Since amendments had been unanimously authorized, it seemed fair that any expense of an attempt to make them should be provided for with the other charges of the convention.* A letter from Richard Henry Lee, a representative from Virginia in congress, to the governor of the commonwealth, recommended, as a policy open to "no objection and promising great safety and much good," + that amendments. adopted severally by the states should all be definitively referred to a second federal convention.

To carry out this policy, resolutions were on the last day of November introduced into the house, and supported by Henry and Mason, pledging the general assembly to defray the expense of a deputy or deputies which the convention of the commonwealth in the following June might think proper to send to confer with a convention of any one or more of the sister states, "as well as the allowance to be made to the deputies to a federal convention, in case such a convention should be judged necessary." The friends of the constitution, who now perceived the direction in which they were drifting, made a rally; but they were beaten by a majority of about fifteen. A bill pursuant to the resolutions, reported by a committee composed mainly of the most determined "malcontents," soon became a law. Friends of the constitution who had been jubilant at the first aspect of the legislature now doubted whether it any longer had a majority in its favor; its enemies claimed a decisive victory. Early in December, Monroe reported to Madison: "The cloud which hath hung over us for some time past is not likely soon to be dispelled." #

But on Washington's mind no cloud rested. On the last day of November he had replied to David Stuart of his own state: "I am sorry to find by your favor that the opposition gains strength. If there are characters who prefer disunion or separate confederacies to the general government which is offered to them, their opposition may, for aught I know, proceed from principle; but as nothing, according to my conception of the matter, is more to be deprecated than a disunion or

1788. Washington to Carter, 14 December 1787, in Penn. Packet of 11 January 1788. Sparks, ix., 287. + Lec's Life, ii., 81; Elliot, i., 505. # Monroe to Madison, 6 December. MS.

Hening, xii., 462.

VOL. VI.-26

three distinct confederacies, as far as my voice can go it shall be offered in favor of the general government." *

Nor did he lose heart or trust; on the fourteenth of December, in a letter which soon reached the people of Virginia through the newspapers, he wrote to Charles Carter of Freder icksburg: "I am pleased that the proceedings of the convention have met your approbation. My decided opinion on the matter is, that there is no alternative between the adoption of it and anarchy. If one state, however important it may conceive itself to be," and here he meant Virginia, "or a minority of them," meaning the five southernmost states, "should sup pose that they can dictate a constitution to the union, unless they have the power of applying the ultima ratio to good effect, they will find themselves deceived. All the opposition to it that I have yet seen is addressed more to the passions than to reason; and clear I am, if another federal convention is attempted, that the sentiments of the members will be more discordant or less accommodating than the last. In fine, they will agree upon no general plan. General government is now suspended by a thread; I might go further, and say it is really at an end; and what will be the consequence of a fruitless attempt to amend the one which is offered before it is tried, or of the delay of the attempt, does not in my judgment need the gift of prophecy to predict.

"I saw the imperfections of the constitution I aided in the birth of, before it was handed to the public; but I am fully persuaded it is the best that can be obtained at this time, that it is free from many of the imperfections with which it is charged, and that it or disunion is before us to choose from. If the first is our election, when the defects of it are experienced, a constitutional door is opened for amendments and may be adopted in a peaceable manner, without tumult or disorder." But as Virginia has delayed her convention till June, our narrative must turn to the states which were the first to meet in convention.

*In Sparks, ix., 284, for "these distinct confederacies" read "three distinct confederacies."

Washington to Charles Carter, 14 December 1787, in Penn. Packet of 11 January 1788. The original draft of the letter is preserved in the State Department.

CHAPTER II.

THE CONSTITUTION IN PENNSYLVANIA, DELAWARE, AND NEW JERSEY; AND IN GEORGIA.

FROM 18 SEPTEMBER 1787 TO 2 JANUARY 1788.

OUR happy theme leads from one great act of universal interest to another. A new era in the life of the race begins: a people select their delegates to state conventions to pronounce their judgment on the creation of a federal republic.

One more great duty to his fellow-citizens and to mankind is to be fulfilled by Franklin; one more honor to be won by Philadelphia as the home of union; one new victory by Pennsylvania as the citadel of the love of the one indivisible country. That mighty border commonwealth, extending its line from Delaware bay to the Ohio, and holding convenient passes through the Alleghanies, would not abandon the South, nor the West, nor the North; she would not hear of triple confederacies nor of twin confederacies; but only of one government embracing all. Its people in their multifarious congruity had nothing adverse to union; the faithful of the proprietary party were zealous for a true general government; so too was every man in public life of the people called Quakers;* so was an overwhelming majority of the Germans; † so were the Baptists, as indeed their synod authoritatively avowed for every state. The perfect liberty of conscience prevented religious differences from interfering with zeal for a closer union.

In the first period of the confederacy the inhabitants of Philadelphia did not extend their plans for its reform beyond the increase of its powers, but, after the flight of congress 營 Independent Gazetteer, 15 January 1788. + Independent Gazetteer.

from their city, they began to say to one another that "it would be more easy to build a new ship of state than to repair the old one;" that there was need of a new constitution with a legislature in two branches. Merchants, bankers, holders of the national debt, the army officers, found no party organized against this opinion; Dickinson was magnanimous enough to become dissatisfied with the confederation which he had chiefly assisted to frame; and he and Mifflin and McKean and George Clymer and Rush manifested no opposition to the policy of Wilson, Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, and Fitzsimons; although remoter counties, and especially the backwoodsmen on each side of the mountains, loved their wild personal liberty too dearly to welcome a new supreme control.

At eleven in the morning of the eighteenth, Benjamin Franklin, then president of Pennsylvania, more than fourscore years of age, fulfilling his last great public service, was ushered into the hall of the assembly, followed by his seven colleagues of the convention. After expressing in a short address their hope and belief that the measure recommended by that body would produce happy effects to the commonwealth of Pennsylvania as well as to every other of the United States, he presented the constitution and accompanying papers.

For the next ten days the house, not willing to forestall the action of congress, confined itself to its usual business; but as it had resolved to adjourn sine die on Saturday, the twentyninth, Clymer, on the morning of the last day but one of the session, proposed to refer the acts of the federal convention to a convention of the state. That there might be time for reflection, Robert Whitehill of Carlisle, on behalf of the minority, requested the postponement of the question at least until the afternoon. This was conceded; but in the afternoon the minority, nineteen in number, did not attend, and refused to obey the summons of the speaker delivered by the sergeant-atarms, so that no quorum could be made. This factious secession so enraged the inhabitants that early the next morning a body of "respectable men" made a search for the delinquents; and finding two of them, just sufficient to form a house, dragged them into the assembly, where, in spite of their protests, they were compelled to stay. Meantime a fleet messenger, sent

from New York by William Bingham, a delegate in congress from Pennsylvania, arrived with an authentic copy of a resolution of congress of the preceding day, unanimously recommending the reference of the constitution to conventions of the several states; and within twenty hours* from the adoption of the resolution, the Pennsylvania assembly called a convention of the state for the third Tuesday in November.t The vote was received by the spectators with three heartfelt cheers; the bells of the churches were rung; and signs of faith in the speedy return of prosperity were everywhere seen. But the minority, trained in resistance to influences which were thought to be aristocratic, refused to be reconciled, and became the seed of a permanent national party.

Richard Henry Lee had disseminated in Philadelphia the objections of himself and George Mason to the constitution; and seventeen of the seceding members imbodied them in an appeal to their constituents. But the cause of the inflammation in Pennsylvania was much more in their state factions than in the new federal system.#

66

The efforts of Richard Henry Lee were counteracted in Philadelphia by Wilson, whom Washington at the time called as able, candid, and honest a member as was in the convention." On the sixth of October, at a great meeting in Philadelphia, he held up the constitution as the best which the world had as yet seen. To the objection derived from its want of a bill of rights, he explained that the government of the United States was a limited government, which had no powers except those which were specially granted to it. The speech was promptly reprinted in New York as a reply to the insinuations of Lee; and through the agency of Washington it was republished in Richmond. But the explanation of the want of a bill of rights satisfied not one state.

Great enthusiasm was awakened among the people of Penn

Carey's Museum, vol. ii., Chronicle, pp. 6, 7.

Lloyd's Debates of Pennsylvania Legislature, p. 137. P. Bond to Lord Carmarthen, Philadelphia, 29 September 1787.

ment.

Washington to Madison, 10 October 1787, in Letter Book at State Depart

#Madison to Jefferson, 19 February 1788, in Madison, i., 377.

Sparks, ix., 271.