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CHAPTER from the neighboring country towns (some of them armI. ed, headed by a judge of the Supreme Court), who com1788. pelled the people of Providence to strike out from their programme all reference to the Federal Constitution. still more violent collision took place in Albany. friends of the Constitution, the day before, on receiving news of the ratification by Virginia, had celebrated that event by a procession and a salute of ten guns. Those of the opposite party showed their chagrin by meeting the next morning and burning the Constitution. Both parties united during the forenoon in the customary celebration of the anniversary of independence, but separated to dine at different places. After dinner the friends of the Constitution formed a new procession, escorted by some military companies. As they passed the head-quarters of the other party, an altercation arose, ending in a conflict in which clubs and stones, and presently swords and bayonets, were freely used, resulting in severe injuries to several persons.

Some three weeks after the Philadelphia celebration a similar pageant was got up in New York, that city, like Philadelphia, being decidedly in favor of the new Constitution, and hoping also, like Philadelphia, to become the seat of the national government, as it then was of the Continental Congress. One of the newspapers, Greenleaf's Political Register, the same afterward known as the Argus, and presently chief organ in New York of opposition to the federal administration, gave a somewhat disparaging account of this procession, and indulged in some jocular remarks on an accident which happened to a part of it. A night or two after, news having arrived that the Constitution had been ratified by the New July 27. York State Convention at Poughkeepsie, a mob attacked the obnoxious printing-office, broke the doors and windows, and destroyed the type.

I.

The high pitch of political passion to which the public CHAPTER mind had been raised during the war of the Revolution had by no means, as yet, entirely subsided. During 1788. that impassioned and protracted struggle, imprisonment, banishment, confiscation, even death itself, had been occasionally visited upon political opponents. When men

to whom such extremities had grown familiar came to differ among themselves on a question so important as the future national government of the Union, at a period, too, when even the state governments were surrounded with embarrassments, and seemed almost in danger of dissolution, a wholesome moderation and a charitable estimate of each other's motives and intentions, however much to be desired, was hardly to be hoped for.

The friends of the new Constitution, taking for themselves the title of FEDERALISTS, bestowed that of ANTIFEDERALISTS on their opponents. Those opponents insisted, however, that these names, if interchanged, would have been much more appropriately applied. The new Constitution, aiming, as it did, at a self-sustaining national government, was, they insisted, something more than federal, and its supporters, therefore, more than Federalists a name which might, with more justice, have been given to those who preferred a really federal compact. The name of anti-Federalists would seem to imply opposition to the union of the states; but by most of that party any such imputation was very warmly disclaimed. So far from being opposed to the Union, they declared themselves willing to make great sacrifices to maintain it. Notwithstanding the slight ebullitions of feeling already noticed-so slight that history has almost forgotten to record them, but important as showing the actual state of the public mind-no disposition was any where evinced to resist the will of the majority as

I.

CHAPTER declared in legal form. In all the ratifying states the anti-Federalists expressed their readiness to aid, in good 1788. faith, in putting the new system into operation. But they insisted with great vehemence on the absolute necessity of immediate amendments, which had, indeed, been recommended by four out of the ten ratifying conventions, or five out of eleven, counting New York.

Sept. 5.

While giving a reluctant assent to the Constitution as it stood, the New York Convention had addressed a circular letter to the other ratifying states, in which they declared that several articles appeared so exceptionable to a majority of their body, "that nothing but the fullest confidence of obtaining a revision of them by a General Convention, and an invincible reluctance to separate from their sister states, could have prevailed on a sufficient number to ratify without stipulating for previous amendments;" and they recommended to the states to make immediate application to the new Federal Congress presently to meet, that a new constitutional convention might be forthwith authorized under the provision to that effect contained in the Constitution.

This New York circular was soon responded to by a meeting held at Harrisburg, in Pennsylvania, consisting of delegates elected by the anti-Federalists in the different parts of the state. The proposal for a new Federal Convention was warmly seconded, and a list of the amendments deemed essential was agreed to. The only person as yet conspicuous in the history of Pennsylvania whose name appears among the members of this Conven. tion, was the venerable George Bryan, one of the judges of the Supreme Court, and late vice-president of the state, always a warm partisan of the old constitutional or ultra-liberal party. Albert Gallatin, an emigrant

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

I.

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 im perfections 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, con1. 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