the state had pronounced unconstitutional.

The Quak- CHAPTER

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ers, a numerous and influential sect, had petitioned in a body against the Tender Act. The Cincinnati of Rhode 1788. Island indignantly expelled one of their members, who had availed himself of it to discharge a specie debt. But the system was still maintained, and was presently carried out to its ultimate object by the discharge of the last installment of the state debt, the paper being depreciated to ten or eleven for one, and the public creditors obliged to take it or to forfeit their claims. An explanation of these proceedings may be found in the extreme poverty to which Rhode Island, always greatly dependent on trade, had been reduced in the course of the Revolutionary war, a depression out of which she had not yet recovered. A large proportion of her citizens were insolvent, and this paper money system, in its operation upon private contracts, was not materially different from the insolvent laws of the present day. As respected the public debt, it fell short of repudiation, operating like those compositions with their creditors into which it has. not been uncommon for states to enter, and instances of which have been recently seen.

In Massachusetts, as well as in Virginia, New York, and Pennsylvania, the federal majority was very uncertain. Indeed, it may well be questioned whether in either of those four great states there was actually any federal majority at all. New Hampshire and South Carolina were equally doubtful; nor could Georgia be depended upon. It was only in Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, and Maryland, all of which, in the Convention, had supported, at first, the State Rights view, and had opposed the formation of a national government, that the Constitution, now that it was adopted, seemed certain of steady support.

CHAPTER

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Who

With such a prospect before them, the proposal for a new convention excited in the minds of the Federalists 1788. the liveliest alarm. The late Federal Convention, though nominally called to amend the Articles of Confederation, had ended in producing a system entirely new. could tell that a second convention might not totally undo all the labors of the first? The more moderate partisans of the new system were willing to admit that, for the sake of peace and conciliation, it might, perhaps, be wise for Congress to recommend, and for the states to adopt, some of the suggested amendments, such of them, at least, as, without changing any part of the federal machinery, went no further than a declaration of rights. The more strenuous insisted that no change whatever ought to be made till the Constitution had first been tried. All agreed in regarding the proposal of a new convention as insidious, and dangerous in the highest degree.

Though in Massachusetts, as well as in Virginia, the ratification of the new Constitution had been carried with very great difficulty, and by a very slender majority, yet the position of parties in these two leading states was entirely different; so much so as soon to place them in decided and permanent political opposition. In Massachusetts, the weight of talent, wealth, and influence was altogether on the federal side. The anti-Federalists were destitute of organization and of leaders, most of those who soon became so being restrained at present by having committed themselves in favor of the Constitution. The Federalists controlled the state Legislature, and the whole weight of the state government was thrown decidedly into that scale.

Very different was the position of parties in Virginia. The anti-Federalists had able leaders: at their head,

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Patrick Henry, whose influence over the Assembly was CHAPTER very predominant. Many of the great planters were on that side, and the backwoods population almost univers- 1788. ally so. What tended to strengthen the anti-Federal party in Virginia was the large amount of old debts due to British merchants, for enforcing the payment of which it was feared the new Constitution would furnish additional facilities. These debts, estimated by Jefferson as high as ten millions of dollars as much as was due from all the other states put together-had originated in advances made in colonial times by British merchants for the purchase of slaves and for plantation supplies, in return for which the planter had been obliged to consign all his produce to be sold on commission by the house making the advance. "These debts," says Jefferson, "had become hereditary from father to son for many generations, so that the planters were a species of property annexed to certain mercantile houses in London." The idea of being again subjected to this thraldom, or, at least, compelled to square up the old accounts, had a very great influence in diffusing and upholding anti-Federal ideas, not only in Virginia, but through the entire South, from which the other ten millions were principally due. Instead of having on their side almost the entire talent, wealth, and intelligence of the state, as was the case in Massachusetts, the Federalists of Virginia could boast of only a share, while the mass of the population was against them. The anti-Federalists had the control of the state Legislature, as appears, indeed, by the proceedings already quoted, and Virginia accordingly took her place at the head of the anti-Federal party of the nation.

Next to Virginia, the anti-Federalists were strongest and most ably led in New York; and thus early were

CHAPTER Combinations formed which have influenced the politics I. of the Union even to the present day. The tendency, 1788. indeed, of New York to a close political sympathy with

Virginia and the Southern States, as against New England, had made itself visible at an early period of the old confederation, having naturally grown out of a certain resemblance in institutions and manners, which, in New York and the South, had much more of an aristocratic cast than in New England. At the head of the antiFederalists of New York was George Clinton, governor of that state ever since the state Constitution had been formed, a man of great energy and firmness, and possessing great weight with the mass of the people. The secret of Clinton's anti-Federalism was simply this. The unrivaled advantages for trade which New York possessed in her admirable sea-port at the mouth of the Hudson not only secured to her the certainty of an ample revenue by imposts upon commerce, but the power also, more than once exercised during colonial times, of levying tribute on her neighbors. With a feeling of state pride and state selfishness, more excusable than wise or commendable, many of the New Yorkers were unwilling to surrender this great power over commerce and their neighbors. Hence the opposition which Clinton had always made to the grant of the continental impost ; and when the defeat of that grant, by an operation as little wished as expected, had contributed to give birth to the Federal Constitution, his no less determined opposition to that. The city of New York and the southern counties, persuaded that the prosperity of the state would be far more certainly secured as a member of the Union. than by entering into a struggle for commercial supremacy, were strongly federal. But the governor was zealously supported by the northern and western counties,

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and a fair proportion of the ablest men in the state coin- CHAPTER cided with his views. The New York Senate had a majority of Federalists, but the other party predominated 1788. in the Lower House. Clinton called an extra session of the Legislature to take such steps as had become necessary toward carrying the Federal Constitution into effect. The state was divided into districts for the choice of representatives to Congress, but as to the choice of senators and presidential electors, the two houses could not agree. The Assembly wished to choose them by joint ballot, which method would have insured the election of two anti-Federal senators; the other house insisted upon their concurrent right, offering, however, to compromise upon any method which would secure to them the nomination of one senator and half of the electors. Finally, the Legislature separated without coming to any agreement; in consequence of which, New York did not vote at the election of president, nor had she during the greater part of the first session of Congress any representatives in the federal Senate.

There were in Pennsylvania, as we have seen already, some very warm and active opponents of the new Federal Constitution. The leaders of what was known in that state as the Constitutional party, the advocates of the then existing state Constitution, were generally inclined to the anti-Federal side. But those leaders, at present, were in a minority; as yet the masses remained quiescent; and under the guidance of the opponents of the existing state Constitution, the Republican party, as they called themselves, a name presently merged in that of Federalist, Pennsylvania took her old position, as under the Confederation, by the side of Massachusetts as against Virginia and New York.

In all the ratifying states, New York excepted, presi