from Switzerland, destined presently to political celebrity, CHAPTER was also a member.

L

The Virginia Assembly, at their annual meeting, gave 1788. the sanction of their authority to the numerous amend- Nov. 20. ments to the Federal Constitution already suggested by the Virginia Convention. They also passed an act, disqualifying all persons on whom any lucrative office might be conferred, under the new Federal Constitution, from holding any office under the state, except in the militia or as county magistrates. In response to the New York circular, they prepared an address to the Federal Congress about to meet, calling for a new Federal Convention to revise the Constitution. "At the same time," says this address, "that, from motives of affection to our sister states, the Virginia Convention yielded their assent to the ratification, they gave the most unequivocal proof that they dreaded its operation under the present form. In acceding to the government under this impression, painful must have been the prospect, had they not derived consolation from a full expectation of its imperfections being speedily amended." For a detail of their objections, involving, as they alleged, "all the great and unalienable rights of freemen," they refer to the proceedings of the late Convention and their own resolutions, at the same time declaring their opinion that, "as these objections are not founded in speculative theory, but are deduced from principles which have been established by the melancholy example of other nations in different ages, so they will never be removed till the cause itself shall cease to exist." "The sooner, therefore, the public apprehensions are quieted, and the government is possessed of the confidence of the people, the more salutary will be its operation, and the longer its duration. The cause of amendments we consider as a

CHAPTER common cause; and since, from political motives, conL. cessions have been made which we conceive may en1788. danger the republic, we trust that a commendable zeal

will be shown for obtaining those provisions which experience has taught us are necessary to secure from danger the unalienable rights of human nature." A letter to the ratifying states, similar in its import to this address to Congress, was also agreed to, and a special letter to Governor Clinton, in answer to the New York circular.

The project of a new convention, thus patronized by New York and Virginia, of course received a strong support from the two states of North Carolina and Rhode Island, and their sentiments had, perhaps, still greater weight from the circumstance that both had declined to come in under the present Constitution. North Carolina had ratified, but only on condition of the adoption of certain specified amendments. In Rhode Island the Constitution had been submitted, not to a general convention, as its friends desired, but separately to the several towns, by a majority of which it had been rejected. Both in North Carolina and Rhode Island the great difficulty was the state paper money. Nor was this the only mischief thereby occasioned. The Rhode Island tender law, compelling creditors to accept payment in the state paper on pain of forfeiting all their claims, had been resented in Massachusetts and Connecticut by laws prohibiting the courts of those states to entertain any suits brought to recover debts by citizens of Rhode Island. That law was also the cause of violent party divisions within the state. The Legislature had created a special tribunal to proceed summarily, without juries, for the infliction of penalties on those who refused to take the paper money. This tribunal the Supreme Court of

the state had pronounced unconstitutional.

The Quak- CHAPTER

ers, a numerous and influential sect, had petitioned in a.

1

I.

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

I.

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. Who 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 nó 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 Constitu tion. 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,

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