hand, and a chance of good on the other, believing moreover that the fate of republican government for all time was at stake, he advocated its adoption with all the energy of which his ardent nature was capable. "With an eloquence," says John Fiske, "scarcely equaled before or since until Webster's voice was heard," Hamilton argued week after week until at last the leader of the Antifederalists, Melancthon Smith, declared that he was convinced of the merits of the constitution, and that he intended to vote for it. When the decisive vote was taken, there was a majority of three for the constitution out of a total of fifty-seven. Small as the majority was, the Federalists had to pay a dangerously high price for it. They were obliged to recommend that a circular letter be sent to all the states recommending another Federal convention to consider amendments to the constitution.

The

In Virginia, the result seemed more doubtful than it had done in any other state except New York. abilities of the two parties in the convention were about equal. If, on the one side there were James Madison, Edmund Randolph, John Marshall and George Wythe; on the other, there were In Virginia. Richard Henry Lee, William Grayson,

George Mason, and most formidable of all, the great orator of the Revolution, Patrick Henry. The Federalists however, had the aid of the overshadowing influence of Washington. That probably decided the result. On the final vote, out of a total of one hundred and sixty-eight

votes, the constitution received a majority of ten. A change of ten votes in Massachusetts, two in New York, and six in Virginia would have prevented the adoption of the constitution in each of those states. What the final outcome would have been in such an event it is impossible even to conjecture. This much at least, it seems safe to say: Had any one of those states rejected the constitution, it would almost certainly have been rejected by more than four states.

In North Carolina, the constitution was rejected by a large majority, and in Rhode Island no convention was called to consider it.

When the constitution was adopted by eleven states, the Antifederalists attempted to get another Federal convention called in harmony with the recommendation of the convention in New York. If there had been systematic, concerted action in this

The Antifederalists after the adoption of the constitution.

direction, it seems impossible to doubt that they would have succeeded. The powerful minorities in Massachusetts, New York and Virginia, to say nothing of other states, combined with the majorities in Rhode Island and North Carolina, could certainly have effected this. But the antagonism of the party to national ideas, the emphasis which it laid upon the idea of the state as the country of its citizens, seems to have been an obstacle in the way of concerted action between the leaders of the party in different states. Indeed, to have admitted the necessity of such con

certed action, would have been to admit a community, if not an identity, of interests, which was inconsistent with their fundamental principle. For how could it be necessary for the Antifederalists in the various states to act as one party, to pursue a common end, unless they had identical interests? And how could they have identical interests, if the name America had only a geographical significance?

When, in 1789, the attempt to secure another Federal convention failed, the Antifederalists ceased to exist as a party. That large numbers of them remained hostile to the new government is altogether probable. But their leaders seem for the most part to have taken the patriotic stand announced by Patrick Henry in the Virginia constitution: "If I shall be in the minority," he said, "I shall have those painful sensations which arise from a conviction of being overpowered in a good cause. Yet I will be a peaceable citizen. My head, my hand, my heart shall be free to retrieve the loss of liberty and remove the defects of the system in a constitutional way. I wish not to go to violence, but will wait with hopes that the spirit which predominated in the Revolution is not yet gone, nor the cause of those who are attached to the Revolution yet lost. I shall, therefore, patiently wait in expectation of seeing this government so changed as to be compatible with the safety, liberty and happiness of the people." It is pleasant to be able to say that in a few years Patrick Henry came to see that the cause of

those who were attached to the Revolution was not lost when the constitution was adopted; that it was not necessary to change the constitution in order to have a government compatible with the safety, liberty and happiness of the people.

them?

QUESTIONS.

1. What was the programme of the Antifederalists?

2.

Why should not the Republicans be confused with

3. Enumerate the three classes of which they were composed.

4. Contrast the character of the leading Antifederalists in Virginia with those in the northern states.

5. How do you account for it?

6. Give an account of the struggle over the constitution in Massachusetts, New York and Virginia.

7. By what majorities was it carried in those states?

8. There were three other states in which the Antifederalists were a strong party. Name them.

9. In what section of the country were the Antifederalists stronger?

CHAPTER V.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

ITH the adoption of the constitution the first chap

WITH

the Federal par

when the constitution was

ter in the history of the Federalists closed. But the men who fought its first battle did not, like the Antifederalists, lay down their arms when the Classes of which victory was won. They had, indeed, con- ty was composed sisted of very different classes, and they adopted. had been influenced by very different motives. Among them were the commercial class, chiefly from New England, who wished to have the constitution adopted because it proposed to create a government with power to regulate commerce, and because it prohibited the states from making anything but gold and silver a legal tender for the payment of debts. There were also the creditor classes, who had seen with dismay the tendencies of the states to repudiate all debts, public and private, and who hoped that a government with power to collect taxes would pay its debts, and check the repudiating propensities of the states. There were the planters of the South who looked to the new system to put an end to the financial depression, from which they, in common with all the owners of property in the country, had suffered. There was also a class deserving of special mention, because of the influence which they exerted on the future of the