12 MARYLAND, VIRGINIA. was to their interest to conform to public sentiment. Luther Martin's somewhat noisy objections to the Constitution did not increase his popularity. The working class were confident that the new plan would lower the rates of interest, would stimulate industry, would equalize the burdens of life, and, above all, free the masses from the tax gatherer.1 The commercial interests of Virginia were confined chiefly to the tide water district, and here federal sentiment prevailed.2 Here, too, were found the large towns, the lawyers in lucrative practice and in general the best informed people of the State. Westward, extending as far as the Blue Ridge mountains, lay a region possessed by small farmers, poorer in slaves than the tide water planters and far less prosperous. Their opinions were as pronouncedly anti-federal as those in the tide water region were federal. Passing over the mountains, where the Scotch-Irish and German emigrants had settled, sentiment again became federal. The economic condition of the country was not unlike that of Delaware. The Constitution promised the people advantages to be had from no other source. But when the traveler had reached the people living in the Kanawha and Kentucky valleys, he found himself in an anti-federal stronghold. Here public sentiment grew out of those discords which had long been separating Kentucky from Virginia, clamoring for independence, and prone to interpret any form of national government as an intolerable burden. But anti-federalism here may be said to have rested on local prejudices. The suspicion that by the new plan the Mississippi would be under the control of Spain did not win it any friends. The Anti-Federalists 1 Pennsylvania Gazette, April 2, 1788. of Virginia found an advocate in George Mason, who did not delay to publish his objections to the Constitution,1 already familiar to the members of the Philadelphia Convention. In no other southern State was anti-federalism so strong as in North Carolina; yet, opposition there took the form of apathy rather than agitation. Population was widely scattered, and it was difficult to obtain its aggregate opinion on any question. Yet, in the few larger towns a respectable federal feeling existed. Many of the merchants were from Virginia and Maryland, and they held the opinions of their class. As soon as the character of the new plan was made known to the people of the State, their apathy began to disappear and the wealthier portion developed federal opinions. Leaving the federal towns of Hillsboro and Wilmington, and passing westward, the traveler found himself in an almost untouched wilderness, with here and there a settlement, whose people were mostly anti-federal in sentiment. After he had crossed the mountains into the settlements on the Wautauga and the Cumberland and had visited the people of Frankland, he soon detected a change, for the people of these new regions were aspiring to become an independent State, and saw in the Constitution an opportunity to realize their wishes.2 South Carolina, like Pennsylvania, consisted of rival sections of population. The people of Charleston and the sea-board towns were strongly federal, but the country districts, comprising the middle and western portions of 1 The objections of the Honorable George Mason to the proposed Constitution, addressed to the citizens of Virginia; Ford's Pamphlet, 329-332; see the answer to them by James Iredell, Id., 333-370. 2 See Caldwell's Constitutional History of Tennessee, Chapters I-III. 14 IN THE SOUTHWEST. the State, were equally anti-federal. Here, as in other States, the Tories generally favored the Constitution, and for that reason, if for no other, their local enemies, the Whigs, opposed it.1 The State illustrated a paradox in the political history of the times; that of a people who had stubbornly opposed the Revolution now no less vigorously favoring a national government based on republican principles. The geographical situation of Georgia made its people anxious for the new plan. Theirs was the most troublesome frontier; their slaves were escaping into the Floridas; war with Spain might break out at any time; hostilities with the Creeks and Choctaws were continuous, and therefore a strong national government came to them as a welcome relief and a promise of peace. But public opinion of the new Constitution was based on some other grounds. The attitude of the people of the States to paper money, to the public credit and the obligations of contracts, public and private, as discussed in their support of local legislative measures, is undoubtedly a more trustworthy sign of the times. The evils of paper money were clearly recognized by the Federal Convention, and it made every effort to crush them. The federal and anti-federal districts in the States coincided quite accurately with the division of the people as friends or foes of fiat money. In New Hampshire, in 1786, an emission of bills of credit, on land security, to the amount of fifty thousand pounds, had been made by the vote of fifty-three to twelve. Of the twelve who opposed, eleven came from federal towns, and twenty-seven who favored the emission from anti-federal.2 In Massachusetts, of the towns that supported Daniel Shays and also paper money in 1786, when OPPOSITION IN CONNECTICUT. 15 later the acceptance of the Constitution was the issue, two were federal and twenty-two anti-federal, and of the towns opposing Shays and fiat money, twenty, in 1788, were federal and eight anti-federal.1 These facts support the estimate which General Knox furnished to Washington that four-fifths of the anti-federal party in the State were, in one way or another, concerned in the Shays movement.2 3 The little opposition to the Constitution which existed in Connecticut was maintained almost solely by men holding fiat money views. The paper money proclivities of the people of Rhode Island had elected a legislature which had refused to send delegates to the Philadelphia Convention, and these proclivities were no less intense now that its work was before the State for its approval. The strength of the paper money men in New York lay almost solely outside of the city. No vote against a paper money bill could be depended on from a member north of New York county. The chamber of commerce, which reflected the opinion of the New York merchants, was inflexibly opposed to paper issue. Even in New Jersey, where federal views prevailed, the test of a fiat money bill drew the line between Federalists and Anti-Federalists. No friends of such a measure could be found among the people adjoining New York or Philadelphia and depending for their prosperity upon commerce. In New Jersey, it was without exception the debtor class that opposed the new plan.5 In Delaware, the opposition of the paper money men 1 Libby, 57. 2 Knox to Washington, February 10, 1788; Massachusetts Convention, 1788 (Edition, Boston, 1856), 410. 3 Libby, 58. 4 Libby, 59. 5 Libby, 61. to the Constitution was restrained, in great measure, by their sense of the obvious advantage to the State of an early ratification; but the Anti-Federalists here were all paper money men. In Pennsylvania, the fiat money party was also anti-federal to a man. They firmly believed that there was not gold and silver enough to meet public obligations, and that a paper-money system lightened the burdens of land taxation, and compelled the rich to pay most of the taxes. In 1785, the vote in favor of a funding bill enrolled seventeen members in opposition, and, of these, thirteen were from counties which were federal in 1788.1 That the new Constitution forbade States to issue bills of credit aroused the hostility of most of the inhabitants of Pennsylvania, living west of Lancaster. The demand for paper money in Maryland had long been loud and vehement, but an issue had been prevented by the Senate. The Maryland Senate was chosen by an electoral college, and the method was praised by Madison in the Federal Convention as an agency checking and balancing the tumultuous legislation of the lower House. Doubtless had it not been for the conservatism of the Senate, the paper money faction in Maryland would have controlled the State. At the head of this faction was Luther Martin, who threatened secession if the Senate should not comply with the demands of the House. But the weight of the commercial class in Maryland had been sufficient to hold the Senate to a conservative course. The antifederal minority adhered solidly to the leadership of Martin.3 From the evidence which reaches us it appears that in 1 Pennsylvania Gazette, March 23, 1785; Libby, 63. 2 See Bancroft's Pamphlet on the Legal Tender Decisions, Entitled, "A Plea for the Constitution of the United States of America, 1886." Libby, 65. |