HARRISBURG CONFERENCE.

27

the basis of Madison's report of twelve amendments in Congress in 1789, but the claim is not well founded.1 Before adjourning, the convention, on the fifteenth, offered to cede to Congress, as the seat of the Federal City, the jurisdiction over any place in Pennsylvania, not exceeding ten miles square, excepting the city of Philadelphia and two adjoining districts, and until Congress might choose a permanent seat of government for the United States, it might have the use of such public buildings, within the city of Philadelphia, or elsewhere in the State, as it might find necessary.2

3

Though the convention had refused the proposed amendments to the Constitution, the minority did not cease to insist upon them. The very refusal of the convention to receive them confirmed opinion in the State that they were necessary. At Harrisburg, in September of the following year, in response to a circular letter, which originated in the county of Cumberland, thirty-three delegates, representing thirteen counties, including in their number Robert Whitehill, John Smilie and Albert Gallatin, concluded a conference by drawing up twelve amendments which they insisted should be made to the new Constitution.*

There is little doubt that the Harrisburg conference more faithfully reflected public opinion in Pennsylvania than did the ratifying convention. Pennsylvania politics would have been far less bitter during the years following

1 The extent to which Madison made use of the amendments proposed by the Pennsylvania minority may be seen from the notes to the Chapter narrating the history of the first ten amendments, post, pp. 199-211.

2 Id., 430.

8 September 3, 1788.

4 Id., 558-564. The provisions in these amendments which were finally incorporated in the twelve which Madison submitted to Congress in 1789 are indicated in the notes on the first ten amendments; see post, pp. 199-211.

28

WILSON'S STATE HOUSE SPEECH.

had this convention treated the minority with less scanty respect. By ignoring its demands, the Federalists antagonized the majority of the population. Richard Henry Lee had been indefatigable in circulating his anti-federal "Farmer Letters" in Pennsylvania, and they bore immediate fruit. It was to answer these letters, and all that they implied, that James Wilson was invited to make his celebrated speech in the State House yard. The "Farmer" admitted that reform was needed in the Confederation, but asserted that the aristocracy and centralization, which characterized the new plan, were not reform.1 Lee's whole argument was based on State sovereignty. In reply to his objections, Wilson showed that the powers of Congress were a positive grant under the new Constitution, and, therefore, a Bill of Rights would be superfluous, because no civil right was endangered; an opinion held also by Hamilton and Pinckney, but scouted by Jefferson.2

The exclusive authority of the United States over a particular district would be vested in the President and Congress, but as the district would be obtained by a contract with some State and its citizens, who would be parties to it, their liberties would be in their own control. A trial by jury in civil cases had not been provided for because of the lack of uniformity in the different States, and thus for lack of a precedent. No system of federal jurisprudence existed, therefore, the Constitution was silent on this subject. As the proceedings of the Supreme Court were to be regulated by Congress, and as Congress represented the people, oppression by the government was effectually

1 Lee's Letters are reprinted in Ford's Pamphlet on the Constitution, 277-325.

2 Hamilton uses the argument in No. LXXXIV of the Federalist; for Jefferson's comment on this part of Wilson's speech, see note, p. 212.

WILSON'S SPEECH.

29

barred by the provision that trial by jury should be preserved in all criminal cases. The objection to a standing army could be brought against the Articles of Confederation; national defense required the provision. The Senate was not a baneful aristocracy, as it could legislate only with the co-operation of the House and with the concurrence of the President. Its organization was the result of compromise between contending interests. That so perfect a system could have been formed from such heterogeneous materials was a matter of astonishment.

The Constitution had not been framed, as Lee asserted, for the purpose of reducing the State governments to mere corporations, and, eventually, of annihilating them; on the contrary, its existence depended upon theirs. The members of the House of Representatives were to be chosen by the people of the several States, and federal electors were to have the qualifications requisite to electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures. The President was to be chosen by electors named in such manner as the State legislatures might direct, and the senators were to be chosen by the State legislatures. It was manifest, then, that the existence of the proposed government would depend upon the people of the States. Indeed, they would have a more perfect representation than under the Confederation, in which the members of Congress were chosen by the legislatures. The power to levy imposts and direct taxes was exercisable only for the general welfare, and was necessary to support the credit of the Union. By such a grant of power, particular States, and Pennsylvania was an instance, would be discharged from extraordinary financial burdens, and the credit of the nation would be restored and maintained.

of

From a consideration of the difficulties in the way forming a government for a more perfect Union, Wilson

30

ANTI-FEDERALIST DEMANDS.

asserted, that the one proposed was the best which had been offered to the world. This speech of Wilson's, on the twenty-fourth of November,1 crystallized public opinion in southeastern Pennsylvania, and furnished the arguments which the Federalists all over the State advanced later. It began a discussion which outlasted the ratifying conventions. The anti-federal campaign begun by Lee soon took the form of pamphlet and newspaper articles in prose and verse, broad-sheets and caricatures. The lexicon of contemptuous epithets was exhausted upon Franklin and Washington, and especially upon Wilson.2 But at the bottom of all this virulence there was unquestionably some cause of alarm. The anti-federal members of the convention had asked for a Bill of Rights, and their demand was eminently reasonable.

Unless the doctrine was admitted that the new government was to be one of delegated powers, construed as the Federalists and their political successors were never willing to construe it, the fifteen amendments which the ratifying convention rejected by a vote of two to one, contained little that was objectionable. The demand of the AntiFederalists that the President be given a constitutional council; that the sovereignty, freedom and independence of each State should be declared to be retained, except as expressly delegated to the United States, and the limitation of the power of the Federal judiciary were of value. The demand that Congress be restrained to the imposition of duties on exports and imports and to the postage on letters, leaving the States otherwise free to tax, may seem superfluous, and also the declaration of the right of the people of the States to fowl, hunt and fish. Doubtless

1 Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution, 142-149.

2 Many of these are reprinted in Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution.

THE HARRISBURG AMENDMENTS.

31

these unimportant demands would have been surrendered, if the Federalists would have accepted the other amendments submitted as necessary to secure the rights afterward guaranteed in the first ten.1

That these amendments met the approval of the mass of the people in Pennsylvania is shown from the zeal and alacrity with which they took them up. A campaign agitating their adoption began in July, 1788, in Cumberland county, spread over every county, excepting York and Montgomery, and, in September, culminated in the Harrisburg convention. This campaign is traceable to the anti-federal friends of Robert Whitehill of Cumberland, but no man was more active in it than Albert Gallatin, who personified the hostility of the western part of the State to the new plan. The Harrisburg conference, coming after eleven States had ratified, gave expression to that demand for a second convention, which Randolph had made in Philadelphia, which was taken up by the AntiFederalists generally, and was embodied finally in the circular letter sent out by Governor Clinton of New York. The twelve Harrisburg amendments and the fourteen offered by the Anti-Federalists in the Pennsylvania convention, represented the wishes of the people of the State quite as completely as if they had been adopted by the ratifying convention. But the manner in which they came up was extra-conventional and they were nothing more than the resolutions of a political mass-meeting. They were based on the doctrine of State sovereignty, and those of Harrisburg were chiefly administrative in character, but, altogether, they disclosed a state of public feeling, which, when the new government was organized, it

1 For the amendments proposed by the Anti-Federalists, see Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution, 421-423, 461-463.