passions which might hurry them out of the union, as far as it could be done without promising them protection. In England John Adams had, in 1786, vainly explained the expectation of congress that a British plenipotentiary minister should be sent to the United States.* The bills regulating Newfoundland and intercourse with America were under the leadership of the same Jenkinson who had prepared the stamp act; and, with the acquiescence of Pitt, the men and the principles which had governed British policy toward America for most of the last twenty years still prevailed.† In February 1788 the son of George Grenville, speaking for the ministry in the house of commons, said: "Great Britain, ever since the peace, has condescended to favor the United States." Moreover, the British government would take no notice of American remonstrances against the violations of the treaty of peace. Self-respect and patriotic pride forbade John Adams to remain. Adams and Jefferson had exchanged with each other their portraits, as lasting memorials of friendship; and Adams, on leaving Europe, had but two regrets: one, the opportunity of research in books; the other, that immediate correspondence with Jefferson which he cherished as one of the most agreeable events in his life. "A seven months' intimacy with him here and as many weeks in London have given me opportunities of studying him closely," wrote Jefferson to Madison. "He is vain, irritable, and a bad calculator of the force and probable effect of the motives which govern men. This is all the ill which can possibly be said of him. He is disinterested, profound in his views, and accurate in his judgment, except where knowledge of the world is necessary to form a judg ment. He is so amiable that you will love him, if ever you become acquainted with him." # In America the new constitution was rapidly conciliating the affections of the people. Union had been held dear ever since it was formed; and now that the constitution was its * Adams to Carmarthen, 6 February 1786. Speech of Grenville, 11 February 1788. Almon's Parliamentary Register, 23, p. 179. surest guarantee, no party could succeed which did not inscribe union, and with union the constitution, on its banner. In September 1788 the dissidents of Pennsylvania held a conference at Harrisburg. With the delegates from beyond the mountains came Albert Gallatin, a native of Geneva, and educated there in a republic of a purely federal form. Their proceedings bear the marks of his mind. They resolved for themselves and recommended to all others to acquiesce in the organization of the government under "the federal constitution, of which the ratification had formed a new era in the American world;" they asked, however, for its speedy revision by a general convention. All their actions were kept within the bounds of legality.* In Virginia there had been a great vibration of opinion. Its assembly, which met on the twentieth of October 1788, was the first to take into consideration the proposal for another federal convention. The enemies to the government formed a decided majority of the legislature. No one of its members was able to encounter Patrick Henry in debate, and his edicts were registered without opposition. He had only to say, "Let this be law," and it became law. Taking care to set forth that so far as it depended on Virginia the new plan of government would be carried into immediate operation, the assembly, on the thirtieth, proposed a second federal convention, and invited the concurrence of every other state.# Madison was the fittest man in the union to be of the senate of the United States: Henry, on the eighth of November, after pouring forth a declamation against his federal principles, || nominated Richard Henry Lee and Grayson for the two senators from Virginia, and they were chosen at his bidding. He divided the state into districts, cunningly restricting each of them to its own inhabitants in the choice of its representative, and taking care to compose the district in which Madison would be a candidate out of counties which were thought to be unfriendly * Life of Gallatin by Henry Adams, 77; Elliot, ii., 544. Madison, i., 436, 437. Washington to Madison, 17 November 1788. Tobias Lear to Langdon, 31 January 1789. #Rives's Madison, ii., 646. Madison, i., 443, 444. to federalism. Assured by these iniquitous preparations, Monroe, without scruple, took the field against Madison. In Connecticut, in October, the circular letter of New York had a reading among other public communications, but "no anti-federalist had hardiness enough to call it up for consideration or to speak one word of its subject." * The legislature of Massachusetts concurred with Hancock, the governor, that an immediate second federal convention might endanger the union.† The legislature of Pennsylvania put the question at rest by saying: "The house do not perceive this constitution wanting in any of those fundamental principles which are calculated to ensure the liberties of their country. The happiness of America and the harmony of the union depend upon suffering it to proceed undisturbed in its operation by premature amendments. The house cannot, consistently with their duty to the good people of this state or with their affection to the citizens of the United States at large, concur with Virginia in their application to congress for a convention of the states.” This vote Mifflin, the governor, early in March 1789, communicated to the governor of Virginia, and the subject was heard of no more. Congress, as early as the second of July 1788, was notified that the constitution had received the approval of nine states; but they wasted two months in wrangling about the permanent seat of the federal government, and at last could agree only on New York as its resting-place. Not till the thirteenth of September was the first Wednesday of the following January appointed for the choice of electors of president in the several states; and the first Wednesday in March, which in that year was the fourth, for commencing proceedings under the constitution. The states, each for itself, appointed the times and places for electing senators and representatives. The interest of the elections centred in New York, Virginia, and South Carolina. In four districts out of the six into which New York was divided the federalists elected their * Trumbull to Washington, 28 October 1788. Letters to Washington, iv., 238. New York Daily Gazette of 17 February 1789. candidates. Having in the state legislature but a bare majority in the senate, while their opponents outnumbered them in the house, each branch made a nomination of senators; but the senate refused to go into a joint ballot. For this there was the excuse that the time for a new election was close at hand. But the senate further refused to meet the house for the choice of electors of president, and this was an act of faction. The star of Hamilton was then in the ascendant, and he controlled the federalists; but only to make his singular incapacity to conduct a party as apparent as his swiftness and power of thought. He excluded the family of the Livingstons from influence. To defeat Clinton's re-election as governor, he stepped into the camp of his opponents, and with Aaron Burr and other anti-federalists selected for their candidate Robert Yates, who had deserted his post in the federal convention, but had since avowed the opinion which was held by every one in the state that the new constitution should be supported. New York at the moment was thoroughly federal, yet Clinton escaped defeat through the attachment of his own county of Ulster and the insignificance of his opponent, while the federalists were left without any state organization. In the new legislature both branches were federal, and, at the behest of Hamilton, against the remonstrances of Morgan Lewis and others, Rufus King, on his transfer of residence from Massachusetts to New York, received the unexampled welcome of an immediate election with Schuyler to the senate. In Virginia, Madison went into the counties that were relied on to defeat him, reasoned with the voters face to face, and easily won the day. Of the ten delegates from the state, seven were federalists, of whom one was from Kentucky. South Carolina elected avowed anti-federalists, except Butler, of the senate, who had conceded many points to bring about the union, and yet very soon took the alarm that "the southern interest was imperilled." * Under the constitution the house of representatives formed a quorum on the first of April 1789. The senate on the sixth chose John Langdon of New Hampshire its president. The * Pierce Butler to Iredell, in Life of Iredell, ii., 264, 265. house of representatives was immediately summoned, and in the presence of the two branches he opened and counted the votes. Every one of the sixty-nine, cast by the ten states which took part in the election, was for Washington. John Adams had thirty-four votes; and as no other obtained more than nine, he was declared to be the vice-president. The house devolved upon the senate the office of communicating the result to those who had been chosen; and proceeded to business. "I foresee contentions," wrote Madison, "first between federal and anti-federal parties, and then between northern and southern parties, which give additional disagreeableness to the prospect." The events of the next seventy years cast their shadows before. Madison revived the bill which he had presented to congress on the eighteenth of March 1783, for duties on imports, adding to it a discriminating duty on tonnage. For an immediate public revenue, Lawrence of New York proposed a general duty ad valorem. England herself, by restraining and even prohibiting the domestic industry of the Americans so long as they remained in the condition of colonial dependence, had trained them to consider the establishment of home manufactures as an act of patriotic resistance to tyranny. Fitzsimons of Pennsylvania disapproved a uniform ad valorem duty on all imports. He said: "I have in contemplation to encourage domestic manufactures by protecting duties." Tucker of South Carolina enforced the necessity of great deliberation by calling attention to the antagonistic interests of the eastern, middle, and southern states in the article of tonnage. Boudinot of New Jersey wished glass to be taxed, for there were already several manufactures of it in the country. "We are able," said Hartley of Pennsylvania, "to furnish some domestic manufactures in sufficient quantity to answer the consumption of the whole union, and to work up our stock of materials even for exportation. In these cases I take it to be the policy of free, enlightened nations to give their manufactures that encouragement necessary to perfect them without oppressing the other parts of the community." "We must consider the general interests of the union," said Madison," as much as the local or state interest. My Madison, i., 450, 451. * |