CHAPTER II. THE CONSTITUTION IN PENNSYLVANIA, DELAWARE, AND NEW JERSEY; AND IN GEORGIA. FROM 18 SEPTEMBER 1787 TO 2 JANUARY 1788. OUR happy theme leads from one great act of universal interest to another. A new era in the life of 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 were zealous for a true general government; so too was every man in public life of the people called Quakers;* so was an overwhelming majority of the 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 * Independent Gazetteer, 15 January 1788. + Independent Gazetteer. 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 chiefly 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 assembly, followed by his seven colleagues of the convention. After expressing in a short address their hope and belief that the measure recommended by 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 twentyninth, 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-atarms, 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 within twenty hours* from the adoption of the resolution, the Pennsylvania assembly called a convention of the state for the third Tuesday in November.+ The vote was received by the spectators with three 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 Philadelphia the objections of himself and George Mason to the constitution; and seventeen of the seceding members imbodied 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.# The efforts of Richard Henry Lee were counteracted in Philadelphia by Wilson, whom Washington at the 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 in New York as a reply to the insinuations of Lee; and through the agency of Washington it was republished in Richmond. But the explanation of the want of a bill of rights satisfied not one state. * Great enthusiasm was awakened among the people of Penn- + Lloyd's Debates of Pennsylvania Legislature, p. 137. P. Bond to Lord Carmarthen, Philadelphia, 29 September 1787. ment. Washington to Madison, 10 October 1787, in Letter Book at State Depart * Madison to Jefferson, 19 February 1788, in Madison, i., 377. Sparks, ix., 271. sylvania 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 quorum appeared on the next day. Before the week was over the constitution on two successive days 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 strongest efforts of human genius; the views of the convention were expanded to a large portion of the globe. "The difficulty of the business was equal to its magnitude. The United States contain already thirteen governments mutually independent; their soil, climates, productions, dimensions, and numbers are different; in many instances a difference and even an opposition subsists among their interests, and is imagined to subsist in many more. Mutual concessions and sacrifices, the consequences of mutual forbearance and conciliation, were indispensably necessary to the success of the great work. "The United States may adopt any one of four different systems. They may become consolidated into one government in which the separate existence of the states shall be entirely absolved. They may reject any plan of union and act as unconnected states. They may form two or more confederacies. *Correct the date in Elliot, ii., 417, by Independent Gazette of 29 November 1787. Especially, Centinel in the same, 4 December. Mr. W. [Wilson] in a speech on Saturday, 24 instant, Pa. Packet of 27 November. They may unite in one federal republic. Neither of these systems found advocates in the late convention. The remaining system is a union in one confederate republic.* "The expanding quality of a government by which several states agree to become an assemblage of societies that constitute a new society, capable of increasing by means of further association, is peculiarly fitted for the United States. But this form of government left us almost without precedent or guide. Ancient history discloses, and barely discloses, to our view some confederate republics. The Swiss cantons are connected only by alliances; the United Netherlands constitute no new society; from the Germanic body little useful knowledge can be drawn. "Since states as well as citizens are represented in the constitution before us, and form the objects on which that constitution is proposed to operate, it is necessary to mention a kind of liberty which has not yet received a name. I shall distinguish it by the appellation of federal liberty. The states should resign to the national government that part, and that part only, of their political liberty which, placed in that government, will produce more good to the whole than if it had remained in the several states. While they resign this part of their political liberty, they retain the free and generous exercise of all their other faculties, so far as it is compatible with the welfare of the general and superintending confederacy. "The powers of the federal government and those of the state governments are drawn from sources equally pure. The principle of representation, unknown to the ancients, is confined to a narrow corner of the British constitution. For the American states were reserved the glory and happiness of diffusing this vital principle throughout the constituent parts of government. "The convention found themselves embarrassed with another difficulty of peculiar delicacy and importance; I mean that of drawing a proper line between the national government and the governments of the several states. Whatever object of government is confined in its operation and effects within the bounds of a particular state should be considered as belong* Elliot, ii., 427, 428. VOL. VI.-25 |