Volume I Part 40 (1/2)
If only the address of Pennsylvania's heroic minority, ”Centinel”
lamented, had reached Boston in time, it would ”have enabled patriotism to triumph” there; but, of course, the ”_high born_” Const.i.tutionalist managers of post-offices kept it back.[1042] Was not the scandal so foul, asked ”Centinel,” that, on the pet.i.tion of Philadelphia printers, Pennsylvania's Legislature appealed to Congress against the suppression of the mails?[1043] Of course Philadelphia was for ”this system of tyranny”; but three fourths of the people in the eastern counties and nineteen twentieths of those in the middle, northern, and western counties were against it.[1044]
The grape and canister which its enemies poured upon the Const.i.tution and its friends in Pennsylvania brought an answering fire. The attacks, said the Const.i.tutionalists, had been written by ”hireling writers” and ”sowers of sedition”; their slanders showed ”what falsehoods disappointed ambition is capable of using to impose upon the public.”
According to the Const.i.tutionalists, their opponents were ”incendiaries”
with ”infamous designs.”[1045] ”If every lie was to be punished by clipping, as in the case of other forgeries, not an ear would be left amongst the whole party,” wrote a Const.i.tutionalist of the conduct of the opposition.[1046]
But the Const.i.tutionalists were no match for their enemies in the language of abuse, recklessness in making charges, or plausibility in presenting their case. Mostly they vented their wrath in private correspondence, which availed nothing. Yet the letters of business men were effective in consolidating the commercial interests. Also they illuminate the situation.
”That restless firebrand, the Printer of your city [Oswald, editor of the ”Independent Gazetteer”], is running about as if driven by the Devil,” wrote a New York merchant to a Philadelphia business correspondent, ”seemingly determined to do all the mischief he can; indeed, in my opinion he is an actual incendiary & ought to be the object of legal restraint. He is in his own person a strong argument of the necessity of speedily adopting the new System & putting it into immediate motion.”[1047]
And ”firebrands,” indeed, the Anti-Const.i.tutionalists prove themselves in every possible way.
Madison was alarmed. He writes to Jefferson that the ”minority ... of Pennsylvania has been extremely intemperate and continues to use very bold and menacing language.”[1048] Little did Madison then foresee that the very men and forces he now was fighting were laying the foundation for a political party which was to make him President. Far from his thought, at this time, was the possibility of that antipodal change which public sentiment and Jefferson's influence wrought in him two years later. When the fight over the Const.i.tution was being waged, there was no more extreme Nationalist in the whole country than James Madison.
So boiled the stormy Pennsylvania waters through which the Const.i.tution was hastened to port and such was the tempest that strained its moorings after it was anch.o.r.ed in the harbor of ratification.
In Ma.s.sachusetts, ”all the men of abilities, of property and of influence,”[1049] were quite as strong for the Const.i.tution as the same cla.s.s in Pennsylvania; but, impressed by the revolt against the tactics of hurry and force which the latter had employed, the Const.i.tutionalists of the Bay State took an opposite course. Craft, not arrogance, was their policy. They were ”wise as serpents,” but appeared to be ”as harmless as doves.” Unlike the methods of the Pennsylvania Const.i.tutionalists, they were moderate, patient, conciliatory, and skillful. They put up Hanc.o.c.k for President of the Convention, in order, as they said, ”that we might have advantage of [his] ... name--whether capable of attending or not.”[1050]
The Ma.s.sachusetts adversaries of the Const.i.tution were without a leader.
Among them ”there was not a single character capable of uniting their wills or directing their measures.”[1051] Their inferiority greatly impressed Madison, who wrote to Pendleton that ”there was scarce a man of respectability” among them.[1052] They were not able even to state their own case.
”The friends of the Const.i.tution, who in addition to their own weight ... represent a very large proportion of the good sense and property of this State, have the task not only of answering, but also of stating and bringing forward the objections of their opponents,” wrote King to Madison.[1053] The opponents admitted this themselves. Of course, said they, lawyers, judges, clergymen, merchants, and educated men, all of whom were in favor of the Const.i.tution, could make black look white; but ”if we had men of this description on our side” we could run these foxes to earth.[1054] Mr. Randall hoped ”that these great men of eloquence and learning will not try to _make_ arguments to make this Const.i.tution go down, right or wrong.... It takes the best men in this state to gloss this Const.i.tution.... Suppose ... these great men would speak half as much against it, we might complete our business and go home in forty-eight hours.”[1055]
The election of members to the Ma.s.sachusetts Convention had shown widespread opposition to the proposed establishment of a National Government. Although the Const.i.tutionalists planned well and worked hard, some towns did not want to send delegates at all; forty-six towns finally refused to do so and were unrepresented in the Convention.[1056]
”Biddeford has backsliden & fallen from a state of Grace to a state of nature, met yesterday & a dumb Devil seized a Majority & they voted not to send, & when called on for a Reason they were dumb, _mirabile dictu_!”[1057] King Lovejoy was chosen for Va.s.salborough; but when the people learned that he would support the Const.i.tution they ”called another Meeting, turned him out, & chose another in his room who was desidedly against it.”[1058]
The division among the people in one county was: ”The most reputable characters ... on ... _the right_ side [for the Const.i.tution] ... but the middling & common sort ... on the opposite”;[1059] and in another county ”the Majority of the Common people” were opposed,[1060] which seems to have been generally true throughout the State. Of the sentiment in Worcester, a certain E. Bangs wrote: ”I could give you but a very disagreeable account: The most of them entertain such a dread of arbitrary power, that they are afraid even of limited authority.... Of upwards of 50 members from this county not more than 7 or 8 delegates are” for the Const.i.tution, ”& yet some of them are good men--Not all [Shays's] insurgents I a.s.sure you.”[1061]
Judge Sewall reported from York that the delegates there had been chosen ”to Oppose the Business.... Sanford had one meeting and Voted not to Send any--But M^r. S. come down full charged with Ga.s.s and Stirred up a 2^{nd} Meeting and procured himself Elected, and I presume will go up charged like a Baloon.”[1062] Nathaniel Barrell of York, a successful candidate for the Ma.s.sachusetts Convention, ”behaved so indecently before the Choice, as extorted a severe Reprimand from Judge Sewall, and when chosen modestly told his Const.i.tuents, he would sooner loose his Arm than put his a.s.sent to the new proposed Const.i.tution, it is to be feared many of his Brethern are of his mind.”[1063]
Barrell explained to Thatcher: ”I see it [the Const.i.tution] pregnant with the fate of our libertys.... I see it entails wretchedness on my posterity--Slavery on my children; ... twill not be so much for our advantage to have our taxes imposed & levied at the pleasure of Congress as [by] the method now pursued ... a Continental Collector at the head of a standing army will not be so likely to do us justice in collecting the taxes.... I think such a Government impracticable among men with such high notions of liberty as we americans.”[1064]
The ”Address of the Minority” of Pennsylvania's Convention had reached a few men in Ma.s.sachusetts, notwithstanding the alleged refusal of the post-office to transmit it; and it did some execution. To Thomas B. Wait it ”was like the Thunder of Sinai--its lightenings were irresistible”
to him. He deplored the ”darkness, duplicity and studied ambiguity ...
running thro' the whole Const.i.tution,” which, to his mind, made it certain that ”as it now stands but very few individuals do or ever will understand it.... The vast Continent of America cannot long be subjected to a Democracy if consolidated into one Government--you might as well attempt to rule h.e.l.l by Prayer.”[1065]
Christopher Gore condensed into one sentence the motives of those who favored the Const.i.tution as the desire for ”an honorable & efficient Govt. equal to the support of our national dignity--& capable of protecting the property of our citizens.”[1066]
The spirit of Shays's Rebellion inspired the opponents of the Const.i.tution in Ma.s.sachusetts. ”Many of the [Shays's] insurgents are in the Convention,” Lincoln informed Was.h.i.+ngton; ”even some of Shays's officers. A great proportion of these men are high in the opposition. We could hardly expect any thing else; nor could we ... justly suppose that those men, who were so lately intoxicated with large draughts of liberty, and who were thirsting for more would ... submit to a Const.i.tution which would further take up the reins of Government, which, in their opinion, were too straight before.”[1067]
Out of three hundred and fifty-five members of the Ma.s.sachusetts Convention, one hundred and sixty-eight held out against the Const.i.tution to the very last, uninfluenced by the careful, able, and convincing arguments of its friends, unmoved by their persuasion, unbought by their promises and deals.[1068] They believed ”that some injury is plotted against them--that the system is the production of the rich and ambitious,” and that the Const.i.tution would result in ”the establishment of two orders in Society, one comprehending the opulent and great, the other the poor and illiterate.”[1069] At no time until they won over Hanc.o.c.k, who presided over the Ma.s.sachusetts Convention, were the Const.i.tutionalists sure that a majority was not against the new plan.
The struggle of these rude and unlearned Ma.s.sachusetts men against the cultured, disciplined, powerful, and ably led friends of the Const.i.tution in that State was pathetic. ”Who, sir, is to pay the debts of the yeomanry and others?” exclaimed William Widgery. ”Sir, when oil will quench fire, I will believe all this [the high-colored prophesies of the Const.i.tutionalists] and not till then.... I cannot see why we need, for the sake of a little meat, swallow a great bone, which, if it should happen to stick in our throats, can never be got out.”[1070]
Amos Singletary ”wished they [the Const.i.tutionalists] would not play round the subject with their fine stories like a fox round a trap, but come to it.”[1071] ”These lawyers,” said he, ”and men of learning and moneyed men, that talk so finely, and gloss over matters so smoothly, to make us poor illiterate people swallow down the pill, expect to get into Congress themselves; they expect to be the managers of this Const.i.tution, and get all the power and all the money, into their own hands, and then they will swallow up all us little folks like the great _Leviathan_; ... yes, just as the whale swallowed up _Jonah_.”[1072]
Replying to the Const.i.tutionalist argument that the people's representatives in Congress would be true to their const.i.tuents, Abraham White said that he ”would not trust a 'flock of Moseses.'”[1073]