New Hampshire, threw in her lot with the majority; and on the heels of this news came the intelligence that the Old Dominion had also ratified. The Constitution was now the law of the land. In the stanch Federal city of Philadelphia, the Fourth of July was celebrated with great rejoicing, for in the parlance

of the time the sloop Anarchy was ashore on Union Rock, the old scow Confederation had put to sea, and the good ship Federal Constitution had come into port bringing a cargo of Public Credit and Prosperity.

But until New York ratified the Constitution this rejoicing was premature. Geographically New York was a pivotal State. A union without this member was not worthy of the name. The task of the Fed

eralists was here most difficult. Fully two thirds of the convention were at first opposed to the Constitution. The leadership of the Federalists fell to Hamilton. Together with James Madison and John Jay, he contributed to the newspapers a series of essays in advocacy of the Constitution, which, under the title The Federalist, have become a classic in our political literature. Just how the Federalists succeeded in overcoming a hostile majority and in securing a ratification of the Constitution by a vote of thirty to twenty-seven, remains a mystery to this day.

Half a century later it became the habit of statesmen of the nationalist school to speak of the Constitution as the work of the people of the United States. John Marshall declared the Constitution to be “an expression of the clear and deliberate will of the whole people." As a matter of fact, no direct popular vote was taken at any stage in its evolution. The delegates to the Philadelphia Convention were chosen by the state legislatures; their work was ratified by conventions of delegates in the several States; and these delegates were chosen in every State but one on a carefully limited suffrage. New York alone provided that delegates to the convention should be elected on the basis of manhood suffrage. Elsewhere property qualifications were imposed which disfranchised probably about one third of the adult male population. In all the States a considerable proportion of the voters abstained from voting. In Boston, where twenty-seven hundred were qualified to vote, only seven hundred and sixty took the trouble to

vote for delegates to the state convention. A recent writer hazards the guess that "not more than one fourth or one fifth of the adult white males took part in the election of delegates to the state conventions." If this be true, the Constitution expressed something less than the will of the whole people and perhaps not even of a majority. The making of the Constitution was clearly the work of a party rather than of the whole people. In the ranks of the Federalist party were the wealth and intelligence which made possible concerted and rapid action. The leadership fell naturally to those who had been accustomed to public life. From this point of view, the adoption of the Constitution was the triumph of a "natural aristocracy."

Meantime, Congress nearing its end made testamentary provision for its heir. After much wrangling and vacillation, it fixed upon New York as the seat of the new Government and summoned the States to choose presidential electors, Senators, and Representatives. The new national legislature was to assemble on the first Wednesday in March, which fell upon the 4th. To this summons, two States turned a deaf ear. Not having ratified the new Constitution, North Carolina and Rhode Island were strangely circumstanced. Of all the States which had entered into the "firm league of friendship," they alone remained loyal — loyal, but discredited.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Full accounts of the work of the Federal Convention may be found in the histories of Bancroft and Curtis; briefer accounts, in

the volumes already cited, by McMaster, Fiske, McLaughlin, and Channing. A succinct narrative is given by Max Farrand, The Framing of the Constitution (1913). A suggestive volume, treating of the Constitution as the resultant of conflicting economic interests, is C. A. Beard's An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913). Among the special studies of the ratification of the Constitution may be mentioned, O. G. Libby, The Geographical Distribution of the Vote of the Thirteen States on the Federal Constitution, 1787-1788 (1888); McMaster and Stone, Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution, 1787–1788 (1888); S. B. Harding, The Contest over the Ratification of the Federal Constitution in the State of Massachusetts (1896); and F. G. Bates, Rhode Island and the Formation of the Union (1898). The most illuminating notes of the debates in the Convention were those taken by James Madison, which are printed in the Records of the Federal Convention (3 vols., edited by Farrand, 1911). The most valuable commentary on the Constitution is still The Federalist, written by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay.

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CHAPTER III

THE RESTORATION OF PUBLIC CREDIT

"THE people have been ripened by misfortune for the reception of a good government," Washington wrote to Jefferson, in the midsummer of 1788. They are emerging from the gulf of dissipation and debt into which they had precipitated themselves at the close of the war. Economy and industry are evidently gaining ground." There is, indeed, abundant evidence that thrift and enterprise were steadily banishing hard times. The task of establishing the new government was made incomparably easier by the confidence inspired by returning prosperity.

Already West India commerce had resumed very nearly its old volume. Both France and Spain had made concessions to vessels which came to the island ports laden with American produce. The Dutch and the Danish islands had always been kept open to American trade; and evidence is not wanting that the needs of British West India planters were stronger than their respect for orders in council. At all events, by hook or crook, American farm products and lumber found their way to British planters as well as to their French competitors. But something more than the resumption of the West India traffic was needed to restore prosperity. Ne