CHAPTER I. GENERAL RECEPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION. HOPES OF A REUNION WITH GREAT BRITAIN. ACTION OF THE CONGRESS. STATE OF FEELING IN MASSACHUSETTS, NEW YORK, VIRGINIA, SOUTH CAROLINA, MARYLAND, AND NEW HAMPSHIRE. - APPOINTMENT OF THEIR CONVENTIONS. THE national Convention was dissolved on the 14th of September. The state of expectation and anxiety throughout the country during its deliberations, and at the moment of its adjournment, will appear from a few leading facts and ideas, which illustrate the condition of the popular mind when the Constitution made its appearance. The secrecy with which the proceedings of the Convention had been conducted, the nature of its business, and the great eminence and personal influence of its principal members, had combined to create the deepest solicitude in the public mind in all the chief centres of population and intelligence throughout the Union. An assembly of many of the wisest and most distinguished men in America had been engaged for four months in preparing for the United States a new form of government, and the public had acquired no definite knowledge of their transactions, and no information respecting the nature of the system they were likely to propose. Under these circumstances, we may expect to find the most singular rumors prevailing during the session of the Convention, and a great excitement in the public mind in many localities, when the result was announced. Among the reports that were more or less believed through the latter part of the summer, was the idle one that the Convention were framing a system of monarchical government, and that the Bishop of Osnaburg was to be sent for, to be the sovereign of the new kingdom. Foolish as it may appear to us, this story occasioned some real alarm in its day. It is to be traced to a favorite idea of that class of Americans who had either been avowed "Tories" during the Revolution, or had secretly felt a greater sympathy with the mother country than with the land of their birth, and who were at this period generally called " Loyalists." Some of these persons had taken no part, on either side, during the Revolutionary war, and had abstained from active participation in public affairs since the peace. They were all of that class of minds whose tendencies led them to the belief that the materials for a safe and efficient republican government were not to be found in these States, and that the public disorders could be corrected only by a government of a very different character. Their feelings and opinions carried them towards a reconciliation with England, and their grand scheme for this purpose was to invite hither the titular Bishop of Osnaburg.1 Their numbers were not large in any of the States; but the feeling of insecurity and the dread of impending anarchy were shared by others who had no particular inclination towards England; and it is not 1 It may be amusing to Americans of this and future generations to know who this personage was for whom it was rumored that the Loyalists desired to "send," and whose advent as a possible ruler of this country was a vague apprehension in the popular mind for a good while, and finally came to be imputed as a project to the framers of the Constitution. The Bishop of Osnaburg was no other than the late Duke of York, Frederick, the second son of King George III.; a prince whose conduct as commander-in-chief of the army, in consequence of the sale of commissions by his mistress, one Mrs. Clarke, became in 1809 a subject of inquiry, leading to the most scandalous revelations, before the House of Commons. The Duke was born in 1763, and was consequently, at the period spoken of in the text, at the ripe age of twenty-four. When about a year old (1764), he was chosen Bishop of Osnaburg. This was a German province (Osnabrück), formerly a bishopric of great antiquity, founded by Charlemagne. At the Reformation most of the inhabitants became Lutherans, and by the Treaty of Westphalia it was agreed that it should be governed alternately by a Roman Catholic and a Protestant Bishop. In 1802 it was secularized, and assigned as an hereditary principality to George III., in his capacity of King of Hanover. Prince Frederick continued to be called by the title of Bishop of Osnaburg, until he was created Duke of York. I am not aware that the whispers of his name in the secret counsels of our Loyalists, as a proposed king for America, became known in England. Whether such knowledge would have excited a smile, or have awakened serious hopes, is a question on which the reader can speculate. But it is certain that there were persons in this country, and in the neighboring British Provinces, who had long hoped for a reunion of the American States with the parent country, through this or some other "mad project." Colonel Humphreys, (who had been one of Washington's aides,) writing to Hamilton, from New Haven, under date of September 16, 1787, says: "The quondam Tories have undoubtedly conceived hopes of a future union with Great Britain, from the inefficacy of our government, and the tumults which prevailed during the last winter. I saw |