the convention of Massachusetts approved the constitution by a majority of nineteen. This was most disheartening; for in no State did the chances of the Antifederalists seem better than in Massachusetts. There was the home of Shays, and there the people had within a year risen up in armed resistance to the authority of the State.

Amazed and angry at their defeat in New England, the Antifederalists began to cast about them for the cause, and soon found it in the management of the post-office. As the law then stood, newspapers were not mailable. The postmasters could officially have nothing to do with them. Neither could the post-riders be forced to carry newspapers in their portmanteaux. For the convenience to the public, however, the postmaster had suffered the riders to carry the Gazetteer and Packet, bargain with the printers about the postage, and put the money thus received in their own pockets. For a like reason the postmasters in the great towns undertook to distribute the newspapers, and were given, as the price of their labor, a paper by each printer. The suppression of a batch of Gazetteers or Journals was therefore an easy matter, and a question merely of money on the one hand and honesty on the other. If the bribe were large enough, and the rider or the postmaster dishonest enough, the thing could be done. That it was done in this particular instance is doubtful. The charge of the Antifederalists rested on three counts. The first was that while the convention of Pennsylvania was in session, New York newspapers full of most important reading had been stopped, and held back for weeks. To refute this the Federalists drew up a paper stating that while the convention was sitting the newspapers had come as usual. Most of the Philadelphia printers signed it. But the printer of the Freeman's Journal refused, and named seven consecutive numbers of Greenleaf's New York Journal which he stoutly maintained had not reached the city till the convention had risen. Some of these were most important, as they contained the essays of Brutus, Cato, and Cincinnatus. That containing the fifth number of the address of Cincinnatus to James Wilson was, he claimed, especially hateful to

the Federalists, as it was full of information about the way in which "Bobby the Cofferer" had conducted the finances of the union. This paper was printed in the New York Journal of November twenty-ninth; but not a copy reached Philadelphia till December fifteenth, two days after the ratification of the constitution had been proclaimed from the State House.

The second count was, that information which would surely have changed many votes in the conventions of Massachusetts and Connecticut was purposely held back. Since the new year came in, printers in the eastern States had not seen a newspaper published south of New York. No one in Boston, therefore, had read a line of the masterly address and reasons of dissent of the minority of the convention of Pennsylvania, or so much as knew that there had been a minority.

The third count was, that the address and reasons of ' dissent of the minority of the convention of Pennsylvania had been published in pamphlet form, and a copy sent through the post-office to the address of every printer in the United States; yet not a copy, so far as could be learned, had ever been received by the persons to whom it had been sent. The post-office was clearly the cause of this. It was in the hands of the "well born," and these sons of power were determined that no newspaper should get out of the office in which it was dropped unless it contained fulsome praise of the new roof about to be put up to cover them and all the office-seekers of the continent. So much was made of this charge that the postmaster found it necessary to send out a circular in which he reminded the people that the post-office had nothing to do with the delivery of newspapers, and if they went astray the printers must look to the riders for redress, and not to him.

That the strictures of Cincinnattus could have changed a vote in the Pennsylvania convention, or the reasons of dissent have had any effect on the convention of Massachusetts, had both been promptly delivered, is not at all likely. Yet neither party ceased to strive to win supporters in the still doubtful States. The Federalists filled the columns of their newspapers with squibs and essays, and collected money

to send hundreds of copies to New York, to Virginia, to Maryland, and even to South Carolina. Now it was the New Roof by Francis Hopkinson; now the letters of "Conciliator," and a "Freeman," a series of essays the Antifederalists declared could have been the work of no one but James Wilson. The Antifederalists seem to have made use chiefly of committees of correspondence, a piece of political machinery so effective in the early days of the Revolution.

Their efforts, however, were vain, and not a month went by but another pillar, as the phrase went, was added to the New Roof. Maryland ratified in April, and South Carolina in May. In June came New Hampshire, and Virginia, and the needed list of nine States was more than completed.

It was on the evening of the second of July that a postrider brought to Philadelphia the news that Virginia, the tenth State, had accepted the new plan. The Federalists had already determined that the coming fourth of July should be a day of unusual rejoicing. But their zeal now burned more fiercely than ever, and it was resolved that besides the toasts and the speeches there should be a procession, and the finest procession the city had ever beheld.

Though the "New Roof" was now up and Pennsylvania under it, the Antifederalists were not disheartened. The societies, the committees and the associations in the western counties were as active as ever, and a call for a state convention at Harrisburg was soon passing about among them. September 3d was fixed as the day, and on that day thirtythree delegates, representing every county of the State save York and Montgomery, were present in the convention. Before they adjourned resolutions were adopted and an address prepared, urging the legislature to apply to Congress for a revision and amendment of the constitution by a new federal convention. With this their active opposition ended.