72

RATIFICATION AND REJOICINGS.

Congress should never impose direct taxes, save when the revenue arising from the indirect was insufficient, and not then until requisition had been made upon the States; and the language of the Constitution prohibiting religious tests should be modified, so as to read that no other religious test should be required as a qualification to office under the United States than the oath or affirmation to support the Constitution.1 The second and third amendments were among those which Massachusetts had recommended.2

Four days after the ratification, the event was celebrated in Charleston as it had been in Boston and Baltimore by a procession of the trades. The ship Federalist, full rigged and manned, was the chief piece in the parade, as it had been in those towns. A packet swiftly sailing from Baltimore had brought to Charleston the news of ratification by Maryland, and now it carried back like news from South Carolina, and arrived in Baltimore on the last day of May. The joyous intelligence was received with a federal salute, was spread through Virginia and was carried on to Philadelphia and New York. Within a week it had reached New Hampshire. It was everywhere received by the Federalists as a sure sign that the Constitution would soon be approved by the requisite number of States.

The Constitution had now been before the country eight months and eight States had ratified; the ninth might be New Hampshire, New York or Virginia. The figure of the New Hampshire column partly raised to the Federal arch, lately displayed in the Massachusetts papers, illustrated the condition of affairs in New Hampshire. Thus

1 Compare Article VI, Section 3.

2 For the amendments see Documentary History, III, 139-140; Elliot, I, 325.

NEW HAMPSHIRE.

73

far, ratification had proceeded with remarkable smoothness in the States which had convened, but in New Hampshire the new plan had met with its first check. The inhabitants of that State at this time numbered about one hundred and thirty-four thousand, and most of them were engaged in farming. Not a city within the State contained a population of eight thousand. If local government be tested by the intelligent interest which a people take in it, it was of a high order in New Hampshire. Its townmeetings were well attended. The civil system of the State was like that of Massachusetts, and the similarity between the constitutions of the two States1 was even closer than that between the constitutions of Pennsylvania and Vermont.2 The very perfection of the New England type of local government militated against the new plan, for the town-meetings gave opportunity for endless debate and local independence.

When the New Hampshire convention met at Exeter on the thirteenth of February, 1788, it was found that one hundred and thirteen delegates had been returned from one hundred and seventy-five constituencies. Among them were John Langdon, of Portsmouth, one of the delegates of the State to the Federal Convention; Benjamin West, of Charlestown, who had been commissioned with him, but who had not attended; General John Sullivan of Dunham, the Governor; Samuel Livermore of Holderness, Chief Justice of the Superior Court, and John Tay

1 Massachusetts, 1780; New Hampshire, 1784.

2 Pennsylvania, 1776; Vermont, 1777. The Pennsylvania sources of the Vermont constitution are shown in The Constitution of the State of Vermont, etc., Brattleboro; C. H. Davenport & Co., 1891, pp. 40-44; for an account of these constitutions see my Constitutional History of the American People, 1776-1850, I, Chapter IV.

3 Walker's New Hampshire Convention, 8.

lor Gilman of Exeter, who had served in the old Congress, and later was four times governor of the State. These were the leading Federalists. Equally earnest in their opposition to the new plan were Joshua Atherton, of Amherst, a graduate of Harvard, and in the early days of the Revolution, sufficiently loyal to the Crown to occasion his imprisonment in the Amherst jail; Charles Barrett, of New Ipswich, a fellow loyalist, but soon, like Atherton, regaining the confidence of his fellow citizens; William Hooper, a Baptist clergyman of Madbury, and Mathias Stone, of Claremont. From Saulsbury came Ebenezer Webster, chiefly distinguished as the father of the Expounder of the Constitution. The Federalists were in a hopeless minority, but their overconfidence led them to expect ratification.

On the fourteenth of February, the convention was fully organized, with John Sullivan as President. It was soon clear to the Federalists that their hopes of ratification were without foundation, but they continued the discussion of the Constitution for seven days.2 The debate had the good effect of informing most of the delegates of the true character of the Constitution, and of changing the opinions of a sufficient number so as materially to diminish the anti-federal majority. But to press a vote meant the defeat of the Constitution, and as most of the delegates had come up with instructions, they found themselves in the dilemma of voting against their instructions or their judgment; therefore the friends of the Constitution suggested a recess till the delegates could again consult their constituents; this would give opportunity for a campaign of information, and this the Federalists accordingly

1 His services in the convention were inconspicuous. There is some evidence that he opposed the Constitution.

2 Walker, 26-27.

THE CAMPAIGN IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.

75

adopted at Langdon's suggestion.1 Atherton and the antifederal leaders earnestly opposed this, but without success; Langdon's resolution was finally carried by a majority of five votes, and the convention was adjourned to meet at Concord on the eighteenth of June.

The friends of the Constitution hailed this result as a great victory and straightway began a campaign of information. The people of the State should be told the true character of the proposed government. The AntiFederalists also claimed the adjournment as a victory, and were confident that it would be so construed in other States; at least, it would give ratification a serious check. Some near the seat of action interpreted the condition of affairs more accurately: the Massachusetts Centinel had caught the spirit of public sentiment in New Hampshire, when it represented the New Hampshire column half way risen to the federal arch.2

Meanwhile Maryland and South Carolina had ratified and the news from South Carolina reached New Hampshire in the first days of June. When, then, the convention reassembled, on the eighteenth, and it was known that Virginia and New York were also in session, the effect of the activity of the Federalists since February was apparent.

The adjourned session attracted far greater attention in the State than had the session at Exeter. The weight of ability was distinctly on the side of the Federalists. They profited by the sagacity of Rufus King and the Massachusetts Federalists, and on the twentieth of June, through Langdon, moved the adoption of twelve amend

1 Id., 29.

2 Id., 43.

3 The Virginia convention met June 6, and the New York June

76

THE DEBATE OPENS.

ments, similar to those which had been adopted in Massachusetts.1 The similarity between them leads to the conclusion that the objections made to the Constitution in the two States were the same.2 Sullivan quickly

added that the Constitution should be ratified with the amendments, but should not go into effect without them; but this condition meant the practical defeat of the plan. The debate then began. The acceptance of the amendments would settle the main question and Atherton, detecting how things were going, did as the Anti-Federalists had done in every Convention thus far assembled; he moved an adjournment to some future day; but this was defeated. Langdon then called for the vote; it was taken and the Constitution was ratified by a vote of fiftyseven to forty-seven, with four members absent.3 The distribution of this vote shows that the northern and southwestern portions of the States were against the Constitution, and the southeastern portion for it.* This

1 Id., 40; the amendments are given in Walker's, 49-51; Elliot, I, 326; and in Documentary History, III, 142-143. The extent to which they were incorporated in the Constitution is shown in the chapters on the first twelve amendments, post. Vol. III.

2 The debates in the New Hampshire Convention are not preserved, a fragment however is given in Elliot, II, 203; a speech of Joshua Atherton against the continuation of the slave trade; Walker, 112-114, and another in support of the Federal Judiciary by General Sullivan; Walker, 115-116.

For the ratification see Documentary History III, 141. Among the absentees was Ebenezer Webster; it does not appear that his part in the convention was at all conspicuous.

4 On the instructions to the New Hampshire delegates see Libby, 70-75; and address by Hon. A. S. Batchellor, entitled "A Brief View of the Influence which Moved in the Adoption of the Federal Constitution by the State of New Hampshire," delivered before the Grafton and Cos. Bar Association at Berlin, January 27, 1899; printed in the Littleton Courier, February 1, 1899. I am under many obligations to Mr. Batchellor for New Hampshire data used in the present volumes. See also Walker, 45-47.