already Melancthon Smith and Samuel Jones showed signs of relenting. * On the eleventh Jay, taking the lead, moved the ratification of the constitution and the recommendation of amendments. After a long debate, Melancthon Smith interposed with a resolution which meant in substance that New York would join the union, reserving the right to recede from it if the desired amendments should not be accepted. Against this motion Hamilton, after vainly proposing a form of ratification nearly similar to that of Virginia, spoke on Saturday, the nineteenth, with such prevailing force that Smith confessed himself persuaded to relinquish it. At this Lansing revived the proposition to enter the union, but only with a reserved right to withdraw from it; and on the following Monday the question might be taken.t Madison having resumed his place in congress, Hamilton wrote in all haste for his advice. On Sunday, Madison speeded an answer to Poughkeepsie, and on the morning of Monday, the twenty-first, Hamilton read to the convention its words, which were as follows: 66 My opinion is, that a reservation of a right to withdraw, if amendments be not decided on under the form of the constitution within a certain time, is a conditional ratification; that it does not make New York a member of the new union, and, consequently, that she could not be received on that plan. The constitution requires an adoption in toto and forIt has been so adopted by the other states. An adoption for a limited time would be as defective as an adoption of some of the articles only. In short, any condition whatever must vitiate the ratification. The idea of reserving a right. to withdraw was started at Richmond, and considered as a conditional ratification, which was itself abandoned as worse than a rejection." ‡ ever. The voice of Virginia, heard through Madison, was effective. Following the example of Massachusetts, and appropriating the words of its governor, on the twenty-third Samuel * Hamilton, ii, 467-471. For the latter part of the convention there is need to resort to the Penn Packet and the Independent Gazetteer for July 1788, where details are given. Hamilton's Works, i., 465. VOL. VI.-31 Jones, supported by Melancthon Smith, proposed, like Hancock, to make no "condition" and to ratify the constitution "in full confidence" of the adoption of all needed amendments. Lansing's motion for conditions was negatived in committee by a vote of thirty-one to twenty-eight, and on Friday, the twenty-fifth, the convention agreed to the report of its committee of the whole in favor of the form of Samuel Jones and Melancthon Smith by thirty yeas to twenty-five nays, the largest vote on any close division during the whole session. This vote was purchased at the price of consenting to the unanimous resolution, that a circular letter be prepared to be laid before the different legislatures of the United States recommending a general convention to act upon the proposed amendments of the different legislatures of the United States. On Saturday, the twenty-sixth, the form of ratification of the constitution was agreed to by a vote of thirty against twentyseven. More persons were absent from the vote than would have been necessary to change it. On the following Monday New York invited the governors of the several states in the union to take immediate and effectual measures for calling a second federal convention to amend the constitution. "We are unanimous," said Clinton, "in thinking this measure very conducive to national harmony and good government." Madison, as he read the letter, called the proposal a pestilent one, and Washington was touched with sorrow at the thought that just as the constitution was about to anchor in harbor it might be driven back to sea. But the city of New York set no bounds to its gladness at the acceptance of the constitution; the citizens paraded in a procession unrivalled in splendor. The miniature ship which was drawn through the streets bore the name of Hamilton. For him this was his happiest moment of unclouded triumph. North Carolina held its convention before the result in New York was known. The state wanted geographical unity. A part of its territory west of the mountains had an irregular separate organization under the name of Frankland. Of the rest there was no natural centre from which a general opinion could emanate; besides, toward the general government the state was delinquent, and it had not yet shaken from itself the bewildering influence of paper money. * "In this crisis," wrote Washington, "the. wisest way for North Carolina will be to adjourn until the people in some parts of the state can consider the magnitude of the question and the consequences involved in it, more coolly and deliberately." The convention, which consisted of two hundred and eighty-four members, assembling on the twenty-first of July, elected as its president Johnston, then governor of the state, organized itself with tranquillity and dignity, and proceeded to discuss the constitution in committee, clause by clause. The convention employed eight days in its able debates, of which very full and fair accounts have been preserved. First among the federalists, and the master mind of the convention, was James Iredell, who, before he was forty years old, was placed by Washington on the supreme bench of the United States. He was supported by William Richardson Davie, who had gained honor in the war and at the bar, and afterward held high places in North Carolina and in the union; by Samuel Johnston, Archibald Maclaine, and Richard Dobbs Spaight. The other side was led by Willie Jones of Halifax, noted for wealth and aristocratic habits and tastes, yet by nature a steadfast supporter of the principles of democracy. He was sustained by Samuel Spencer of Anson, a man of candor and moderation, and as a debater far superior to his associates; by David Caldwell from Guilford, a Presbyterian divine, fertile in theories and tenacious of them; and by Timothy Bloodworth, a former member of congress, who as a preacher abounded in offices of charity, as a politician dreaded the subjection of southern to northern interests. The friends of the constitution had the advantage of spreading their arguments before the people; on the other side Willie Jones, who held in his hand the majority of the convention, citing the wish of Jefferson that nine states might *Sparks, ix., 390, 391. McRee's Iredell, ii., 180-183; for instruction an invaluable work. ratify the constitution, and the rest hold aloof for amendments, answered in this wise: "We do not determine on the constitution; we neither reject nor adopt it; we leave ourselves at liberty; there is no doubt we shall obtain our amendments and come into the union." At his word the convention on the first of August deferred the ratification of the constitution, and proposed amendments by one hundred and eighty-four votes against eighty-four. But harmony between the state and the new federal government was pre-established by a rule adopted on the next day, that any impost which congress might ordain for the union should be collected in North Carolina by the state "for the use of congress." The scales were ready to drop from the eyes of Rhode Island. That state, although it had taken no part in the federal convention and for a year and more had neglected to attend in congress, watched without disapprobation the great revolution that was taking place. Neither of the two states which lingered behind remonstrated against the establishment of a new government before their consent; nor did they ask the United States to wait for them. The worst that can be said of them is, that they were late in arriving. CHAPTER III. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 1788 To 5 MAY 1789. It was time for America to be known abroad as a nation. The statesmen of France reproached her unsparingly for failing in her pecuniary engagements. Boatmen who bore the flag of the United States on the father of rivers were fearlessly arrested by Spain, while Don Gardoqui, its agent, in private conversation tempted the men of Kentucky "to declare themselves independent" by the assurance that he was authorized to treat with them as a separate power respecting commerce and the navigation of the Mississippi.* So. The colonists in Nova Scotia were already absorbing a part of south-eastern Maine, and inventing false excuses for doing Great Britain declined to meet her own obligations with regard to the slaves whom she had carried away, and who finally formed the seed of a British colony at Sierra Leone. She did not give up her negotiations with the men of Vermont. She withheld the interior posts, belonging to the United States; in the commission for the government of Upper Canada she kept out of sight the line of boundary, in order that the commanding officer might not scruple to crowd the Americans away from access to their inland water-line, and thus debar them from their rightful share in the fur-trade. She was all the while encouraging the Indian tribes within the bounds of New York and to the south of the western lakes to assert their independence. Hearing of the discontent of the Kentuckians and the men of west North Carolina, she sought to foment the * Letters to Washington, iv., 248. |