution in 1776) he appended to the Constitution. But the hour was late, and the delegates were opposed to making major revisions. All states on the convention floor (including Mason’s own Virginia) voted “no” to adopting a bill of rights.

Some delegates left the convention before the final copy of the Constitution was prepared. Others remained in Philadelphia, but only to express their opposition to the final version of the charter. George Mason, obstinate on the point of a bill of rights, announced that he “would sooner chop off his right hand than put it to the Constitution.” Another Virginian, Edmund Randolph, who had first proposed the “Virginia Plan” that had formed the basis for many of the Constitution’s major provisions, now doubted whether the people of his state would approve the document, and announced that he could not sign it. Elbridge Gerry (Massachusetts) thought that members of the Senate would hold their offices too long, that Massachusetts would not be fairly represented in the House of Representatives, and that a Supreme Court without juries would be a “Star-Chamber as to civil cases.” He announced that he would not sign.

Word was circulating in Philadelphia that Pennsylvania’s Benjamin Franklin also objected to the Constitution, but the philosopher-statesman soon put an end to such speculation. On Monday morning September 17, after the secretary of the convention read a newly engrossed copy of the document, Franklin asked for permission to present a speech he had written. Because it was painful for him to stand, he asked James Wilson to read it for him:

“I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve; but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise… Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.”

Before the Constitution could be signed, Nathaniel Gorham (Massachusetts) proposed that one final change be made in the document. Where the charter provided that each member of the House of Representatives would represent 40,000 citizens, Gorham suggested that the number be changed to 30,000. Several of the delegates felt that 40,000 was too large a constituency to be represented by one man. Rufus King (Massachusetts), Daniel Carroll (Maryland), and, finally, George Washington announced their agreement with Gorham. Although Washington had previously maintained a rigorous silence on disputed questions, he felt that he should express his opinion on this matter. He hoped that grounds for objection to the Constitution would, wherever possible, be eliminated. He believed that 40,000 was too large a constituency, and, although the hour was late, he still favored the change. Without objection, the word “forty” was erased and the word “thirty” written in its place on the engrossed copy.

The question now arose as to the manner in which the Constitution should be signed. Quorums in all of the represented states (although not all of the delegates in those states) were in favor of submitting the document to ratification. Most delegates wished to present the document to the public in the most favorable light possible and, to the end, hoped to give the impression of unanimity. Accordingly, Franklin moved that the signature clause be made to read: “Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present.” The motion was passed by a vote of 11 states to 1. (South Carolina was divided on the issue. Charles Pinckney and Pierce Butler thought the clause too ambiguous)

That same day, September 17, nearly four months after the convention began, the engrossed copy of the Constitution was signed. Proceeding in the traditional order of states from north to south, the delegates walked to the front of the room, bent over the table in front of the President’s Chair and, with quill pen dipped in iron gall ink, signed their names on the last of the four pages of parchment. There were 38 delegates and 39 signatures (George Read of Delaware, who had overcome his earlier opposition to the document, signed both for himself and for John Dickinson, who was feeling ill and had gone home to Wilmington). Only three members present- Edmund Randolph (Virginia), George Mason (Virginia), and Elbridge Gerry (Massachusetts)- abstained. Thirteen members had left the convention before the final day.

Appropriately, Benjamin Franklin had a few last words. While the other delegates signed their names, the old patriot looked thoughtfully toward the President’s Chair. He told a few delegates near him that painters had found it difficult “to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. I have,” said he, “often and often in the course of the Session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun.”

After the Constitution was signed and the last gavel fell, the delegates filed out of the State House, then proceeded to the City Tavern on Second Street near Walnut. The City Tavern was one of old Philadelphia’s most enjoyable gathering places and had been a favorite haunt of the delegates during the convention. The members shared a last dinner together, complete with toasts and speeches, then bade each other a fond farewell. George Washington’s mind was still excited when he returned to his room at Robert Morris’s house. Washington tended to some business matters and then, in the words of diary, “retired to mediate on the momentous work which had been executed.”

The newspapers were full of news from the convention. The delegates’ self-imposed “rule of secrecy” had heightened the air of mystery surrounding the meeting, and now it seemed as if the public could not hear enough about what had happened during the convention. In Philadelphia on September 19, the Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser published the full text of the Constitution. Just under the newspaper’s masthead, in boldface type, were the words of the Preamble, beginning with the soon-to-be memorial phrase: “We, the People of the United States.” Within weeks, the Constitution was reprinted in newspapers, pamphlets, and booklets all over the country…

Article VII of the Constitution prescribed the process by which the charter was to be ratified. When conventions in at least 9 states had approved the document, the Constitution would be “established” between the ratifying states. Until ratifying conventions had assembled, deliberated, and expressed their approval, however, the document would be nothing more than a hope for a better future…

When Congress received the document, dome of its members were baffled. The Articles of Confederation, from which Congress derived its authority, did not authorize it to do away with the Confederation and replace it with a national government. Those members of Congress who had also attended the Philadelphia assembly argued strongly that Congress should follow the wishes of the convention and submit the Constitution to state ratifying conventions. Richard Henry Lee, a Congresswoman from Virginia, objected. Lee thought the “Federalists” (as proponents of the Constitution were now being called) were trying “to push the business on with dispatch… that it might be adopted before it had stood the test of reflection and due examination.” But a majority of Congress favored the document, paving the way for passage of a resolution referring the Constitution to the legislatures, by them to be “submitted to a convention of Delegates chosen in each state by the people thereof in conformity to the resolves of the Convention…”

[Meanwhile], proponents and opponents of the Constitution began to argue their cases. James Madison [noted:] “The advocates for it come forward more promptly than the adversaries… The sea coast seems everywhere fond of it.”

Indeed, many were “fond” of the Constitution- but hardly anyone entertained the notion that it was “perfect.” The charter was the work of different men with various ideas, the product of a long string of concessions and compromises. To be sure, it called for the establishment of more notable features: three autonomous branches of government, each invested with power and authority to check the excesses of the others; a Congress consisting of two houses with specifically enumerated powers; a national judiciary; and a strong executive. And it provided the framework for a federal government that combined national supremacy with state autonomy and made both subservient to the popular will.

But the document was not free of anomalies. For instance, members of the House of Representatives were to be apportioned among the states “according to their respective numbers,” but the “numbers” were to be calculated in a curious way: all “free persons” were to be counted, as were persons “bound to service for a term of years,” but “Indians not taxed” were to be excluded, and only 3/5 of “all other persons” were to be counted. The delegates knew, of course, that the words “all other persons” referred to slaves and that, by allowing the southern states to count 3/5 of their slaves, the document gave tacit recognition to slavery. But the Constitution by no means approved slavery; indeed, many delegates believed the institution should be abolished throughout the country. The document did require enforcement of fugitive slave laws, but it also empowered Congress to forbid the importation of new slaves into the country after the year 1808. In its curious and conflicting references to slavery, the Constitution was reflecting the concessions and compromises by which it was produced.

In many ways, the charter was a hodgepodge. And yet it was bound together by common values: dedication to the ideals of American independence and liberty, and a conviction that a strong federal government was the best way to safeguard those ideals…

By the end of October, however, Madison could see that the tide of opinion in the country was beginning to turn away from the Constitution. In Virginia, Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry announced their intentions to work against ratifications. In Massachusetts, James Winthrop (writing under the pseudonym of “Agrippa”) published letters that charted that the Constitution gave too much power to the central government and not enough to the states. In New York, Melancton Smith published an Address to the People of the State of New York in which he warned that the Constitution would create an “aristocratic tyranny.” Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, Samuel Bryan published a broadside predicting that, under the Constitution, the United States would be “melted down into one empire” with a government “devoid of all responsibility or accountability to the great body of the people.”

Richard Henry Lee’s views were recorded in his Letters from the Federal Farmer. Forgetting for the moment his own privileged background, Lee said that the Constitution was the work of “the artful and ever active aristocracy.” He agreed with George Mason that the Constitution should include a bill of rights. He also thought that it should provide for a council to assist and advise the president and guarantee the right of jury trial. “If our countrymen are so soon changed,” Lee charged, “and the language of 1774 is become odious to them, it will be in vain to use the language of freedom, or attempt to rouse them to free inquiries.”

Patrick Henry warned Virginians who lived in the region called Kentucky (if would not become a state until 1792) that the Constitution favored the eastern part of the country at the expense of the west and that it would inevitably lead to a loss of navigation rights on the Mississippi. Henry was angered by the Preamble’s reference to “We the People” and challenged the right of the Philadelphia delegates to use such an all-encompassing term…

In New York on September 27 the newspapers began to publish a series of articles attacking the Constitution and the Philadelphia convention. Signed with the pseudonym “Cato,” the letters were widely supposed to have been written by New York’s staunchly antifederalist governor, George Clinton. Other letters, similar in tone and content, appeared under the names of “Sydney” and “Brutus” and were widely recognized as pseudonyms for Clinton’s supporters. Alarmed by the vigor of the “anti-Federalist” letters, Alexander Hamilton decided to mount a reply.

Hamilton had been the only New Yorker to sign the Constitution. He now tried to use the influence he had with other New York politicians. Hamilton was one of the state’s most brilliant lawyers and effective writers. His home and law office on Wall Street were not far from the residences of John Jay and James Madison. The three soon joined forces to answer the attacks of “Cato,” “Sydney,” and “Brutus” with a series of letters [to various newspapers] signed with the name of “Publius” …

There were 85 letters from Publius- 55 written by Hamilton, 29 by Madison, and 5 by Jay. Never one to lose the opportunity to publicize his views, Hamilton arranged with a printing firm to publish the letters in book form, and on May 28, 1788, a 2-volume edition bearing the title of The Federalist was issued by J. and A. McLean in New York… the book was both a reasoned defense of the Constitution and a ringing call for its ratification…

The demand for a bill of rights had become a clarion call of the anti-federalists. In his speeches and letters, George Mason, who had written the Virginia Bill of Rights, argued that the people needed protection against a strong and powerful central government and that they could secure the protection only by specifically limiting the government’s powers. Supporting Mason, Richard Henry Lee complained of the Constitution’s lack of provisions to protect “those essential rights of mankind without which liberty cannot exist.”

Prominent supporters of the Constitution generally opposed a bill of rights. Hamilton thought such a declaration not only unnecessary but “dangerous.” Under the Constitution, the federal government would have only the powers that the people granted it. Therefore, Hamilton argued, the government could have no power to abridge the people’s rights unless they gave it that power. He pointed out that the Constitution already contained many provisions guaranteeing basic civil rights: protection of the writ of habeas corpus, a prohibition against bills of attainder and ex post facto laws, strict proof requirements in all prosecutions for treason, and a guarantee of the right of trial by jury in all criminal cases except impeachments. A bill of rights, Hamilton said, would inevitably “contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?”

South Carolina’s Charles Cotesworth Pinckney pointed out that bills of rights “generally begin with declaring that all men are by nature born free.” “Now, we should make that declaration with a very bad grace,” Pinckney said, “when a large part of our property consists of men who are actually born slaves.” Connecticut’s Roger Sherman said, “No bill of rights ever yet bound the supreme power longer than the honeymoon of a new married couple, unless the rulers were interested in preserving the rights.” And Pennsylvania’s James Wilson sneered: “Enumerate all the rights of men? I am sure that no gentlemen in the late Convention would have attempted such a thing.”

James Madison at first agreed with Hamilton that a bill of rights was unnecessary and potentially dangerous. But, by the fall of 1788, he had become convinced that such a declaration was not only desirable but essential to ratification of the Constitution. On October 17, 1788, Madison expressed his belief that an enumeration of the “fundamental maxims of free Government” would be “a good ground for an appeal to the sense of community” and “counteract the impulses of interest and passion.” Madison pledged that, if the new Constitution went into effect, he would do everything in his power to see that it was amended in such a way as to protect basic human rights from federal infringement…

[The ratification process began in Delaware, whose convention voted unanimously to endorse the new Constitution. The conventions of several other states did likewise. New Hampshire was the ninth and deciding state to ratify. The federalists found themselves hard-pressed in Virginia, where Patrick Henry and other anti-federalists resisted tenaciously. “Wither is the spirit of America gone?” Patrick Henry cried. “Sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is about to convert this country into a powerful and mighty empire.” Virginia narrowly approved the Constitution, as did New York. North Carolina was the twelfth state to ratify, but tiny Rhode Island, the only state that had refused to send a delegation to Philadelphia, held out until May 1790, when it finally approved the Constitution and joined the new Union. Meanwhile, Congress had adopted] an “ordinance” setting March 4, 1789, as the date and New York City as the place for the first meeting of the firs Congress under the Constitution. Members of the Electoral College were chosen, and on February 4 they cast their ballots. To nobody’s surprise, their unanimous choice as the first president under the Constitution was George Washington.

James Madison attended the new Congress as a member of the House of Representatives from Orange County, Virginia. He was denied a Senate seat by a vindictive Patrick Henry, who declared him “unworthy of the confidence of the people.” In the House, Madison took responsibility for introducing the Bill of Rights that Henry, George Mason, and other anti-federalists had demanded… [This took the form of seventeen amendments to the new Constitution; Congress approved most of them and sent them to the state for ratification. By the end of 1791, the requisite three-fourths of the states had approved ten of the amendments, which afterward became known as the American “Bill of Rights.”] Now United States citizens everywhere could be sure that their most valued civic rights- freedom of speech and of the press, freedom of assembly and of religion, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, the right to bear arms, the privilege against self-incrimination, the right to due process of law, the right to train by jury, and the right to representation of counsel- would be protected from federal abridgment. The process was complete… The United States had become a nation.

DEBATES BETWEEN THE FEDERALISTS AND ANTI-FEDERALISTS

Federalist Paper #10- (James Madison- Nov. 22, 1787): “The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard against Domestic Faction and Insurrection Continued”

To the People of the State of New York:AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its

tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations. The valuable improvements made by the American constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it would be an unwarrantable partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and expected. Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. It will be found, indeed, on a candid review of our situation, that some of the distresses under which we labor have been erroneously charged on the operation of our governments; but it will be found, at the same time, that other causes will not alone account for many of our heaviest misfortunes; and, particularly, for that prevailing and increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private rights, which are echoed from one end of the continent to the other. These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.

By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.

There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.

It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.

No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single persons, but concerning the rights of large bodies of citizens? And what are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine? Is a law proposed concerning private debts? It is a question to which the creditors are parties on one side and the debtors on the other. Justice ought to hold the balance between them. Yet the parties are, and must be, themselves the judges; and the most numerous

party, or, in other words, the most powerful faction must be expected to prevail. Shall domestic manufactures be encouraged, and in what degree, by restrictions on foreign manufactures? Are questions which would be differently decided by the landed and the manufacturing classes, and probably by neither with a sole regard to justice and the public good. The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling with which they overburden the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their own pockets.

It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another or the good of the whole.

The inference to which we are brought is, that the causes of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects.

If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed. Let me add that it is the great desideratum by which this form of government can be rescued from the opprobrium under which it has so long labored, and be recommended to the esteem and adoption of mankind.

By what means is this object attainable? Evidently by one of two only. Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time must be prevented, or the majority, having such coexistent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression. If the impulse and the opportunity be suffered to coincide, we well know that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on the injustice and violence of individuals, and lose their efficacy in proportion to the number combined together, that is, in proportion as their efficacy becomes needful.

From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.

A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union.The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.

The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people. The question resulting is, whether small or extensive republics are more favorable to the election of proper guardians of the public weal; and it is clearly decided in favor of the latter by two obvious considerations:

In the first place, it is to be remarked that, however small the republic may be, the representatives must be raised to a certain number, in order to guard against the cabals of a few; and that, however large it may be, they must be limited to a certain number, in order to guard against the confusion of a multitude. Hence, the number of representatives in the two cases not being in proportion to that of the two constituents, and being proportionally greater in the small republic, it follows that, if the proportion of fit characters be not less in the large than in the small republic, the former will present a greater option, and consequently a greater probability of a fit choice.

In the next place, as each representative will be chosen by a greater number of citizens in the large than in the small republic, it will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice with success the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried; and the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to centre in men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established characters.It must be confessed that in this, as in most other cases, there is a mean, on both sides of which inconveniences will be found to lie. By enlarging too much the number of electors, you render the representatives too little acquainted with all their local circumstances and lesser interests; as by reducing it too much, you render him unduly attached to these, and too little fit to comprehend and pursue great and national objects. The federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect; the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular to the State legislatures.

The other point of difference is, the greater number of citizens and extent of territory which may be brought within the compass of republican than of democratic government; and it is this circumstance principally which renders factious combinations less to be dreaded in the former than in the latter. The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party; and the smaller the number of individuals composing a majority, and the smaller the compass within which they are placed, the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to

discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other. Besides other impediments, it may be remarked that, where there is a consciousness of unjust or dishonorable purposes, communication is always checked by distrust in proportion to the number whose concurrence is necessary.

Hence, it clearly appears, that the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic, -- is enjoyed by the Union over the States composing it. Does the advantage consist in the substitution of representatives whose enlightened views and virtuous sentiments render them superior to local prejudices and schemes of injustice? It will not be denied that the representation of the Union will be most likely to possess these requisite endowments. Does it consist in the greater security afforded by a greater variety of parties, against the event of any one party being able to outnumber and oppress the rest? In an equal degree does the increased variety of parties comprised within the Union, increase this security. Does it, in fine, consist in the greater obstacles opposed to the concert and accomplishment of the secret wishes of an unjust and interested majority? Here, again, the extent of the Union gives it the most palpable advantage.

The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against any danger from that source. A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more likely to taint a particular county or district, than an entire State.In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government. And according to the degree of pleasure and pride we feel in being republicans, ought to be our zeal in cherishing the spirit and supporting the character of Federalists.

PUBLIUS

Federalist Paper 15- (Alexander Hamilton- 1787): “The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union”

To the People of the State of New York: IN THE course of the preceding papers, I have endeavored, my fellow-citizens, to place before you, in a clear and convincing light, the

importance of Union to your political safety and happiness. I have unfolded to you a complication of dangers to which you would be exposed, should you permit that sacred knot which binds the people of America together be severed or dissolved by ambition or by avarice, by jealousy or by misrepresentation. In the sequel of the inquiry through which I propose to accompany you, the truths intended to be inculcated will receive further confirmation from facts and arguments hitherto unnoticed. If the road over which you will still have to pass should in some places appear to you tedious or irksome, you will recollect that you are in quest of information on a subject the most momentous which can engage the attention of a free people, that the field through which you have to travel is in itself spacious, and that the difficulties of the journey have been unnecessarily increased by the mazes with which sophistry has beset the way. It will be my aim to remove the obstacles from your progress in as compendious a manner as it can be done, without sacrificing utility to dispatch.

In pursuance of the plan which I have laid down for the discussion of the subject, the point next in order to be examined is the "insufficiency of the present Confederation to the preservation of the Union." It may perhaps be asked what need there is of reasoning or proof to illustrate a position which is not either controverted or doubted, to which the understandings and feelings of all classes of men assent, and which in substance is admitted by the opponents as well as by the friends of the new Constitution. It must in truth be acknowledged that, however these may differ in other respects, they in general appear to harmonize in this sentiment, at least, that there are material imperfections in our national system, and that something is necessary to be done to rescue us from impending anarchy. The facts that support this opinion are no longer objects of speculation. They have forced themselves upon the sensibility of the people at large, and have at length extorted from those, whose mistaken policy has had the principal share in precipitating the extremity at which we are arrived, a reluctant confession of the reality of those defects in the scheme of our federal government, which have been long pointed out and regretted by the intelligent friends of the Union.

We may indeed with propriety be said to have reached almost the last stage of national humiliation. There is scarcely anything that can wound the pride or degrade the character of an independent nation which we do not experience. Are there engagements to the performance of which we are held by every tie respectable among men? These are the subjects of constant and unblushing violation. Do we owe debts to foreigners and to our own citizens contracted in a time of imminent peril for the preservation of our political existence? These remain without any proper or satisfactory provision for their discharge. Have we valuable territories and important posts in the possession of a foreign power which, by express stipulations, ought long since to have been surrendered? These are still retained, to the prejudice of our interests, not less than of our rights. Are we in a condition to resent or to repel the aggression? We have neither troops, nor treasury, nor government.1 Are we even in a condition to remonstrate with dignity? The just imputations on our own faith, in respect to the same treaty, ought first to be removed. Are we entitled by nature and compact to a free participation in the navigation of the Mississippi? Spain excludes us from it. Is public credit an indispensable resource in time of public danger? We seem to have abandoned its cause as desperate and irretrievable. Is commerce of importance to national wealth? Ours is at the lowest point of declension. Is respectability in the eyes of foreign powers a safeguard against foreign encroachments? The imbecility of our government even forbids them to treat with us. Our ambassadors abroad are the mere pageants of mimic sovereignty. Is a violent and unnatural decrease in the value of land a symptom of national distress? The price of improved land in most parts of the country is much lower than can be accounted for by the quantity of waste land at market, and can only be fully explained by that want of private and public confidence, which are so alarmingly prevalent among all ranks, and which have a direct tendency to depreciate property of every kind. Is private credit the friend and patron of industry? That most useful kind which relates to borrowing and lending is reduced within the narrowest limits, and this still more from an opinion of insecurity than from the scarcity of money. To shorten an enumeration of particulars which can afford neither pleasure nor instruction, it may in general be demanded, what indication is there of national disorder, poverty, and insignificance that could befall a community so peculiarly blessed with natural advantages as we are, which does not form a part of the dark catalogue of our public misfortunes?

This is the melancholy situation to which we have been brought by those very maxims and councils which would now deter us from adopting the proposed Constitution; and which, not content with having conducted us to the brink of a precipice, seem resolved to plunge us into the abyss that awaits us below. Here, my countrymen, impelled by every motive that ought to influence an enlightened people, let us make a firm stand for our safety, our tranquility, our dignity, our reputation. Let us at last break the fatal charm which has too long seduced us from the paths of felicity and prosperity.

It is true, as has been before observed that facts, too stubborn to be resisted, have produced a species of general assent to the abstract proposition that there exist material defects in our national system; but the usefulness of the concession, on the part of the old adversaries of federal measures, is destroyed by a strenuous opposition to a remedy, upon the only principles that can give it a chance of success. While they admit that the government of the United States is destitute of energy, they contend against conferring upon it those powers which are requisite to supply that energy. They seem still to aim at things repugnant and irreconcilable; at an augmentation of federal authority, without a diminution of State authority; at sovereignty in the Union, and complete independence in the members. They still, in fine, seem to cherish with blind devotion the political monster of an imperium in imperio. This renders a full display of the principal defects of the Confederation necessary, in order to show that the evils we experience do not proceed from minute or partial imperfections, but from fundamental errors in the structure of the building, which cannot be amended otherwise than by an alteration in the first principles and main pillars of the fabric.

The great and radical vice in the construction of the existing Confederation is in the principle of LEGISLATION for STATES or GOVERNMENTS, in their CORPORATE or COLLECTIVE CAPACITIES, and as contradistinguished from the INDIVIDUALS of which they consist. Though this principle does not run through all the powers delegated to the Union, yet it pervades and governs those on which the efficacy of the rest depends. Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States has an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either, by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America. The consequence of this is, that though in theory their resolutions concerning those objects are laws, constitutionally binding on the members of the Union, yet in practice they are mere recommendations which the States observe or disregard at their option.

It is a singular instance of the capriciousness of the human mind, that after all the admonitions we have had from experience on this head, there should still be found men who object to the new Constitution, for deviating from a principle which has been found the bane of the old, and which is in itself evidently incompatible with the idea of GOVERNMENT; a principle, in short, which, if it is to be executed at all, must substitute the violent and sanguinary agency of the sword to the mild influence of the magistracy.

There is nothing absurd or impracticable in the idea of a league or alliance between independent nations for certain defined purposes precisely stated in a treaty regulating all the details of time, place, circumstance, and quantity; leaving nothing to future discretion; and depending for its execution on the good faith of the parties. Compacts of this kind exist among all civilized nations, subject to the usual vicissitudes of peace and war, of observance and non-observance, as the interests or passions of the contracting powers dictate. In the early part of the present century there was an epidemical rage in Europe for this species of compacts, from which the politicians of the times fondly hoped for benefits which were never realized. With a view to establishing the equilibrium of power and the peace of that part of the world, all the resources of negotiation were exhausted, and triple and quadruple alliances were formed; but they were scarcely formed before they were broken, giving an instructive but afflicting lesson to mankind, how little dependence is to be placed on treaties which have no other sanction than the obligations of good faith, and which oppose general considerations of peace and justice to the impulse of any immediate interest or passion.

If the particular States in this country are disposed to stand in a similar relation to each other, and to drop the project of a general DISCRETIONARY SUPERINTENDENCE, the scheme would indeed be pernicious, and would entail upon us all the mischiefs which have been enumerated under the first head; but it would have the merit of being, at least, consistent and practicable Abandoning all views towards a confederate government, this would bring us to a simple alliance offensive and defensive; and would place us in a situation to be alternate friends and enemies of each other, as our mutual jealousies and rivalships, nourished by the intrigues of foreign nations, should prescribe to us.

But if we are unwilling to be placed in this perilous situation; if we still will adhere to the design of a national government, or, which is the same thing, of a superintending power, under the direction of a common council, we must resolve to incorporate into our plan those ingredients which may be considered as forming the characteristic difference between a league and a government; we must extend the authority of the Union to the persons of the citizens, --the only proper objects of government.

Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience. If there be no penalty annexed to disobedience, the resolutions or commands which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to nothing more than advice or recommendation. This penalty, whatever it may be, can only be inflicted in two ways: by the agency of the courts and ministers of justice, or by military force; by the COERCION of the magistracy, or by the COERCION of arms. The first kind can evidently apply only to men; the last kind must of necessity, be employed against bodies politic, or communities, or States. It is evident that there is no process of a court by which the observance of the laws can, in the last resort, be enforced. Sentences may be denounced against them for violations of their duty; but these sentences can only be carried into execution by the sword. In an association where the general authority is confined to the collective bodies of the communities, that compose it, every breach of the laws must involve a state of war; and military execution must become the only instrument of civil obedience. Such a state of things can certainly not deserve the name of government, nor would any prudent man choose to commit his happiness to it. There was a time when we were told that breaches, by the States, of the regulations of the federal authority were not to be expected; that a sense of common interest would preside over the conduct of the respective members, and would beget a full compliance with all the constitutional requisitions of the Union. This language, at the present day, would appear as wild as a great part of what we now hear from the same quarter will be thought, when we shall have received further lessons from that best oracle of wisdom, experience. It at all times betrayed an ignorance of the true springs by which human conduct is actuated, and belied the original inducements to the establishment of civil power. Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint. Has it been found that bodies of men act with more rectitude or greater disinterestedness than individuals? The contrary of this has been inferred by all accurate observers of the conduct of mankind; and the inference is founded upon obvious reasons. Regard to reputation has a less active influence, when the infamy of a bad action is to be divided among a number than when it is to fall singly upon one. A spirit of faction, which is apt to mingle its poison in the deliberations of all bodies of men, will often hurry the persons of whom they are composed into improprieties and excesses, for which they would blush in a private capacity.

In addition to all this, there is, in the nature of sovereign power, an impatience of control, that disposes those who are invested with the exercise of it, to look with an evil eye upon all external attempts to restrain or direct its operations. From this spirit it happens, that in every

political association which is formed upon the principle of uniting in a common interest a number of lesser sovereignties, there will be found a kind of eccentric tendency in the subordinate or inferior orbs, by the operation of which there will be a perpetual effort in each to fly off from the common centre. This tendency is not difficult to be accounted for. It has its origin in the love of power. Power controlled or abridged is almost always the rival and enemy of that power by which it is controlled or abridged. This simple proposition will teach us how little reason there is to expect, that the persons entrusted with the administration of the affairs of the particular members of a confederacy will at all times be ready, with perfect good-humor, and an unbiased regard to the public weal, to execute the resolutions or decrees of the general authority. The reverse of this results from the constitution of human nature.

If, therefore, the measures of the Confederacy cannot be executed without the intervention of the particular administrations, there will be little prospect of their being executed at all. The rulers of the respective members, whether they have a constitutional right to do it or not, will undertake to judge of the propriety of the measures themselves. They will consider the conformity of the thing proposed or required to their immediate interests or aims; the momentary conveniences or inconveniences that would attend its adoption. All this will be done; and in a spirit of interested and suspicious scrutiny, without that knowledge of national circumstances and reasons of state, which is essential to a right judgment, and with that strong predilection in favor of local objects, which can hardly fail to mislead the decision. The same process must be repeated in every member of which the body is constituted; and the execution of the plans, framed by the councils of the whole, will always fluctuate on the discretion of the ill-informed and prejudiced opinion of every part. Those who have been conversant in the proceedings of popular assemblies; who have seen how difficult it often is, where there is no exterior pressure of circumstances, to bring them to harmonious resolutions on important points, will readily conceive how impossible it must be to induce a number of such assemblies, deliberating at a distance from each other, at different times, and under different impressions, long to co-operate in the same views and pursuits.

In our case, the concurrence of thirteen distinct sovereign wills is requisite, under the Confederation, to the complete execution of every important measure that proceeds from the Union. It has happened as was to have been foreseen. The measures of the Union have not been executed; the delinquencies of the States have, step by step, matured themselves to an extreme, which has, at length, arrested all the wheels of the national government, and brought them to an awful stand. Congress at this time scarcely possess the means of keeping up the forms of administration, till the States can have time to agree upon a more substantial substitute for the present shadow of a federal government. Things did not come to this desperate extremity at once. The causes which have been specified produced at first only unequal and disproportionate degrees of compliance with the requisitions of the Union. The greater deficiencies of some States furnished the pretext of example and the temptation of interest to the complying, or to the least delinquent States. Why should we do more in proportion than those who are embarked with us in the same political voyage? Why should we consent to bear more than our proper share of the common burden? These were suggestions which human selfishness could not withstand, and which even speculative men, who looked forward to remote consequences, could not, without hesitation, combat. Each State, yielding to the persuasive voice of immediate interest or convenience, has successively withdrawn its support, till the frail and tottering edifice seems ready to fall upon our heads, and to crush us beneath its ruins.

PUBLIUS.

Federalist Paper 51 (Alexander Hamilton or James Madison Feb. 8, 1788): “The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances between the Different Departments”

To the People of the State of New York: TO WHAT expedient, then, shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several

departments, as laid down in the Constitution? The only answer that can be given is, that as all these exterior provisions are found to be inadequate, the defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places. Without presuming to undertake a full development of this important idea, I will hazard a few general observations, which may perhaps place it in a clearer light, and enable us to form a more correct judgment of the principles and structure of the government planned by the convention.

In order to lay a due foundation for that separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government, which to a certain extent is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty, it is evident that each department should have a will of its own; and consequently should be so constituted that the members of each should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others. Were this principle rigorously adhered to, it would require that all the appointments for the supreme executive, legislative, and judiciary magistracies should be drawn from the same fountain of authority, the people, through channels having no communication whatever with one another. Perhaps such a plan of constructing the several departments would be less difficult in practice than it may in contemplation appear. Some difficulties, however, and some additional expense would attend the execution of it. Some deviations, therefore, from the principle must be admitted. In the constitution of the judiciary department in particular, it might be inexpedient to insist rigorously on the principle: first, because peculiar qualifications being essential in the members, the primary consideration ought to be to select that mode of choice which best secures these qualifications; secondly, because the permanent tenure by which the appointments are held in that department, must soon destroy all sense of dependence on the authority conferring them.

It is equally evident, that the members of each department should be as little dependent as possible on those of the others, for the emoluments annexed to their offices. Were the executive magistrate, or the judges, not independent of the legislature in this particular, their independence in every other would be merely nominal. But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the

government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public. We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power, where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights. These inventions of prudence cannot be less requisite in the distribution of the supreme powers of the State.

But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defense. In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit. It may even be necessary to guard against dangerous encroachments by still further precautions. As the weight of the legislative authority requires that it should be thus divided, the weakness of the executive may require, on the other hand, that it should be fortified. An absolute negative on the legislature appears, at first view, to be the natural defense with which the executive magistrate should be armed. But perhaps it would be neither altogether safe nor alone sufficient. On ordinary occasions it might not be exerted with the requisite firmness, and on extraordinary occasions it might be perfidiously abused. May not this defect of an absolute negative be supplied by some qualified connection between this weaker department and the weaker branch of the stronger department, by which the latter may be led to support the constitutional rights of the former, without being too much detached from the rights of its own department?

If the principles on which these observations are founded be just, as I persuade myself they are, and they be applied as a criterion to the several State constitutions, and to the federal Constitution it will be found that if the latter does not perfectly correspond with them, the former are infinitely less able to bear such a test. There are, moreover, two considerations particularly applicable to the federal system of America, which place that system in a very interesting point of view.

First. In a single republic, all the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a single government; and the usurpations are guarded against by a division of the government into distinct and separate departments. In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.

Second. It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure. There are but two methods of providing against this evil: the one by creating a will in the community independent of the majority that is, of the society itself; the other, by comprehending in the society so many separate descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole very improbable, if not impracticable. The first method prevails in all governments possessing a hereditary or self-appointed authority. This, at best, is but a precarious security; because a power independent of the society may as well espouse the unjust views of the major, as the rightful interests of the minor party, and may possibly be turned against both parties. The second method will be exemplified in the federal republic of the United States. Whilst all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority. In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent of country and number of people comprehended under the same government.

This view of the subject must particularly recommend a proper federal system to all the sincere and considerate friends of republican government, since it shows that in exact proportion as the territory of the Union may be formed into more circumscribed Confederacies, or States oppressive combinations of a majority will be facilitated: the best security, under the republican forms, for the rights of every class of citizens, will be diminished: and consequently the stability and independence of some member of the government, the only other security, must be proportionately increased. Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradually induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful. It can be little doubted that if the State of Rhode Island was separated from the Confederacy and left to itself, the insecurity of rights under the popular form of government within such narrow limits would be displayed by such reiterated oppressions of factious majorities that some power altogether independent of the people would soon be called for by the voice of the very factions whose misrule had proved the necessity of it. In the extended republic of the United States, and among the great variety of interests, parties, and sects which it embraces, a coalition of a majority of the whole society could seldom take place on any other principles than those of justice and the general good; whilst there being thus less danger to a minor from the will of a major party, there must be less pretext, also, to provide for the security of the former, by introducing into the government a will not dependent on the latter, or, in other words, a will independent of the society itself. It is no less certain than it is important, notwithstanding the contrary opinions which have been entertained, that the larger the society, provided it lie within a practical sphere, the more duly capable it will be of self-government. And happily for the REPUBLICAN CAUSE, the practicable sphere may be carried to a very great extent, by a judicious modification and mixture of the FEDERAL PRINCIPLE.

PUBLIUS.

Counter-Revolution: The Menace of the Constitution by: Patrick Henry, Speech for the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

“The movement favoring adoption of the Constitution could claim great American names, including those of Washington and Franklin, and brilliant talents such as Madison and Hamilton offered. If the Anti-Federalist notables in most states were rather less distinguished, the opposition leaders in Virginia were formidable indeed. They included Patrick Henry, the intoxicating orator and adroit politician of Revolutionary fame; Richard Henry Lee, a veteran leader in the councils of the union, whose Letters from a Federal Farmer gave the Anti-Federalists their most effective campaign document; and George Mason, eminent among the “Republican Gentlemen” who guided Virginia affairs and the principal author of the state’s Declaration of Rights (1776).

When the opposing forces met at Richmond in June 1788 to determine the fate of the new Constitution (a successful union lacking the most populous state was scarcely thinkable), one crucial shift had occurred. The influential Governor Edmund Randolph, who had refused to sign the Constitution at Philadelphia, now joined forces with Madison, George Wythe, John Marshall, Edmund Pendleton, and other Federalist luminaries. Washington lent his endorsement but not his presence. Jefferson, still in favor of ratifying the Constitution while recommending amendments, especially a bill of rights.Patrick Henry thundered his denunciations of the Constitutional Convention in language that recalled the polemics of Revolutionary days. His rhetoric was more extravagant than that of sober Anti-Federalists like Mason; some of his charges were simply wild shots; but essentially he voiced the fears and resentments of all who opposed the Constitution as an instrument of national consolidation. The states would be destroyed. Liberty and prosperity would be exposed to the will of a distant and unfriendly central power. The real choice, Henry argued with some justice and some exaggeration, lay between the two ideals: a simple, decentralized country which left men and localities largely free to act for themselves; or “a great, mighty, and splendid nation.

On June 26, 1788, Virginia ratified the new Constitution, but only by a margin of ten votes. Following the example set by Massachusetts and observed by nearly all of the subsequent conventions, the Virginia body recommended the adoption of a bill of rights and other amendments.

Mr. Henry. Mr. Chairman, the public mind, as well as my own, is extremely uneasy at the proposed change of government. Give me leave to form one of the number of those who wish to be thoroughly acquainted with the reasons of this perilous and uneasy situation, and why we are brought hither to decide on this great national question. I consider myself as the servant of the people of this commonwealth, as a sentinel over their rights, liberty, and happiness. I represent their feelings when I say that they are exceedingly uneasy at being brought from that state of full security, which they enjoyed, to the present delusive appearance of things. A year ago, the minds of our citizens were at perfect repose. Before the meeting of the late federal Convention in Philadelphia, a general peace and a universal tranquility prevailed in this country; but, since that period, they are exceedingly uneasy and disquieted. When I wished for an appointment to this Convention, my mind was extremely agitated for the situation of public affairs. I conceived the republic to be in extreme danger. If our situation be thus uneasy, whence has arisen this fearful jeopardy? It arises from this fatal system; it arises from a proposal to change our government- a proposal that goes to the utter annihilation of the most solemn engagements of the states…

… Make the best of this new government- say it is composed by anything but inspiration- you ought to be extremely cautions, watchful, jealous of your liberty; for, instead of securing your rights, you may lose them forever. If a wrong step be made now, the republic may be lost forever. If this new government will not come up to the expectation of the people, and they shall be disappointment, their liberty will be lost, and tyranny must and will arise. I repeat it again, and I beg gentlemen to consider, that a wrong step, made now, will plunge us into misery, and our republic will be lost. It will be necessary for this Convention to have a faithful historical detail of the facts that preceded the session of the federal Convention, and the reasons that actuated its members in proposing an entire alteration of government, and to demonstrate the dangers that awaited us. If they were of such awful magnitude as to warrant a proposal so extremely perilous as this, I must assert, that this Convention has an absolute right to a thorough discovery of every circumstance relative to this great event. And here I would make this inquiry of those worthy characters who composed a part of the late federal Convention. I am sure they were fully impressed with the necessity of forming a great consolidated government, instead of a confederation. That this is a consolidated government is demonstrably clear; and the danger of such a government is, to my mind, very striking. I have the highest veneration for those gentlemen; but, sir, give me leave to demand. What right had they to say We, the people? My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask: Who authorized them to speak the language of We, the people, instead of We, the states? States are the characteristics and the soul of a confederation. If the states be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great, consolidated, national government, of the people of all the states…

… Here is a resolution as radical as that which separated us from Great Britain. It is radical in this transition; our rights and privileges are endangered, and the sovereignty of the states will be relinquished; and cannot we plainly see that this is actually the case? The rights of conscience, trial by jury, liberty of the press, all your immunities and franchise, all pretensions to human rights and privileges, are rendered insecure, if not lost, by this change, so loudly talked of by some, and inconsiderately by others. Is this tame relinquishment of rights worthy of freemen? Is it worthy of that manly fortitude that ought to characterize republicans? It is said eight states have adopted this plan. I declare that if twelve states and a half had adopted it, I would, with manly firmness, and in spite of an erring world, reject it. You are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and powerful people, but how your liberties can be secured; for liberty ought to be the direct end of your government…

… We are come hither to preserve the poor commonwealth of Virginia, if it can by possibly done: something must be done to preserve your liberty and mine. The Confederation, this same despised government, merits, in my opinion, the highest encomium: it carried us through a long and dangerous war; it rendered us victorious in that bloody conflict with a powerful nation; it has secured us a territory greater than any European monarch possess: and shall a government which has been thus strong and vigorous, be accused of imbecility, and abandoned for want of energy? Consider what you are about to do before you part with the government. Take longer time in reckoning things; revolutions like this have happened in almost every country in Europe; similar examples are to be found in ancient Greece and ancient Rome- instances of the people losing their liberty by their own carelessness and the ambition of a few. We are cautioned by the honorable gentlemen, who presides, against faction and turbulence. I acknowledge that licentiousness is dangerous, and that it ought to be provided against: I acknowledge, also, the new form of government may effectually prevent it: yet there is another thing it will as effectually do- it will oppress and ruin the people.

… An opinion has gone forth, we find, that we are contemptible people: the time has been when we were thought otherwise. Under the same despised government, we commanded the respect of all Europe: wherefore are we now reckoned otherwise? The American spirit has fled from hence: it has gone to the people of France, in search of a splendid government- a strong, energetic government. Shall we imitate the example of those nations who have gone from a simple to a splendid government? Are those nations more worthy of our imitation? What can

make an adequate satisfaction to them for the loss they have suffered in attaining such a government- for the loss of their liberty? If we admit this consolidated government, it will be because we like a great, splendid one. Some way or other we must be a great and mighty empire; we must have an army, and a navy, and a number of things. When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: liberty, sir, was then the primary object. We are descended from a people whose government was founded on liberty: our glorious forefathers of Great Britain made liberty the foundation of every great thing. That county is become a great, mighty, and splendid nation; not because their government is strong and energetic, but, sir, because liberty is its direct end and foundation. We drew the spirit of liberty from our British ancestors: by that spirit we have triumphed over every difficulty. But now, sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is about to convert this country into a powerful and mighty empire. If you make the citizens of this country agree to become the subjects of one great consolidated empire of America, your government will not have sufficient energy to keep them together. Such a government is incompatible with the genius of republicanism. There will be no checks, no real balances, in this government. What can avail your specious, imaginary balances, your rope-dancing, chain-rattling, ridiculous ideal checks and contrivances? But, sir, we are not feared by foreigners; we do not make nations tremble. Would this constitute happiness, or secure liberty? I trust, sir, our political hemisphere will ever direct their operations to the security of those objects.

Consider our situation, sir: go to the poor man, and ask him what he does. He will inform you that he enjoys the fruits of his labor, under his own fig-tree, with his wife and children around him, in peace and security. Go to every other member of society- you will find the same tranquil ease and content; you will find no alarms or disturbances. Why, then, tell us of danger, to terrify us into an adoption of this new form of government? And yet who knows the dangers that this new system may produce? They are out of the sight of the common people: they cannot foresee latent consequences. I dread the operation of it on the middling and lower classes of people: it is for them I fear the adoption of this system. I fear I tire the patience of the committee; but I beg to be indulged with a few more observations. When I thus profess myself an advocate for the liberty of the people, I shall be told I am a designing man, that I am to be a great man, that I am to be a demagogue; and many similar illiberal insinuations will be thrown out: but, sir, conscious rectitude outweighs those things with me. I see great jeopardy in this new government. I see none from our present one…

This Constitution is said to have beautiful features; but when I come to examine these features, sir, they appear to me horribly frightful. Among other deformities, it has an awful squinting; it squints towards monarchy; and does not this raise indignation in the breast of every true American?

Your President may easily become king. Your Senate is so imperfectly constructed that your dearest rights may be sacrificed by what may be a small minority; and a very small minority may continue forever unchangeably this government, although horridly defective. Where are your checks in this government? Your strongholds will be in the hands of your enemies. It is on a supposition that your American governors shall be honest, that all the good qualities of this government are grounded, but its defective and imperfect construction puts it in their power to perpetrate the worst of mischiefs, should they be bad men; and, sir, would not all the world, from the eastern to the western hemisphere, blame our distracted folly in resting our rights upon the contingency of our rulers being good or bad? Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty! I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed, with absolute certainly, every such mad attempt.

If your American chief be a man of ambition and abilities, how easy is it for him to render himself absolute! The army is in his hands and if he be a man of address, it will be attached to him, and it will be the subject of long mediation with him to seize the first auspicious moment to accomplish his design; and, sir, will the American spirit solely relieve you when this happens? I would rather infinitely- and I am sure most of this Convention are of the same opinion- have a king, lords, and commons, than a government so replete with such insupportable evils. If we make a king, we may prescribe the rules by which he shall rule his people, and interpose such checks as shall prevent him from infringing them; but the President, in the field, at the head of his army, can prescribe the terms on which he shall reign master, so far that it will puzzle any American every to get his neck from under the galling yoke. I cannot with patience think of this idea. If ever he violates the laws, one of two things will happen: he will come at the head of his army, to carry everything before him; or he will give bail, or do what Mr. Chief Justice will order him. If he be guilty, will not the recollection of his crimes teach him to make one bold push for the American throne? Will not the immense difference between being master of everything, and being ignominiously tried and punished, powerfully excite him to make this bold push? But, sir, where is the existing force to publish hum? Can he not, at the head of his army, beat down every opposition? Away with your President! We shall have a king: the army will salute him monarch: your militia will leave you, and assist in making him king, and fight against you: and what have you to oppose this force? What will then become of you and your rights? Will not absolute despotism ensue?...

I beg pardon of this house for having taken up more time than came to my share, and I thank them for the patience and polite attention with which I have been heard. If I shall be in the minority, 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 by at liberty to retrieve the loss of liberty, and remove the defects of that 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 that government changed, so as to be compatible with the safety, liberty, and happiness, of the people.”

THE HAMILTONIAN VS. JEFFERSONIAN DEBATEThe Federalist era- from 1789 to 1800- was a formative period and simultaneously a period of conflict in American history. For these

years laid the political foundations of America’s federal system in a climate of heated controversy over various political, economic, and ideological issues centering around the views of two political opponents in President Washington’s cabinet- Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson.

Politically, Hamilton favored a strong central government, a broad interpretation of the Constitution, and believed, for example, that Congress possessed the power to establish a national bank. Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, believed in strong state governments and a strict interpretation of the Constitution. He wanted to limit the powers of the central government, and so opposed Hamilton’s plan to establish a national bank. In matters of economic policy, Hamilton favored the industrialization of America in order to diversify its economy and strengthen the national government. Jefferson, however, opposed Hamilton’s efforts at industrialization because he thought that only an agriculturally based economy would preserve the moral fiber of Americans. Hamilton and Jefferson also had basic ideological differences, stemming from their different views of man. Hamilton believed man was motivated by greed and passion; Jefferson thought man was basically virtuous and wise. Hamilton thought democracy would degenerate into a state of tyranny over the easily swayed masses; Jefferson believed that education would prepare the masse for intelligent decision-making. Hamilton thought power should be concentrated in the hands of a small, well-informed governing class; Jefferson thoroughly believed in government of, by, and for the people.

By 1792 the conflict between Hamilton and Jefferson had led to the formation of two political parties in the United States- the Federalist Party, which supported Hamilton’s views, and the Republican (presently the Democratic) Party, which supported Jefferson’s views. Moreover, the battle was carried into the press. Hamilton used the pages of John Fenno’s Gazette of the United States to attack the Republican Party’s policies, while Jefferson and fellow Republican James Madison used Philip Freneau’s National Gazette to attack the Federalist Party’s doctrines.

By 1796 the Federalist Party was in a process of decline. Although the party maintained a stronghold in the Supreme Court and in New England for a few more decades, the Federalist Era can be said to have come to a close in 1800 with Jefferson’s election to the presidency. The issues raised during the Federalist era, however, did not die. The questions that were being debated them- questions about the powers of the federal government and the nature of democratic man- are still being argued today. The views that Hamilton and Jefferson expressed in the Federalist Era are presented in this chapter for your analysis.

I. POLITICAL DIFFERNCES BETWEEN JEFFERSON AND HAMILTON

Thomas Jefferson on the Unconstitutionality of a National BankIn December 1790, Alexander Hamilton presented his Report on a National Bank to congress, and a bill based on this plan passed

Congress in February 1791. Before signing the bill, however, President Washington asked Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Randolph, and Alexander Hamilton to submit opinions as to the constitutionality of a national bank. Jefferson’s opinions, delivered on February 15, 1791, is excerpted below. Jefferson, a firm believer in states’ rights and in limiting the powers of the national government, thought that the power to establish a national bank was not included in any of the enumerated powers or implied powers granted to Congress in the Constitution.

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground- that all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states, or to the people [10th Amendment]. To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition. The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill, have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United States by the Constitution. They are not among the power specifically enumerated. For these are-

1. A power to lay taxes for the purpose of paying debts of the United States. But no debt is paid by this bill, nor any tax laid. Were it a bill to raise money, its organization in the Senate would condemn it by the Constitution.

2. To “borrow money”. But this bill neither borrows money nor insures the borrowing of it. The proprietors of the bank will be just as free as any other money-holders to lend, or not to lend, their money to the public…

3. “To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the states, and with the Indian tribes.” … To make a thing which may be bought and sold, is not to prescribe regulations for buying and selling. Besides, if this were an exercise of the power of regulating commerce, it would be void, as extending as much to the internal commerce of every states, as it is external. For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a state… which remains exclusively with its own legislatures…

Still less are these powers covered by any other of the special enumerations. Nor are they within either of the general phrases, which are the two following:

1. “To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States;” that is to say, “to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare;” for the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised… In like manner, they are not to do anything they please, to provide for general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase- that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they [members of Congress] pleased…

2. The second general phrase is “to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the enumerated powers.” But they can all be carried into execution without a bank. A bank, therefore, is not necessary, and consequently not authorized by this phrase.

It has been much urged that a bank will give great facility or convenience in the collection of taxes. Suppose this were true; yet the Constitution allows only the means which are “necessary”, not those which are merely “convenient” for effecting the enumerated powers… Therefore it was that the Constitution restrained them to the necessary means; that is to say, to those means without which the grant of the power would be nugatory [worthless].

Alexander Hamilton on the Constitutionality of a National BankOn February 22, 1791, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton delivered his Opinion as to the Constitutionality of a National

Bank, which is excerpted below. To Hamilton, a bank organized as a government-run corporation was an important element in his economic designs for America. The bank would serve to strengthen the power of the national government through its function of issuing paper money, and would serve to tighten the link between government and business by selling shares of its stock to wealthy investors. Hamilton believed that congressional power to establish a Bank of the United States came from implied powers originating in the “necessary and proper” clause of the federal Constitution. He was able to convince President Washington of the constitutionality of the measure, and Washington signed the bill into law on February 25.

… In entering upon the argument it ought to be premised that the objections of the Secretary of State and the Attorney-General are founded on a general denial of the authority of the United States to erect corporations. The latter, indeed, expressly admits, that if there be anything in the bill which is not warranted by the Constitution, it is the clause of incorporation…

It is conceded that implied powers are to be considered as delegated equally with express ones. Then it follows, that as a power of erecting a corporation may as well be implied as any other thing, it may as well be employed as an instrument or mean of carrying into execution any of the specified powers, as any other instrument or mean whatever. The only question must be, in this, as in every other case, whether the mean to be employed, or in this instance, the corporation to be erected, has a natural relation to any of the acknowledged objects or lawful ends of the government. Thus a corporation may not be erected by Congress for superintending the police of the city of Philadelphia, because they are not authorized to regulate the police of that city. But one may be erected in relation to the collection of taxes, or to the trade with foreign countries, or to the trade between the States, or with the Indian tribes; because it is the province of the federal government to regulate those objects and because it is incident to a general sovereign or legislative power to regulate a thing, to employ all the means which relate to its regulation to the best and greatest advantage…

… It is objected, that none but necessary and proper means are to be employed; and the Secretary of State maintains, that no means are to be considered as necessary but those without which the grant of power would be nugatory… It is essential to the being of the national government, that so erroneous a conception of the meaning of the word necessary should be exploded. It is certain, that neither the grammatical nor popular sense of the term requires that construction. According to both, necessary often means no more than needful, requisite, incidental, useful, or conducive to… And it is the true one in which it is to be understood as used in the Constitution. The whole turn of the clause containing it indicates, that it was the intent of the Convention, by that clause, to give a liberal latitude to the exercise of the specified powers…

To understand the word as the Secretary of State does, would be to depart from its obvious and popular sense, and to give it a restrictive operation, an idea never before entertained. It would be to give it the same force as if the world absolutely or indispensably had been prefixed to it…

The degree in which a measure is necessary, can never be a test of the legal right to adopt it; that must be a matter of opinion, and can only be a test of expediency. The relation between the measure and the end; between the nature of the mean employed towards the execution of a power, and the object of that power, must be the criterion of constitutionality, not the more or less of necessity or utility…

… If the end be clearly comprehended within any of the specified powers, and if the measure have an obvious relation to that end, and is not forbidden by any particular provision of the Constitution, it may safely be deemed to come within the compass of the national authority.

II. ECONOMIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN JEFFERSON AND HAMILTON

Thomas Jefferson Favors an Agricultural EconomyThomas Jefferson’s views on economic policy are discussed in the following portion of his book, Notes on Virginia, written during the

winter of 1781-82. Jefferson was strongly opposed to the industrialization of the United States and wanted the nation to remain agriculturally oriented. He had traveled widely in Europe, had seen the effects of industrialization on living conditions there, and though an agricultural economy would preserve “happiness and permanence of government” in America. Jefferson’s views were representative of the Southern planter interests.

We never had an interior trade of any importance. Our exterior commerce has suffered very much from the beginning of the present contest. During this time we have manufactured within our families the most necessary articles of clothing. Those of cotton will bear some comparison with the same kinds of manufacture in Europe; but those of wool, flax and hemp are very course, unsightly, and unpleasant; and such is our attachment to agriculture, and such our preference for foreign manufactures, that be it wise or unwise, our people will certainly return as soon as they can, to the raising materials, and exchanging them for finer manufactures…

The political economist of Europe have established it as a principle, that every State should endeavor to manufacture for itself; and this principle, like many others, we transfer to America, without calculating the difference of circumstance which should often produce a different result. In Europe the lands are either cultivated, or locked up against the cultivator. Manufacture must therefore be resorted to of necessity not of choice, to support the surplus of their people. But we have an immensity of land courting the industry of the husbandman. Is it best then that all our citizens should be employed in its improvement, or that one half should be called off from that to exercise manufactures and handicraft arts for the other? Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen people… Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators is a phenomenon of which no age nor nation has furnished an example. It is the mark set on those, who, not looking up to heaven, to their own soil and industry, as does the husbandman, for their subsistence, depend for it on casualties and caprice of customers. Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition… While we have land to labor then, let us never wish to see out citizens occupied at a workbench, or twirling a distaff… For the general operations of manufacture, let our workshops remain in Europe. It is better to carry provisions and materials to workmen there, than bring them to the provisions and materials, and with them their manners and principles. The loss by the transportation of commodities across the Atlantic will be made up in happiness and permanence of government. The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon sets to the heart of its laws and constitution.

Alexander Hamilton Favors an Industrial EconomyOn December 5, 1791, Alexander Hamilton presented his Report on Manufactures to Congress. This extensive report was the final step

in his overall plan as Secretary of the Treasury to centralize the American government and to industrialize the American economy . Hamilton believed that industrialization and economic self-sufficiency were necessary for the political and economic security of the country. And he believed that the encouragement of manufactures would bridge sectional interests by breeding interdependence between the North and South. His plan, however, was attacked by Southern planter and slaveholding interests as being beneficial mainly to the North, and no legislation resulted from it in Congress.

… The trade of a country, which is both manufacturing and agricultural, will be more lucrative and prosperous than that of a country which is merely agricultural… The importations of manufactured supplies seem invariably to drain the merely agricultural people of their wealth. Let the situation of the manufacturing countries of Europe be compared… with that of countries which only cultivate, and the disparity will be striking… The West India Islands, the soil of which are the most fertile, and the nation which, in the greatest degree, supplies the rest of the world with precious metals, exchange to a loss, with almost every other country.

… Experience, at home… will lead to the same conclusion. Previous to the Revolution, the quantity of coin possessed by the colonies which now compose the United States, appeared to be inadequate to their circulation; and their debt to Great Britain was progressive. Since the Revolution, the States in which manufactures have most increased, have recovered fastest from the injuries of the late war, and abound most in pecuniary [financial] resources… Not only the wealth, but the independence and security of a country, appear to be materially connected with the prosperity of manufactures. Every nation, with a view to those great objects, ought to endeavor to possess within itself, all the essentials of national supply. These comprise the means of subsistence, habitation, clothing, and defense.

The possession of these is necessary… to the safety as well as to the welfare of the society. The want of either is the want of an important organ of political life and motion; and in the various crises which await a State, it must severely feel the effects of any such deficiency. The extreme embarrassments of the United States, during the late war, from an incapacity of supplying themselves, are still matter of keen recollection; a future war might be expected again to exemplify the mischiefs and dangers of a situation, to which the incapacity is still, in too great a degree, applicable, unless changed by timely and vigorous exertion. To effect this change, as fast as shall be prudent, merits all the attention and all the zeal of our public councils: tis the next great work to be accomplished...

One more point of view remains, in which to consider the expediency of encouraging manufactures in the United States. It is not uncommon to meet with an opinion, that, though the promoting of manufactures may be the interest of a part of the Union, it is contrary to that of another part. The Northern and Southern regions are sometimes represented as having adverse interests in this respect. Those are called manufacturing, these agricultural Sates; and a species of opposition is imagined to subsist between the manufacturing and agricultural interests.

The idea of an opposition between those two interests, is the common error of the early periods of every country; but experience gradually dissipates it. Indeed, they are perceived so often to succor and befriend each other, that they come at length to be considered as one… Particular encouragements of particular manufactures may be of a nature to sacrifice the interests of landholders to those of manufactures; but it is nevertheless a maxim, well established by experience, and generally acknowledged, that the aggregate [total] prosperity of manufactures and the aggregate prosperity of agriculture are intimately connected…

Ideas of a contrariety of interests between the Northern and Southern regions of the Union, are, in the main, as unfounded as they are mischievous… Mutual wants constitute one of the strongest links of political connection… If the Northern and Middle States should be the principal scenes of such establishments, they would immediately benefit the more Southern, by creating a demand for productions… which are either peculiar to them, or more abundant, or of better quality, then elsewhere. These productions, principally, are timber, flax, hemp, cotton, wool, raw silk, indigo, iron, lead, furs, hides, skins, and coals; of these articles, cotton and indigo are peculiar to the Southern States, as are, hitherto, lead and coal; flax and hemp are, or may be, raised in greater abundance there, than that in the more Northern States; and the wool of Virginia is said to be of better quality than of any other State- a circumstance rendered the more probable, by the reflection, that Virginia embraces the same latitudes with the finest wool countries of Europe. The climate of the South is also better adapted to the production of silk.

The extensive cultivation of cotton, can, perhaps, hardly be expected but from the previous establishment of domestic manufactories of the article; and the surest encouragement and vent [outlet] for the others, would result from similar establishments in respect to them.

If, then, it satisfactorily appears, that it is the interest of the United States, generally, to encourage manufactures, it merits particular attention, that there are circumstances which render the present a critical moment for entering, with zeal, upon the important business.

III. IDEOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HAMILTON AND JEFFERSON

Alexander Hamilton on the Inability of the Masses to Participate in GovernmentAlexander Hamilton believed that government should be the province of the educated and wealthy. He distrusted the common man’s

ability to vote intelligently in a democratic system and favored a republican form of government with voting rights limited to the few. In the following excerpts from two of his speeches to the Constitutional Convention in June, 1787, Hamilton explains the basis for his beliefs.

… I believe that British government forms the best model the world ever produced, and such has been its progress in the minds of the many that this truth gradually gains ground. This government has for its object public strength and individual security. It is said with us to be unattainable. If it was once formed it would maintain itself. All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government. Can a democratic assembly, who annually revolve in the mass of the people, be supposed steadily to pursue the public good? Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy. Their turbulent and un-controlling disposition requires checks.

… Take mankind as they are, and what are they governed by? Their passions. There may be in every government a few choice spirits, who may act from more worthy motives. One great error is that we suppose mankind more honest than they are. Our prevailing passions are ambition and interest; and it will ever be the duty of a wise government to avail itself of those passions in order to make them subservient to the public good- for these ever induce us to action.

Thomas Jefferson on the Ability of the Masses to Participate in Government Thomas Jefferson, with faith in the common man, strongly believed in universal suffrage, but thought education was a necessary

prerequisite. In the following expert from his Notes on Virginia, Jefferson discusses his plans for a system to educate the poor people of Virginia and explains the reasoning behind his political philosophy.

… By that part of our plan which prescribes the selection of the youths of genius from among the classes of the poor, we hope to avail the State of those talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as the rich, but which perish without use, if not sought for and cultivated. But of all the views of this law none is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty. For this purpose the reading in the first stage, where they [the great mass of people] will receive their whole education, is proposed… to be chiefly historical. History, by appraising them of the past, will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views.

In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover, and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate and improve. Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree. This indeed is not all that is necessary, though it be essentially necessary… the influence over government must be shared among all the people. If every individual which composes their mass participates of the ultimate authority, the government will be safe; because the corrupting the whole mass will exceed any private resources of wealth; and public ones cannot be provided but by levies on the people. In this case every man would have to pay his own price. The government of Great Britain has been corrupted, because but one man in ten has a right to vote for members of Parliament. The sellers of the government, therefore, get nine-tenths of their price clear. It has been thought that corruption is restrained by confining the right of suffrage to a few of the wealthier of the people; but it would be more effectually restrained by an extension of that right to such members as would bid defiance to the means of corruption.

SOURCE:Touhill, Blanche M. "The Federalist Era." Readings in American History. River Forest, IL: Laidlaw Bros., 1970. N. pag. Print.

TIME 3 (1754-1800)

Name: _____________________________________________________________ Date: _____________________

QUESTIONS- RATIFICATION READINGS

1. The frames of the Constitution were all well-to-do, socially prominent Americans. Did they produce a document that was fundamentally democratic or undemocratic? How did they feel about the will of the majority? What steps did they take to control that majority?

2. In many ways, the character was a hodgepodge, a collection of ideas based on northern or southern biases, agricultural or commercial interest, federalists or anti-federalists sentiments. What kinds of compromises did the representatives of these divergent interests finally accept?

3. The Constitution nearly failed the battle for ratification. What was the most significant area of dissention? What forms of persuasion and compromise did both federalists and anti-federalists employ?