CHAP.

CHAPTER II.

THE CONSTITUTION IN PENNSYLVANIA, DELAWARE,
AND NEW JERSEY; AND IN GEORGIA.

FROM 18 SEPTEMBER, 1787, το 2 JANUARY, 1788.

OUR happy theme leads from one great act of uniII. versal interest to another. A new era in the life of 1787. the race begins: a people select their delegates to state conventions to pronounce their judgment on the creation of a federal republic.

One more great duty to his fellow-citizens and to mankind is to be fulfilled by Franklin; one more honor to be won by Philadelphia as the home of union; one new victory by Pennsylvania as the citadel of the love of the one indivisible country. That mighty border commonwealth, extending its line from Delaware bay to the Ohio, and holding convenient passes through the Alleghanies, would not abandon the South, nor the West, nor the North; she would not hear of triple confederacies nor of twin confederacies; but only of one government embracing all. Its people in their multifarious congruity had nothing adverse to union; the faithful of the proprietary party

II.

Sept.

were zealous for a true general government; so too CHAP. was every man in public life of the people called Quakers; so was an overwhelming majority of the 1787. Germans; so were the Baptists, as indeed their synod authoritatively avowed for every state. The perfect liberty of conscience prevented religious differences from interfering with zeal for a closer union.

In the first period of the confederacy, the inhabitants of Philadelphia did not extend their plans for its reform beyond the increase of its powers; but after the flight of congress from their city, they began to say to one another that "it would be more easy to build a new ship of state than to repair the old one;" that there was need of a new constitution with a legislature in two branches. Merchants, bankers, holders of the national debt, the army officers, found no party organized against this opinion; Dickinson was magnanimous enough to become dissatisfied with the confederation which he had greatly assisted to frame; and he and Mifflin and McKean and George Clymer and Rush manifested no opposition to the policy of Wilson, Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, and Fitzsimons; although remoter counties, and especially the backwoodsmen on each side of the mountains, loved their wild personal liberty too dearly to welcome a new supreme control.

At eleven in the morning of the eighteenth, Benjamin Franklin, then president of Pennsylvania, more than fourscore years of age, fulfilling his last great public service, was ushered into the hall of the as

1

II.

Sept.

CHAP. sembly, followed by his seven colleagues of the convention. After expressing in a short address their 1787. hope and belief that the measure recommended by 18. that body would produce happy effects to the commonwealth of Pennsylvania as well as to every other of the United States, he presented the constitution and accompanying papers.

For the next ten days the house, not willing to forestall the action of congress, confined itself to its usual business; but as it had resolved to adjourn sine die on Saturday, the twenty-ninth, Clymer, on the morning of the last day but one of the session, proposed to refer the acts of the federal convention to a convention of the state. That there might be time for reflection, Robert Whitehill, of Carlisle, on behalf of the minority, requested the postponement of the question at least until the afternoon. This was conceded; but in the afternoon the minority, nineteen in number, did not attend, and refused to obey the summons of the speaker delivered by the sergeant-at-arms, so that no quorum could be made. This factious secession so enraged the inhabitants that early the next morning a body of "respectable men" made a search for the delinquents; and finding two of them, just sufficient to form a house, dragged them into the assembly, where, in spite of their protests, they were compelled to stay. Meantime a fleet messenger, sent from New York by William Bingham, a delegate in congress from Pennsylvania, arrived with an authentic copy of a resolution of congress of the preceding day, unanimously recommending the reference of the constitution to conventions of the several states; and

II.

Sept.

within twenty hours from the adoption of the reso- CHAP. lution, the Pennsylvania assembly called a convention of the state for the third Tuesday in November. 1787. The vote was received by the spectators with three 28. heartfelt cheers; the bells of the churches were rung; and signs of faith in the speedy return of prosperity were everywhere seen. But the minority, trained in resistance to what were thought to be aristocratic influences, refused to be reconciled, and became the seed of a permanent national party.

Richard Henry Lee had disseminated in Philadel. phia the objections of himself and George Mason to the constitution; and seventeen of the seceding members embodied them in an appeal to their constituents. But the cause of the inflammation in Pennsylvania was much more in their state factions than in the new federal system.

6.

The efforts of Richard Henry Lee were counter- Oct. acted in Philadelphia by Wilson, whom Washington at this time called "as able, candid, and honest a member as was in the convention." On the sixth of October, at a great meeting in Philadelphia, he held up the constitution as the best which the world had as yet seen. To the objection derived from its want of a bill of rights, he explained that the government of the United States was a limited government, which had no powers except those which were specially granted to it. The speech was promptly reprinted

1 Carey's Museum, vol. ii., Chronicle, pp. 6, 7.

* Lloyd's Debates of Pennsylvania Legislature, p. 137. P. Bond to Lord Carmarthen, Philadelphia, 29 Sept., 1787.

VOL. II.

• Washington to Madison, 10 Oct., 1787, in Letter Book at State Department.

Madison to Jefferson, 19 Feb., 1788, in Madison, i. 377.

16

II.

CHAP. in New York as a reply to the insinuations of Lee; and through the agency of Washington it was repub1787. lished in Richmond. But the explanation of the want of a bill of rights satisfied not one state.

Oct.

6.

Great enthusiasm was awakened among the people of Pennsylvania in the progress of the election of their delegates; they rejoiced at the near consummation of their hopes. The convention was called to

meet on Tuesday, the twentieth of November; a Nov. quorum appeared on the next day. Before the week 21. was over the constitution on two successive days

24.

received its first and second reading. Its friends, who formed a very large and resolute majority, were intensely in earnest, and would not brook procrastination.

On Saturday, the twenty-fourth, Thomas McKean, of Philadelphia, seconded by John Allison, of Franklin county, offered the resolution in favor of ratifying the constitution; and Wilson, as the only one present who had been a member of the federal convention, opened the debate.

"The United States exhibit to the world the first instance of a nation unattacked by external force, unconvulsed by domestic insurrections, assembling voluntarily, deliberating fully, and deciding calmly concerning that system of government under which they and their posterity should live. To form a good system of government for a single city or an inconsiderable state has been thought to require the strong