ENEMIES OF THE CONSTITUTION. 187 friends of the Constitution in the assembly, in March following, to call one, but was unsuccessful.1 About five hundred citizens of Providence signed a petition demanding a convention and sent it to the assembly at its June session, but the effort was again defeated.2 The opponents of the Constitution, at the special session in September, wished to submit the question to the towns whether their delegates in the assembly should call a convention, but this was only for the purpose of delay, for it was at this session that Governor Collins, at the direction of the assembly, sent a letter to the President and Congress explaining the refusal of the State to ratify; that it was chiefly because the Constitution too strongly resembled the British Constitution, and because the State was waiting to see the proposed system organized and in operation and also what further checks and guards would be established by way of amendments before it ratified.3 It was this apologetic letter which drew forth from Washington the severe judgment, that there would be no doubt of the accession of Rhode Island had not the majority of its people "bid adieu long since to every principle of honor, common sense and honesty," but he was cheered by the prospect of a better disposition in the Rhode Island assembly at its next session, for it was said that a material change had taken place at its late election of representatives. The act of Congress, regulating the tonnage duties, contained a special exemption extending to ships and vessels wholly owned by citizens of Rhode Island and North Carolina, but the exemption expired on the 1 Thirty-seven nays to 19 ayes. 2 Thirty-two to 22. 3 The letter is given in Sparks, X, 487. + Washington to Gouverneur Morris, October 13, 1789; Sparks, 188 FRIENDS OF THE CONSTITUTION. fifteenth of January of the following year.1 It was not impossible, therefore, if Rhode Island persevered in refusing to ratify, that the United States might be under the necessity of discriminating against the State, and thus become involved in issues of great gravity. The federal part of its population, helpless so long as its assembly continued its injurious policy, was beginning to hint at a foreign alliance. The congressional amendments were sent to Rhode Island as to other States, and were submitted by the assembly to the towns, but were not voted on. Providence, Newport and Bristol assembled in their town-meetings, again drew up protests and petitions and demanded ratification in order to avoid the discriminating tonnage duties which Congress might levy. Indeed, the merchants of these cities were taking measures to have a convention called in spite of the assembly. At the October session, 1789, the question of calling one was defeated for the seventh time,2 but expostulation was now so strong, from the more substantial citizens of the State, that the assembly, on the eleventh of January, 1790, again took up the question of a convention, and it was carried in the House of Representatives, but the Senate passed a bill of its own that a special election should be held so that the freemen might instruct their representatives on the subject. The House refused to concur in this amendment and in the Senate, which again took up the House bill, the vote stood four Senators and the deputy-governor for the measure and four Senators against it. The assembly then adjourned till Sunday morning. Public excitement at Newport was now at the highest pitch and was sustained 1 September 16, 1789. 2 Thirty-nine to 17. 3 Thirty-four to 29. Statutes at Large, I, 69. THE STRUGGLE FOR A CONVENTION. 189 by the report that the House had voted, thirty-two to eleven, for a convention. The Senate, still opposing, took up a bill submitted by the deputy-governor for a special election on the twenty-sixth of January, to have the freeholders instruct the delegates, but in this the House refused to concur. The Senate then took up the question whether to concur in the House bill, and, one Senator being absent, the vote was a tie; four Senators favoring concurrence and the deputy-governor and three Senators opposing it. The fate of the bill, therefore, rested with the governor, John Collins, and he voted for concurrence. Thus on Sunday, the seventeenth of January, it was at last agreed that, on the eighth of February, a special election of delegates should be held in the town-meetings and that the ratifying convention should meet at South Kingston on the first Monday of March. The delegates elected were seventy in number. Five had served in the old Congress; four had been deputygovernors and more than forty had belonged to the assembly. As a body, they were not instructed by their constituents, though Portsmouth specifically directed its four delegates to vote for the Constitution, and Richmond instructed its two representatives to vote against it. Among the members were Jabez Bowen and William Barton of Providence, and John Brown of Hopkinstown, who, with ten other citizens of Rhode Island, on the eleventh of May, 1787, had joined in a letter to the Federal Convention, lamenting the refusal of the Rhode Island legislature to send delegates and pledging their influence and best exertion to support whatever plan the Convention might submit.1 Daniel Owen, of Gloucester, was chosen President, when, on the eighth of March, the Convention began its 1 See the letter in Elliot, V. 578. 190 A BILL OF RIGHTS. session. On the following day, John Sayles of Smithfield, moved for a committee to form a Bill of Rights and amendments to the Constitution, and the instrument was taken up by paragraphs. Congdon of North Kingston objected to numbers as an unequal basis of taxation, to which Bowen replied that no such objection had been made in other States. Comstock, of East Greenwich, objected to the protection of the slave-trade till 1808, but Hazzard of South Kingston remarked, that the trade was left to each State for itself, and that it did not particularly concern Rhode Island, although it is to be presumed that he had looked into the slave-pens of Newport. Rhode Island, he said, had abolished the trade, but he was opposed to enslaving the whites and enfranchising the blacks. He was fully supported by General Miller, who pronounced slavery Biblical, though Colonel Barton, who claimed equal knowledge of the Scriptures, pronounced it un-Biblical. The Committee of Ten finally reported a Bill of Rights in eighteen sections, and amendments in twenty-one.1 In order that these might be submitted to the people in their town meetings, the convention adjourned on the sixth of March, to meet at Newport on the twenty-fifth of May. During the recess, the forty-one propositions were voted on by the freeholders in all the towns. Richmond, Middleton and Charleston approved them, but North Kingston promptly rejected them and demanded that some real and substantial ones should be submitted, particularly protecting the sovereignty of the State; empowering its legislature to recall senators, and forbidding Congressmen to fix their own pay. Portsmouth and Providence 1 They are given in Elliot, I, 334-337; also in Documentary History, III, 311-319; The amendments here reprinted, probably differ in form from the original draft submitted by the Committee. RHODE ISLAND RATIFIES. 191 were less interested in the amendments than in ratification, and instructed their delegates to delay no longer to approve the Constitution, and the electors of Providence plainly said that if the Constitution was not ratified, straightway, the city might secede from Rhode Island and adopt a Declaration of Independence. When the Convention re-assembled, the demands of the towns for ratification were so imperative that it could no longer be delayed, and, on the twenty-ninth of May, the Bill of Rights and the amendments were adopted, and ratification was carried by a vote of thirty-four to thirtytwo.1 The legislature, in special session, called in June, ratified eleven of the twelve Congressional amendments on the fifteenth, and being the ninth State that had approved ten of them, this number became by the act a part of the Constitution. United States Senators were immediately chosen,2 and, in the election in August, the people elected a representative to Congress.3 The ratification of the Constitution by Rhode Island brought into the more perfect Union all the members of the old Confederation. In acknowledging a letter from the Governor of the State, communicating the news of ratification, Washington replied, that the bond of Union was now complete. The event, he said, would make possible a fair experiment of the Constitution, which had been formed solely with the view to promote the happiness of the people.5 Rhode Island has not lacked apologists who have defended its delay to ratify, claiming that it chose to maintain the old Articles of Confederation, which other States had deliberately broken down. 4 1 For the ratification see Documentary History, III, 291. 2 Thomas Foster and Joseph Stanton. 3 Benjamin Bourne. 4 Washington to Arthur Fenner, June 14, 1790; Sparks, X, 93. 5 Washington to Count DeSegur, July 1, 1790; Id., 103. Staples, 685. |