might be made for it. But if no mode of ratification of the national Constitution were to be prescribed, and it were left to each state to act upon it in any manner that it might prefer, there would be no uniformity in the mode of creating the new government in the different states; and if the Convention and the Congress were to refer its adoption to the state legislatures, it would not rest on the direct authority of the people. For these reasons the Convention adhered to the plan of having the Constitution submitted directly to assemblies of representatives of the people in each state, chosen for the express purpose of deciding on its adoption.'

There was still another question, of great practical importance, to be determined. Was the Constitution to go into operation at all, unless adopted by all the states, and if so, what number should be sufficient for its establishment? It appeared clearly enough that to require a unanimous adoption would defeat all the labors of the Convention. Rhode Island had taken no part in the formation of the Constitution, and could not be expected to ratify it. New York had not been represented for some weeks in the Convention, and it was at least doubtful how the people of that state would receive the proposed system, to which a majority of their delegates had declared themselves to be strenuously opposed. Maryland continued to be present in the Convention, and a majority of her delegates still supported the Constitution; but Luther Martin confidently predicted its rejection by the state, and it was evident that his utmost energies would be put forth against it. Under these circumstances, to have required a unanimous adoption by the states would have been fatal to the experiment of creating a new government. Some of the members were in favor of such a number as would form both a majority of the states and a majority of the people of the United States. But there was an

The vote, however, was only six states to four. Elliot, V. 500.

2 Two of the New York delegates, Messrs. Yates and Lansing, left the Convention on the 5th of July. Hamilton had previously returned to the city of New York, on private business. He left June 29th and returned August 13th. It appears from his correspondence that he was again in the city of New York on the 20th of August, and that he remained there until the 28th. On the 6th of September he was in the Convention. The vote of the state was not taken in the Convention after the retirement of Yates and Lansing.

idea familiar to the people, in the number that had been required under the Confederation upon certain questions of grave importance; and in order that the Constitution might avail itself of this established usage, it was determined that the ratifications of the conventions of nine states should be sufficient to establish the Constitution between the states that might so ratify it.'

The Constitution, as thus finally prepared, received the formal assent of the states in the Convention, on the last day of the session. The great majority of the members desired that the instrument should go forth to the public, not only with an official attestation that it had been agreed upon by the states represented, but also with the individual sanction and signatures of their delegates. Three of the members present, however, Randolph and Mason of Virginia, and Gerry of Massachusetts, notwithstanding the proposed form of attestation contained no personal approbation of the system, and signified only that it had been agreed to by the unanimous consent of the states then present, refused to sign the instrument.' The objections which these gentlemen had to different features of the Constitution would have been waived, if the Convention had been willing to take a course quite opposite to that which had been thought expedient. They desired that the state conventions should be at liberty to propose amendments, and that those amendments should be finally acted upon by another general convention. The nature of the plan, however, and the form in which it was to be submitted to the people of the states, made it necessary that it should be adopted or rejected as a whole, by the convention of each state. As a process of amendment by the action of the Congress and the state legislatures had

1 Elliot, V. 499-501. The article embodying this decision was the 21st in the report of the committee of detail. It became, on the revision, Article VIII. of the Constitution.

2 September 17th.

This form of attestation had been adopted in the hope of gaining the signatures of all the members, but without success.

4 Mr. Madison has given the principal grounds of objection which these gentlemen felt to the Constitution. It is not necessary to repeat them here, as they were nearly all met by the subsequent amendments, so far as they were special, and did not relate to the general tendency of the system. See Madison, Elliot, V. 552–558.

been provided in the instrument, there was the less necessity for holding a second convention. The state conventions would obviously be at liberty to propose amendments, but not to make them a condition of their acceptance of the government, as proposed.

A letter having been prepared to accompany the Constitution, and to present it to the consideration and action of the existing Congress, the instrument was formally signed by all the other members then present. The official record sent to the Congress of the resolutions which directed that the Constitution be laid before that body, recited the presence of the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. New York was not regarded as officially present; but in order that the proceedings might have all the weight that a name of so much importance could give to them, in the place that should have been filled by his state was recited the name of "Mr. Hamilton from New York." The prominence thus given to the name of Hamilton, by the absence of his colleagues, was significant of the part he was to act in the great events and discussions that were to attend the ratification of the instrument by the states. His objections to the plan were certainly not less grave and important than those which were entertained by the members who refused to give to it their signatures; but like Madison, like Pinckney and Franklin and Washington, he considered the choice to be between anarchy and convulsion, on the one side, and the chances of good to be expected of this plan, on the other. Upon this issue, in truth, the Constitution went to the people of the United States. There is a tradition that when Washington was about to sign the instrument, he rose from his seat, and, holding the pen in his hand, after a short pause, pronounced these words: "Should the states reject this excellent Constitution, the probability is that an opportunity will never again offer to cancel another in peace-the next will be drawn in blood."

My authority for this anecdote is the Pennsylvania Journal of November 14th, 1787, where it was stated by a writer who dates his communication from Elizabethtown, November 7th.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

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.'

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 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 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 councils 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 16th, 1787, says: "The quondam Tories have undoubtedly conceived hopes of a future union with Great Britain,