CHAPTER II.

RATIFICATION BY MASSACHUSETTS, MARYLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA AND NEW HAMPSHIRE.

The attitude of the people of Massachusetts toward the Constitution was shown in the votes of the towns1 when the question of electing delegates to the ratifying convention came up. The legislature, in October, had authorized a convention, the act passing with little opposition.2 The motion in the Senate was made by Samuel Adams, and in the House by Theophilus Parsons, both of whom, later, were chosen delegates. The vote in the towns showed plainly the trend of public sentiment, which in many instances, amounted to an instruction of the delegates. In the district of Maine many towns voted directly on the question of instruction, and there the sentiment toward the new plan was generally favorable. So was it in eastern Massachusetts, but the central and more western towns were less friendly. The State had not yet recovered from the shock of Shays's rebellion; business was much prostrated, and public credit, though at heart sound, was low. It was not the most opportune time for the consideration of the great question of the hour, yet, if Massachusetts should ratify at such a time of despondency, the ultimate fate of the Constitution would not be in doubt.

The convention assembled, at Boston, on the ninth of January, 1788. Among its three hundred and sixty-four

1 Libby, 75-78. Samuel Bannister Harding's, The Contest Over the Ratification of the Federal Constitution in the State of Massachusetts, 49-58.

2 October 25, 1787. The vote in the House was a majority of 129 out of 161. Massachusetts Convention (Boston Edition, 1856), 21. Harding, 46-48.

38

THE MASSACHUSETTS CONVENTION.

members were King, Gorham and Strong, who had represented the State in the Federal Convention. Elbridge Gerry, who had refused to sign, was rejected for Francis Dana, by the voters of Cambridge, and Nathan Dane, who, with Lee and Melanchton Smith, had labored in Congress to defeat the new plan, was now defeated by George Cabot as a delegate from Beverly. It was the largest convention that met in any State; was composed of men of all professions and occupations, and included nearly twenty, who had served in Shays's army the year before. Among the members were John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Fisher Ames, Samuel Holden, Stephen Longfellow, Theodore Sedgwick, Christopher Gore, Benjamin Lincoln and William Heath,—all distinguished for their services to their country. Seventeen clergymen, representing Protestant denominations in the commonwealth, were chosen. John Hancock, the governor, was made President. The State House in Boston being unsuitable for the meeting of so large a body, the delegates accepted the invitation of the proprietors of the Meeting House in Brattle street to use it during their session, and the name of the street was soon afterward changed to Federal street, in commemoration of the most important event in its history.

The Constitution was already more or less familiar to the people, as it had been repeatedly published in the newspapers and in pamphlet form.2 Probably most of the men in the State who could read had seen it.

There was no disposition in Massachusetts, as in Pennsylvania and New York, to reject the plan simply because it was intended to supplant the old Confederation. Even the men lately in insurrection under Shays, believed that affairs

1 Harding, 59.

2 First published in the Massachusetts Centinel, September 26, 1787. For other papers see Harding, 15.

ANTI-FEDERAL OPINION.

39

could be no worse than they were, and therefore, they inclined to give the plan a favorable hearing. The Boston merchants were outspoken in its favor. Had the people of the State been left to themselves, opposition would have been less active; but Richard Henry Lee's Letters of a Federal Farmer and the anti-federal writings that came up from Pennsylvania were circulated with great effect.1 Elbridge Gerry had published his reasons for not signing the Constitution, and contributed to swell the discontent.2 It is said that he composed his objections at New York, in association with Richard Henry Lee.3 His dissent was chiefly to the clauses on representation and election; to those on the powers of Congress, as ambiguous and dangerous; to the confusion of executive and legislative functions; to the oppression latent in the judicial department; to the method of making treaties, and to the absence of a Bill of Rights. No Anti-Federalist could say more.

Gerry furnished ammunition for the anti-federal newspapers and pamphleteers. The Federalists accused the authors of all those writings of a lack of candor, but they could not accuse them of lack of style or power of expression. The concensus of anti-federal opinion was on the omission of the Bill of Rights. No more skillful attack appeared than in a series of articles in the American Herald, during the last quarter of 1787. These prophesied not only the destruction of the Confederation, but the substitution of tyranny in its place. The new government was to be given unlimited power to tax and make collec

1 Id., 17. These were by Brutus; Centinel; Cincinnatus. See Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution, Chapters III, VI and

VII.

2 For Gerry's objection see Elliot, I, 492-494; Massachusetts Convention, 1788, Edition 1856, 24.

3 Harding, 19.

4 Signed, John deWitt; Harding, 24-28.

tions by its own officers, armed with military power. The federal courts were only a device to make the whole process legal. Evidently the intention of the Federalists was to establish a pure aristocracy.

The objection already familiar in Pennsylvania, that ratification would violate the State constitutions, was repeated in Massachusetts.1 Property and not persons was to be made the basis of government: an objection which anticipated the great reform of 1820,2 in Massachusetts. The clause giving the control of elections to Congress, wrenched from its relations in the new plan, was made a text for ceaseless attack. The prospective annihilation of the State governments; the equality of the States in the Senate; the prohibition of the issue of bills of credit by the States, and, above all, the neglect to secure freedom of the press and religion, were evils too grievous to be borne.3

The election of Hancock as President of the convention was carried by the Federalists in hopes that he would throw the weight of his influence on the side of the new plan. His health was bad, politically, and the more ardent Federalists did not conceal their belief that both his presence in the convention and his vote would be delayed until the opinions of the majority were clear. The three delegates of Massachusetts in the Federal Convention, Gorham, Strong and King, were the Federal leaders and were aided by the revolutionary veterans Bowdoin, Heath and Lincoln, and the younger, and more energetic, Sedgwick,

1 Id., 29.

2 See Proceedings and Debates of the Constitutional Convention of 1820, and specially the speeches of Daniel Webster and Levi Lincoln on "the basis of government."

3 These anti-federalist writings are carefully summarized by Mr. Harding, 28-44; by whom the local authorities are given in detail.

THE SHAYS INFLUENCE.

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Parsons and Ames.1 who were by no means confident of their strength to control the convention, succeeded in neutralizing the secret opposition of Samuel Adams, the most influential member of it, and able, if he chose, to defeat the constitution in Massachusetts. Gerry, who had been defeated as a member, was asked, at the instigation of the Anti-Federalists, to take a seat on the floor, that he might give information. When the question of an equal representation in the Senate came up, and there were many differences of opinion, he, unasked, offered some information, which only fanned the discord and resulted in his absence from the convention from that time.2

With great skill the Federalists,

The Anti-Federalist leaders were less distinguished than the Federalist. Chief of them was William Widgery, of New Gloucester, Maine, a self-made man, of strong natural abilities, of a roughly democratic type. Equally ardent were Samuel Thompson and Samuel Mason, also of the district of Maine, the one a brigadier-general of the militia; the other a saddler by trade. Both were aggressive men, and chafed under parliamentary rules. Joined with these were John Taylor of Worcester county, a pronounced advocate of tender laws, and Captain Phanuel Bishop, of Bristol county, lately active in support of Daniel Shays. The leaders were types of their respective parties; wealth, learning and social position on the one side; natural ability, energy, and aggressive democracy, on the other. The convention, when it first assembled, was undoubtedly anti-federal. The Federalists soon found that they had claimed too much, and they at once changed their policy: the vote should, if possible, be de

1 Elliot, V. 572.

2 Debates, 100, 65-75.

8 Elliot, V, 572.

3