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Home > Ratification of the Constitution > The Geographical Distribution of the Vote of the Thirteen States on the Federal Constitution, 1787-8 by Orin Grant Libby
by Orin Grant Libby Economics, Political Science, and History Series Vol. 1, No. 1. pp. 1-116 Published by Authority of Law and with the Approval of the Regents of the University Editor's Note.
The following paper is one of a series of studies carried on in my seminary in American history, with the design of contributing to an understanding of the relations between the political history of the United States, and the physiographic, social, and economic conditions underlying this history. A preliminary paper by the editor, indicating some aspects of the proposed work, has already been published under the title, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History." (Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, December 14, 1893; and Annual Re-port of the American Historical Association for 1893, Senate Misc. Doc. No. 104, 53d Cong., 2d Sess., in press). It is believed that many phases of our political history have been obscured by the attention paid to state boundaries, and to the sectional lines of North and South. At the same time the economic interpretation of our history has been neglected. In the study of the persistence of the struggle for state particularism in American constitutional history, it was inevitable that writers should make prominent the state as a political factor. But, from the point of view of the rise and growth of sectionalism and of nationalism, it is much more important to note the existence of great social and economic areas, independent of state lines, which have acted as units in political history, and which have changed their political attitude as they changed their economic organization, and divided into new groups. American growth has exhibited not only the evolution of the Atlantic coast from sparse settlement to concentrated city life, with all the changes in political sentiments involved in these economic and social transformations; it has also exhibited the spread of population steadily west-ward, with areas of sparse settlement on the borders of this advancing society, contemporaneous with the complex and concentrated settlements of the older regions. Thus the United States has been at once a developed country and a primitive one. The same political questions have been put to a society, advanced in some regions, and undeveloped in others. More than this, each area of settlement has been undergoing continual modifications. Physiographic conditions have facilitated the rapid evolution of some areas and have retarded others, so that the complexity of this grouping has been increased. We have also the peculiar transformation of the South and the slave system - the changes involved in the substitution of cotton culture for rice and tobacco culture, the changes resulting from the Civil War, emancipation, and the gradual development of diversified industry in the South similar to that in the North. Within the United States there have been exhibited contemporaneously all the stages of social progress, from the hunting to the manufacturing stage. Each of these social conditions has been exhibited on a determinable geographical area. Each of these areas has been evolving into a higher stage of social advance; the grain raising region becomes a region with diversified farming; the region with diversified farming becomes the region of manufacture; the hunting or pastoral region of the arid tracts, is turned by irrigation into a varied agricultural region, with corresponding social transformations. On specific political questions each economic area has reflected its peculiar interests. At a subsequent period, when the geographical area occupied by this stage of economic developement has evolved into a higher economic stage, the change is made apparent in changed views on similar political questions. Thus Wisconsin, once a "Granger state," has now little sympathy with the western Populists. The effects of these differences in organic areas upon specific political questions has been noted with more or less insight into the real economic territorial divisions, by occasional writers. But no writer has as yet brought out the importance of these groups and their transformations as continuous factors in our history. Since the present paper was completed, I have noted, in Mr. Hildreth's History of the United States, an important example of the use of economic divisions to explain political action, in a limited period. It seen will be that the statement is dogmatic and from the point of view of a Federalist, but the opinion of Mr. Hildreth is of weight, and as it goes to confirm the correctness of the results embodied in the present paper, I quote the passage. "The Federal party with Washington and Hamilton at its head, represented the experience, the prudence, the practical wisdom, the discipline, the conservative reason and instincts of the country. The opposition headed by Jefferson, expressed its hopes, wishes, theories, many of them enthusiastic and impracticable, more especially its passions, its sympathies and antipathies, its impatience of restraint. The Federalists had their strength in those narrow districts where a concentrated population had produced and contributed to maintain that complexity of institutions and that reverence for social order, which, in proportion as men are brought into contiguity, become more absolutely necessaries of existence. The ultra-democratical ideas of the opposition prevailed in all that more extensive region in which the dispersion of population, and the despotic authority vested in individuals over families of slaves, kept society in a state of immaturity, and made legal re restraints the more irksome in proportion as their necessity was the less felt. Massachusetts and Connecticut stood at the head of the one party, supported, though not always without some wavering by the rest of New England. The other party was led by Virginia, by whose finger all the states south and west of the Potomac might be considered to be guided. The only exception was South Carolina, in the tide water district of which state a certain number of the wealthier and more intelligent planters, led by a few men of talents and probity, who had received their education in England, were inclined to support the Federal policy, so ably upheld in Congress by Smith, Harper, Pinckney and Rutledge. But even in South Carolina the mass of the voting population felt and thought otherwise; nor could the influence of a few individuals long resist a numerical preponderancy so decided. As for the states of Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky, and except for a brief moment, North Carolina, they followed without doubt or hesitation in the wake of Virginia; and the rapidly increasing backwoods settlements of all these states constantly added new strength to the opposition The decision between Federalism and the so-called Republican party, depended on the two great and growing states of Pennsylvania and New York; and from the very fact that they were growing, that both of them had an extensive backwoods frontier, and that both were constantly receiving accessions of political enthusiasts from Europe, they both inclined more and more to the Republican side.0 In addition to the light cast by the paper upon the antipathy felt by the interior agricultural settlements to strong government, it is interesting to note the influence of frontier conditions and sparse settlement in permitting lax business honor, inflated paper currency and wild-cat banking. Mr. Libby shows that the colonial and revolutionary interior was the region whence emanated many of the worst forms of an evil currency. The West in the War of 1812 repeated the phenomenon on the frontier of that day, while the speculation and wild-cat banking of the period of the, crisis of 1837 occurred on the new frontier belt; and the present Populistic agitation finds its stronghold in those western and southern regions whose social and economic conditions are in many respects strikingly like those existing in 1787 in the areas that opposed the ratification of the Constitution. A phase of social transformation has passed westward, and carried with it, in successive areas, similar agitations over questions of debt and taxation. Between paper money agitations in the colonial days, and the present Western unrest and remedial proposals, there is a historical continuity. Like social conditions have wrought like effects. Thus each one of the periods of lax financial integrity coincides with periods when a new set of frontier communities has arisen, and, for the most part, coincides in area with these successive frontiers. A primitive society can hardly be expected to show intelligent appreciation of the complexity of business interests in a developed society. The continual recurrence of these areas of paper-money agitation is another evidence that the similar social and economic areas can be isolated and studied as factors of the highest importance in American history. It is believed, therefore, that a series of studies upon natural economic groupings in American history will be of service to the investigator who desires to understand political history in the light of economic and social forces. To such a historical geography of organic social and economic areas, Mr. Libby's paper is designed to contribute. FREDERICK J. TURNER.
The history of the period of the ratification of the Constitution of the United States has been studied from various points of view. Some writers have discussed the purely legal aspects of the Constitution. Others have approached it from the side of political science. The de-bates in the Federal and state conventions have long been text books for the student of the Constitution, while a whole mass of pamphlet discussion bearing on the question has been carefully collected. The evolution of the various political institutions provided for in the Constitution has been studiously worked out, and it may be safely assumed that recent writers have corrected the misconception that the instrument was a product of abstract reasoning. But there is another misconception as firmly rooted, perhaps, in popular opinion as the former; namely, that the fate of the Constitution was determined exclusively, or at least predominantly, by discussions in convention on the various provisions of that instrument, from the point of view of the political scientist, or of the statesman. Doubtless questions of liberty, and of checks to power, had a prominent position in the thought of this generation of Americans. But every student of the antecedents of the movement for a Constitutional convention cannot but be impressed with the fact, that the debates in the conventions called to ratify the action of the Constitutional convention only inadequately present the opinions and prejudices of the voters themselves, as revealed in the struggles of the Confederation period. This period was one of paper money agitation, of efforts to evade the payment of debt, of resistance to taxation, and of counter efforts to give security to interstate commerce and strength to national credit. The state system under the Articles of Confederation served as a shield for the debtor classes. Many of the motives be-hind the arguments for state sovereignty were not of a character to be urged in the debates on the ratification of the Constitution. Thus questions of the sovereignty of the state, and questions of the dangers to liberty from the power over the purse given to the Federal government, were put prominently forward. Writers have interpreted these discussions rather as evidences of the continuity of the English struggle over the control of the purse, than in the light of the struggles of the debtor factions in the various states in the period which just preceded the convention.1 The undertow of public opinion, deeper and stronger then the surface indications, seen in the formal speeches, tracts, and convention arguments,. has been neglected. Inaccurate and sweeping generalizations respecting the location of the friends and the enemies of the Constitution have been made; but no detailed investigation has yet been published to show the distribution of the contending forces. For example, it has been asserted that a line drawn fifty miles from the coast would pretty accurately divide the Federalists from the Anti-Federalists.2 The truth is that were this a correct statement of the matter, the Constitution would have been rejected in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Georgia! The plan of this paper is briefly as follows: A map has been prepared to show the location of the Federal and the Anti-Federal areas. This has been done, as shown on the map, by indicating as Federal all those towns, counties, or parishes, whose delegates to the ratification convention of the state voted for the Constitution; and as Anti-Federal, those towns, counties, or parishes, whose delegates voted against ratification. Those local units whose delegates divided have also been indicated, with symbols to show on which side the majority lay. To this method exceptions have been made as follows: When it has been found that the delegate did not correctly represent his constituents the map has been corrected to show the real sentiment of the voters; corrections have also been made where the town, county, or parish was not represented in the convention, and the sentiment of its people could be ascertained from some other source. The full details of these corrections for each state are to be found in Appendix A. The map3 showing the density of population in 1790 enables the reader to see in what portion of the large western counties the population was chiefly located,4and thus serves to correct misapprehensions arising from the size of these counties.5 Having mapped the local distribution of the friends and the enemies of the Constitution, the sectional groupings revealed within each state are considered. The significance of the position of these areas of opposition and support within the separate states is taken up, and their correspondence to natural physiographic, social, and economic areas is pointed out. The historical foundation of these groups is also discussed, and the explanation of their attitude upon the Constitution is attempted in some detail. The inquiry next turns to the interstate groupings re-vealed by the map, which are treated in the same manner as those of each state. A general presentation of the relation of the anti-taxation, debt, and paper money agitation to ratification completes the view. At the outset of the investigation we are confronted with the question, how far may the votes of the delegates in the state conventions be accepted as representative of the sentiments of their constituents? It is believed that the reader can approach the detailed discussion of this ques-tion better after a consideration of the results revealed upon the presumption that the delegate did not misrepresent his constituents, in cases where no evidence to the contrary appears. The fuller treatment of the question is therefore postponed to a later chapter. The following are the general grounds for accepting the vote of the delegate in convention as, on the whole, a fair index of public sentiment in his locality. First, in the period under discussion, especially in New England, the representative was bound by a more intimate tie of responsibility to his constituents than obtained in later times. The common use of instructions to representatives in state legislatures, and later to congressmen, shows this very clearly. The fact that the country has now passed away from this attitude with respect to the responsibility of the representative, should not mislead us regarding the practice in the period under consideration. Second, the presumption is strong that on such a vital question as the ratification of the Constitution, the representative would not incur the odium of misrepresenting his friends and neighbors. Moreover, it is safe to say that, as a rule, the same interest that actuated the constituency would be likely to be shared by the delegate, even in the absence of instructions. Third, an examination of the map reveals the fact that the sectional groupings do not harmonize with a theory of chance arrangement. The coherence of the various areas is explainable only on the ground of common economic and social interests. Delegations from towns or counties were rarely divided in their vote, except where the town or county itself lay in the transitional belt between Federal and Anti-Federal areas. These facts can be satisfactorily explained only on the hypothesis that, as a rule, delegates acted on the Constitution with the prejudices and interests, of their locality, and with the sentiments of their constituents keenly before their minds. To this rule exceptions might be expected, and did actually occur. Fourth, in a later chapter, it will be shown that very many delegates went instructed to the conventions, and voted according to their instructions; and that in many other cases there was a correspondence between the vote of the delegate and the ascertained attitude of the constituency; only three exceptions have been discovered. When the difficulty of recovering such instructions from scattered town records, newspapers, etc., is considered, the number of them existing is quite remarkable. The map represents the town and county divisions as they existed at the time of ratification. I cannot hope to have accomplished entirely without error the task of reconstructing the local geography of the period from the scattered sources in which it must be studied. But I have diligently endeavored to make the map correct. In Appendix A are given the sources which I have used for the various states, together with such explanations of the mapping as will enable the work to be checked by local antiquarians having more adequate resources for the task. It is confidently believed that such errors in mapping towns, counties, etc., as may be found, will not modify the conclusions with respect to the map as a whole. A short criticism of the vote of Massachusetts, as given in Elliot's Debates, ii., and a detailed statement of the vote of the delegates in the state conventions by towns, counties, parishes, etc., are given in appendices B and C.
State Areas of Opposition and Support Proceeding to take up each state in detail, I shall next point out the Federal and Anti-Federal areas in each, discuss the significance of the vote, and offer evidence to show the natural coherence, and the economic and social basis, of the distribution revealed in the map. The opposition area in New Hampshire may be roughly described as an irregular quadrilateral with its north-east corner resting at the middle of the west side of Lake Winnipiseogee, its north-west corner touching the Connecticut river, the south east corner lying a trifle east of the Merrimac river where it enters the state, and the south-west corner' resting on the southern boundary line, about half way between the Merrimac and the Connecticut rivers. The Federal area of the state lay in the south-east along the coast, in a broad belt through Grafton County north of the above mentioned opposition area, and along the Connecticut river to the farthest limit of settlement. From the foregoing statement of the boundaries of the Federal and Anti-Federal areas, it will be seen that they very naturally fall into three divisions,—the sea-coast, the interior or middle, and the Connecticut valley and border districts. The first two of these are so familiar as to require no more than a passing notice. The former, the coast area, represented the commercial and urban interests; here were to be found most of the professional men, leaders of thought, men of wealth and influence. The second section, the interior, was composed of those representing the small farmers; a population cut off from the outside world by lack of good roads, and which raised little for market except to exchange for the few things that could not be produced at home. The former class, progressive and liberal, and familiar with the practical details of government, as a rule voted for the Constitution. The latter, conservative by environment and having little knowledge of what went on outside the narrow bounds of the home village or township, quite as generally voted against the Constitution.6 One factor in the New Hampshire opposition is worth especial mention. There was a large Scotch-Irish element in the region west of the Merrimac river, lying within the opposition area. The towns settled by this nationality, or those which had large accessions after settlement, are: Bedford, Merrimac, Peterborough, Antrim, Deering, Hen-nicker, Ackworth, Windham, New Boston, Litchfield, Hudson, Amherst, Dunstable, Chester, and Londonderry.7 Of these fifteen towns only three voted in favor of the Consti-tution. But there was a third district in New Hampshire, the votes of which were cast for the Constitution and were decisive factors in the contest. This was the Connecticut valley or border district—a section as distinct in its economic and social features as if it had been a separate state. Its communication with the outside world was chiefly by the Connecticut river, which united it with Massachusetts and Connecticut. In interests and settlement it belonged rather to Vermont or Massachusetts than to New Hampshire. Its inhabitants, therefore, in so important an event as the adoption of the Federal Constitution would be likely to act as a unit, distinct from the rest of the state and moved by motives peculiarly their own. As early as 1776, sixteen of the border towns sent a delegate to a convention held at Dracut, Massachusetts, to petition the states of New Hampshire and Massachusetts to relieve the financial distress of the period. The particular grievance of these towns, however, was unfair representation.8 At the same time, town meetings were held in Hanover, Lyme, Lebanon, Plainfield, Acworth, Marlow, Alstead, and Chesterfield in which the people voted not to elect representatives to the legislature.9 Among the reasons were the lack of a fair system of legislative representation, and the property qualification required of those elected as counselors. In 1778 the "sixteen towns" joined Vermont, a union which came to an end in a year.10 In 1781, a new union was formed between Vermont and thirty-seven New Hampshire towns, east of the Connecticut river. This union like the other continued only one year.11 The condition of these towns is well expressed in the following: "From the time of the dissolution of the union between Vermont and the sixteen towns to the east of the Connecticut river, notwithstanding the exciting circumstances under which that union was dissolved, a large number of the inhabitants of the western part of New Hampshire had continued to be solicitous for annexation to that state. Others had a project in their minds for a new state formed out of the eastern part of Vermont and the western part of New Hampshire; others, still, were desirous that New Hampshire should ex-ercise jurisdiction over the whole of the grants. While thus there was no well-considered plan on which all the inhabitants had settled down, there still seemed to be a general desire for change."12 Charlestown was a fair type of the lower river towns, not connected with this early border discontent but strongly in favor of union with Vermont in 1781. The following presents the case of this town: "Charlestown undoubtedly exerted its share of influence in bringing about the union of the New Hampshire towns with Vermont. If we review the early history of the town, from its settlement to 1760, we shall find little in the course pursued by New Hampshire which would be adapted to attach the inhabitants to her jurisdiction. The township was not originally chartered by New Hampshire, and its settlers were disappointed on ascertaining that they were within its limits; and petitioned the King to be set back again to Massachusetts, to which state they had always supposed they belonged. The Old Bay State had been their main source of reliance. It was from thence that had come their defence in every time of trouble. Every important military detatchment that had come to their aid, for sixteen years, was from that state."13 The leader in the movement for Vermont union was Col. Elisha Payne of Lebanon. Says Batchellor in the New Hampshire State Papers (App., p. 848.) "He was educated to the law in Connecticut and came into Grafton county thoroughly imbued with Connecticut ideas as to the rights of towns as independent units of government, and as to what should be the relations of towns to the state. The temporary New Hampshire constitution of 1776 was drawn in conformity to theories that were widely at variance with his conceptions of the methods and province of government. Notwithstanding he was named for important offices under the new state government…he held aloof and became a chief mover in the enterprise of establishing a state to be constituted of towns on both sides of the Connecticut river, or failing in that, to join the disaffected towns on the east side of the river to the prospective state of Vermont or a sufficient number of Vermont towns to New Hampshire to carry the balance of power to the Connecticut river." The Connecticut valley in New Hampshire, or more properly the valley and the inland portion of Grafton county, was, therefore, a section having its own history, its own interests and its own leaders. When the question came up as to the adoption of the Federal Constitution, its vote was consistent throughout. Of those towns in union with Vermont in 1781, two-thirds voted for the Constitution. The "Letter of a Landholder" to the "Citizens of New Hamp-shire" is peculiarly applicable to these Connecticut river towns, and those of the interior of Grafton county. "New York, the trading towns on the Connecticut river, and Boston, are the sources from which a great part of your foreign supplies will be obtained, and where your produce will be exposed for market. In all these places an import is collected, of which, as consumers, you pay a share without deriving any public benefit. You can not expect any alteration in the private systems of these states unless effected by the proposed government.."14 But leadership in this section was an important element. Says Batchellor: "Judge Livermore was the acknowledged leader of the party which sought the acceptance of the pro-posed Constitution. The fact that the delegation from the Grafton county towns was practically unanimous in sup-port of Mr. Livermore, gives us the right to assume that he received timely and valuable assistance, not only from those with whom he exercised a large influence through his own personality, but also from those who had long regarded Colonel Payne as their political mentor." 15 The conjunction of these two elements at this critical period produced the section which I have called the Connecticut river section. In it were united the town democracy of the valley, led by Payne, and the Grafton county following of Judge Livermore,—alike in being on the frontier and separated from eastern New Hampshire. Their united support proved decisive in carrying the Constitution. Turning to the map for the Massachusetts vote we can see that the state may be divided into three sections, the east-ern, the middle, and the western. The middle section has for its eastern boundary an irregular line extending from about the northeast corner of Rhode Island to the point in t he northern boundary of Massachusetts where the Merrimac river enters the state, and for its western boundary the tier of towns along the eastern side of the Connecticut river. The other sections lie respectively to the east and west of it. The vote of these sections on the ratification of the Constitution is as follows:
Such striking differences as these indicate clearly that there is something fundamental lying back of the vote. Each of these sections is an economic and social unit, the first representing the coast region, the second the interior, and the third the Connecticut valley and border districts of the state. In the eastern section the interests were commercial; there was the wealth, the influence, the urban population of the state. This section had been longest settled and was consequently the most thickly populated. Within this section lay two areas of opposition, the interior regions of the eastern section, one in Essex and Middlesex counties, south of the Merrimac river, the other in Bristol, Suffolk, and Plymouth counties, adjoining Rhode Island. The middle section of Massachusetts represented the interior agricultural interests of the state—the small farmers. From this section came a large part of the Shays faction in 1786.16
The Connecticut valley or western district may be sub-divided into the northern, most interior and predominantly Anti-Federal section, and the southern section, nearest the coast and predominantly Federal, with the trading towns of the Connecticut river in its southeastern part.
A few quotations from contemporary correspondence will show the drift of the parties in Massachusetts.
Extract of a letter of Henry Knox to Washington, Feb. 10, 1788:
"It is a singular circumstance that in Massachusetts the property, the ability, and the virtue of the state are almost solely in favor of the Constitution. Opposed to it are the late insurgents and all those who abetted their designs, constituting four-fifths of the opposition."17
Extract of a letter from Madison to Washington, Feb. 3, 1788, quoting a letter received from Boston from a member of the convention there :
"Never was there an assembly in this state in possession of greater ability and information than the present convention, yet I am in doubt whether they will approve the constitution. There are, unhappily, three parties opposed to it. First: All men who are in favor of paper money and tender laws. Those are more or less in every part of the state. Second: All the late insurgents and their abettors. In the three great western counties they are very numerous. We have in the convention eighteen or twenty who were actually in Shays' army."18
An extract of a letter of Henry Knox to Washington. Jan. 14, 1788, gives the following classification of parties in the state: "The first is the commercial part of the state to which are added all the men of considerable property, the clergy, the lawyers, including the judges of all the courts, and all the neighborhood of all the great towns.…The third party are the insurgents, or their favorers, the great majority of whom are for an annihilation of debts, public and private, and therefore they will not approve of the constitution."19
In the province of Maine the larger part of the Anti-Federal vote was inland, while the Federal towns were mostly along the coast. The vote of Maine was complicated by the new issue of separation from Massachusetts, which had begun to agitate the people of this province. Many votes were cast against the Federal Constitution on account of its being favored by the ruling classes of Massachusetts who were supposed to be opposed to separation from Maine.20
In Connecticut the sentiment was overwhelming in favor of the Constitution. The opposition was scattered and unimportant. Its two chief centers were in New Haven county on. the coast and in five or six towns on each side of the Connecticut river at the northern boundary, connecting with a group of opposition towns in Massachusetts. The following statement of the opposition in Connecticut is from "Letters of a Landholder" (Oliver Ellsworth): "The first to oppose a federal government will be the old friends of Great Britain, who in their hearts cursed the prosperity of your councils. Many of these men are still among us and for several years their hopes of a reunion with Great Britain have been high. They rightly judge that nothing will so soon effect their wishes as the deranged state we are now in, if it should continue. They see that the merchant is weary of the government which cannot protect his property and that the farmer, finding no benefit from the Revolution, begins to dread much evil; and they hope the people will soon supplicate the protection of their old masters.…Debtors in desperate circumstances who have not resolution to be either honest or industrious, will be the next men to take the alarm.… Paper money and tender acts is the only atmosphere in which they can breathe and live.… There is another kind of people will be found in the opposition. Men of much self-importance and supposed skill in politics who are not of sufficient consequence to obtain public employment, but can spread jealousies in the little districts of country where they are placed.… But in the present case, men who have lucrative and influential state offices, if they act from principles of self interest, will be tempted to oppose an alteration."21 …The same writer in a later number says: "In Connecticut our wrongheads are few in number and feeble in their influence. The opposition here is not one half so great to the federal government as it was three years ago to the federal impost, and the faction, such as it is, is from the same blindfold party."22
The following account of the opposition is taken from the New Haven Gazette: "Extract of a letter from a gentleman in Hartford to his friend in this city, dated January 6th.… 'The opposition, headed by General Wadsworth, supported by Colonel W. Williams, Messrs. Joseph Hopkins, Carpenter, Hall and H. Humphreys, is dwindling to nothing…The arguments urged by General Wadsworth have exceedingly injured the cause of the opposition. They have been weak and in some in-stances urged with great spleen."23
From the journal of the convention: "The paragraph which respects taxes, imports and excises was largely de-bated by several gentlemen. General Wadsworth objected against it because it gave the power of the purse to the general legislature, another paragraph gave the power of the sword; and that authority which has the power of the sword and purse is despotic. He objected against impost and excises because their operation would be partial and in favor of the southern states."24
From its strong federal vote Connecticut clearly belongs to the coast area pointed out in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, but its great unanimity must have been based on other grounds than this alone, for the interior as well as the coast districts, were overwhelmingly in favor of ratification. From what has already been said it is seen that both merchant and farmer had reason to lose faith in the Confederation and to desire a stronger Federal government. In a speech of Oliver Ellsworth in the state convention we find the following: "Our being tributaries to our sister states is a consequence of the want of a federal system. The state of New York raises £60,000 or £80,000 a year by impost. Connecticut consumes about one third of the goods upon which this impost is, laid and consequently pays one third of this sum to New York. If we import by the medium of Massachusetts she has an impost and to her we pay a tribute. If this is done while we have the shadow of a national government, what shall we not suffer when even that shadow is gone?"25 Melancthon Smith, in an address to the people of New York said: "It cannot be controverted that Connecticut and New Jersey were very much influenced in their determinations on the question by local considerations. The duty of impost laid by this state has been a subject of complaint by those states. The new constitution transfers the power of imposing these duties from the state to the general government and carries the proceeds to the use of the union instead of that of the state. This is a popular matter with the people of those states, and at the same time is not advanced by the sensible opposers to the new system in this state as an objection to it."26
Thus it is seen that in Connecticut the opposition was unimportant but of the same character as that in Massachusetts, and that the pressure of the New York impost united all classes in favoring the new government, which would protect them from the commercial exactions of that state.
In Rhode Island the party of opposition was able to prevent ratification till 1790. From the lack of records, it is not now possible to trace very accurately the development of a Federal party in Rhode Island previous to 1790. The following extract from resolutions adopted by the town of Portsmouth, August 27, 1789, is significant of the conditions during the long struggle for ratification: "And as we hope the formal accession of this state to the constitution is not far distant, and as our separation can by no means be imputed to the seaport towns, the inhabitants whereof are, almost unanimously, zealous advocates for the new constitution; and as a continuance of the above mentioned restrictions on the inhabitants of this state will accumulate unmerited distress upon that part of the community which has been most firmly attached to the union, and as we can not but hope that the benign disposition of congress to-wards the agricultural part of the state, manifested in the admission of their produce and manufactures free, will also be extended to the seaport t o w n s…"27
The paper money party in the state was in general opposed to the new constitution.28
Thus as in Massachusetts, the wealthy and commercial classes united to favor the Constitution, as opposed to the interior agricultural class who believed, among other things, in paper money issues.
New York presents the problem in its simplest form. The entire mass of interior counties, Ulster, Orange, Albany, Montgomery, Clinton, and Columbia, were solidly Anti-Federal, comprising the agricultural portion of the state, the last settled and the most thinly populated. There were. however, in this region two Federal cities (not represented in the convention), Albany29 in Albany county and Hudson30 The Federal area centered about New York city and county; to the southwest lay Richmond county (Staten Island), to the southeast Kings county and to the northeast Westchester county ; while still further extending this area at the northeast lay the divided county of Dutchess, with a vote in the convention of 4 to 2 in favor of the Constitution, and at the southeast were the divided counties of Queens and Suffolk, with a convention vote respectively of 4 to 0 and 3 to 1 in favor of the Constitution. These radiating strips of territory, with New York city as a center form a unit, in general favorable to the new Constitution; and it is significant of this unity that Dutchess, Queens, and Suffolk counties broke away from the Anti-Federal phalanx and joined the Federalists, securing thereby the adoption of the Constitution. The pressure of a badly divided or wavering constituency is very evident in this change. It is also significant that neither in the counties west of the Hudson river nor in those north of Dutchess county was there any wavering in the opposition,—at least but a single Federal vote from Orange county shows signs of any. The classification of the three divided counties with the Federal, therefore, is justified by these facts. The unity of this section also appears from the following: "To the Honorable the Convention of the State of New York,…The consequences to your state, which may follow the rejection of the proposed constitution should certainly engage a great share of your deliberations. In the event of nine states adopting, Jersey and Connecticut will no longer receive their supplies through you, nor send their produce to your market for sale, for you will be on the footing of foreigners.…These things will be most seriously felt throughout your whole commonwealth, but to the islands of New York, Long Island and Staten Island, they will be almost ruinous. These three districts must act together, they are peculiarly placed by nature. Should they fear the ruin of their commerce and manufactures, and the foreign duty on such of their produce as they may send to the ports of the new union, should these considerations induce the honest opponents of the constitution among them to adhere to the new confederacy, what can prevent their secession? If Staten Island were to associate herself with New Jersey and the islands of New York and Long Island with Connecticut, these two respectable states and the new union would be bound to defend them.…Suppose for a moment the city and county of New York to have separated themselves from your government. Both banks of the Hudson would then belong to the new confederacy. The destruction of your foreign trade must be the inevitable consequence."33 To the same effect is the following: "We hear that in event of the rejection of the constitution by Now York, the six most southern counties34 of that state will declare their readiness to secede from the state of New York and form a distinct state."35 One of the important reasons at work among the Anti-Federalists may be seen from the following- extract of a letter from New York, July 20, 1788: "He (George Clinton) tells them that if they ratify the constitution, they must by heavy taxes support their government, which is now wholly done by the impost, etc. This with the Mynheers is a weighty argument."36 Oliver Ellsworth said of the Anti-Federalists: "In New York the opposition is not to this constitution in particular, but to the federal impost; it is confined wholly to salary men and their connections, men whose salary is paid by the state impost. This class of citizens are endeavoring to convince the ignorant part of the community that an annual income of £50,000 extorted from the citizens of Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey is a great blessing to New York. And although the regulation of trade and other advantages of a federal government would secure more than five times that sum to the people of that state, yet, as this would not come through the same hands, these men find fault with the constitution."37 The Federalists on the other hand were strengthened by the addition of the tories to their side, as may be seen from the following: "The Tories, to a man, sided with Hamilton and his party, and it was the successful efforts of that gentleman to overcome the public animosities that enabled him to obtain his election to the Assembly of 1787, and to carry out his favorite measure-the repeal of the laws of exclusion under which the Loyalists were disfranchised. There he had the address and influence to pro-cure the abrogation of the most important part of those laws, and, by the accession of the great body of the en-franchised Tories to his party to frustrate at once his opponents in the city, and to secure his election to the general convention of 1787, and afterwards that of his friends from the city in the convention of the state, assembled in 1788."38 But after all this statement of evidence for the parties in New York, what has been given seems insufficient to adequately explain why the state should have been so strongly Anti-Federal north of New York county, with such a river as the Hudson and its tributary, the Mohawk, opening up the whole region to settlement and to commercial relations with New York city. We have seen how decisive a factor in New England the Connecticut river valley was, and the question naturally arises why was not the Hudson valley equally a Federal section? To answer this question it will be necessary to take a brief survey of the land grants previous to the Revolution and the effect of the system in vogue in. New York upon the settlement and improvement of its lands. As early as 1698 the Earl of Bellomont writes to the Lords of Trade concerning the evil effects of the large grants (made by Colonel Fletcher, former governor) upon the settlement of the province.39 The following occurs in his letter, in 1700, to the Lords of Trade: "If it were not for Colonel Fletcher's intolerable, corrupt selling away the lands of this province, it would outthrive the Massachusetts province and quickly outdo them in people and trade. The people are so cramped here for want of land that several families within my own knowledge and observation are removed to the new country (New Jersey and Pennsylvania) for, to use Mr. Graham's expression to me, and that often repeated, too, 'What man will be such a fool to become a base tenant to Mr. Dellius, Colonel Schuyler, Mr. Livingston (and so he ran through the whole role of our mighty landgraves), when for crossing the Hudson's river that man can for a song purchase a good freehold in the Jersies?' If I am rightly informed, here will be a world of corruption and fraud discovered in most of these extravagant grants, not only in respect of their vastness, but because they have swallowed up the lands of abundance of private families, who are thereby ruined."40 The records of the next sixty years are full of such reports and of the ineffectual attempts on the part of the Crown to break up some of the largest grants.41 The abuse, however, continued almost unchecked throughout the entire period. The following extract of the report of Lieut. Gov. Colden to the Lords of Trade, September 20, 1764, gives the condition of the land grants at that time: "Your lordships have been informed of several extravagant grants of lands in this province; three of them contain, as the proprietors claim, above a million of acres each, several others above 200,000. All these were made without any previous survey, as usual in other cases, and without mentioning any quantity of land intended to be granted. Though these grants contain a great part of the province, they are made on trifling acknowledgments. The far greater part of them still remain uncultivated, without any benefit to the community, and are likewise a discouragement to the settling and improving the lands in the neighborhood of them, for, from the uncertainty of their boundaries, the patentees of these great tracts are daily enlarging their pretensions, and by tedious and most expensive law-suits, distress and ruin poor families who have taken out grants near them.…Three of these great tracts have in their grants privilege each of sending a representative in general assembly, so that the proprietors are become hereditary members of that house. The owners of the other great patents, being men of the greatest opulence in the several counties where these tracts are, have sufficient influence to be perpetually elected for those counties. "The general assembly then, of this province, consists of the owners of these extravagant grants, the merchants of New York, the principal of them strongly connected with the owners of these great tracts of family interest, and of common farmers, which last are men easily deluded and led away with popular arguments of liberty and privileges. The proprietors of the great tracts are not only freed from the quit-rents, which the other landholders in the province pay, but by their influence in the assembly are freed from every other public tax on their lands. While every owner of improved lands has every horse, cow, ox, hog, etc., and every acre of his land rated, millions of acres, the property of private persons, contribute nothing to the public necessary expense."42 In Mr. Colden's account of the state of the province of New York in 1767, is the following: "The people of New York are properly distinguished into different ranks. "1. The proprietors of the large tracts who include within their claims from 100,000 to above one million of acres under one grant. Some of these remain in one single family, others are by devises and purchases claimed in common by considerable numbers of persons. "2. The gentlemen of law make the second class in which properly are included both the bench and the bar. "3. The merchants make the third class; many of them have suddenly rose from the lowest rank of the people to considerable fortunes, and chiefly in the last war, by illicit trade. They abhor every limitation of trade and duties on it, and therefore gladly go into every measure whereby they hope to have trade free. "4. In the last rank may be placed the farmers and mechanics. Though the farmers hold their lands in fee simple, they are as to condition of life, in no manner superior to the common farmers in England, and the mechanics such only as are necessary in domestic life. This last rank comprehends the bulk of the people and in them consists the strength of the province. They are the most useful and the most moral, but alwise made the dupes of the former, and often are ignorantly made their tools for the worst purposes.…The great tracts of land mentioned in the first class were not as usual in other cases surveyed before the grants; the contents of them cannot be known from the description in the grant.…All of them are granted in trifling quit-rents in comparison to the rents reserved generally on other lands granted at the same time or in earlier times.…The uncertainty of the grant, both as to quantity of the land and boundaries of the tract granted, which in law invalidates the grants of the crown, turns greatly to the advantage of the owners of these great tracts by the artifices they make use of to enlarge their claims perpetually. Thereby they are in continual contention with the farmers contiguous to them, who have purchased bona fide and improved their lands; and by the expense of law suits many of the most industrious farmers are ruined. The gentlemen of law, both the judges and the principal practioners at the bar, are either owners, heirs or strongly connected in family interest with the proprietors. In general, all the lawyers unite in promoting contention, prolonging suits and increasing the expense of obtaining justice, every artifice and chicanery in the law has been so much connived at or rather encouraged, that the honest men who are not of affluent fortunes are deterred from defending their rights or seeking justice"43 Governor Tryon, writing in 1773, makes the following comment on the land policy of New York: "Men of property in a country where the soil is of little value, must have it in their power to purchase large tracts, if they choose this method to raise their families.…For my part I should think it a good policy rather to encourage than to check such a spirit. The subordination which arises from a distinction in rank and fortune, I have found from experience to be friendly to government and conducive to the strengthening the bonds of the crown, and perhaps it will prove the only counterpoise against a leveling and republican spirit which the popular constitutions of some colonies and the temper of their inhabitants, who are spreading themselves throughout the continent so naturally excite.44 Winterbotham, writing in 1796 says: "New York is considerably behind her neighbors in New England, New Jersey and Pennsylvania in point of improvements in agriculture and manufactures. Among other reasons for this deficiency, that of want of enterprise in the inhabitants is not the least. Another cause which has heretofore operated in preventing agricultural improvements in this state has been their government, which, in the manner it was con-ducted until the Revolution was extremely unfavorable to improvements of almost every kind, and particularly in agriculture. The governors were many of them land jobbers, bent on making their fortunes, and being invested with power to do this, they either engrossed for themselves or patented away to their particular favorites a very great proportion of the whole province. This, as has been before observed, proved an effective bar to population…The genius of the government of this state, however, still favors large monopolies of lands, which have for some years back been granted without regard either to quantity or settlement."45 To sum up, it has been shown that during the 18th century, when the rest of the thirteen colonies were bidding for European immigrants, when Pennsylvania was receiving the Scotch-Irish and German elements of her population, and the Shenandoah Valley was leading others of the same class to the southern and western states, New York alone, by her policy of aristocratic land holding was opposing the general current of settlement and interposing obstacles to the increase of her free landholders; that the growth of the great estates continued unchecked in spite of royal instructions and interference of the provincial governors, and the landed aristocracy came to control not only the assembly, but the judiciary as well, and that finally by controlling the administration of justice and the law making power, this aristocracy succeeded in supplanting the freeholder by the semi-servile tenant, wholly dependent on his landlord.46 The bearing of this state of things upon the question of adoption of the Federal Constitution, is at once apparent. A landed aristocracy is essentially conservative. That aristocracy which had grown up in New York with full control of the state administration, and for the most part free from taxation, would of course oppose any change like the one proposed, which would subordinate their importance among the states, and which, by taking away the impost, would make a land tax necessary. And the significant fact of it is that in the Federal and divided counties of New York the holdings of the small farmers predominated over those of the large landholders, while in the Anti-Federal counties the reverse was true. In Pennsylvania the opposition to the Constitution came from those counties belonging to the great interior highland of the state, extending from the head waters of the Schuylkill to the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers, with only Huntingdon county (one vote—Federal) interrupting the continuity from east to west. This section was quite distinct from any other in the state and felt itself to be so, as may be seen from an extract of an address made by Hugh Henry Breckenridge to the inhabitants of the western country: "But I distinguish between the old and new counties. Doubtless, because they are distinct in several great points of interest. Every county in the state is distinct in some local interest and the representatives speak and act on this principle. The western counties are distinct from the eastern in many great local interests. The course of trade is different. The rivers on the one side fall through the territories of the commonwealth, or of a state under the confederacy. On this side they fall through that of the Spanish monarch. The people east of the mountains enjoy the advantage of commerce when we do not. Like the antipodes and the horizon, it is dark to us while it is light to them."47 This highland region, united by physical features and by a population pre-dominantly Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, very naturally fell into the opposition. As McMaster says: "The reason is plain. The constitution proposed for the United States was in many ways the direct opposite of the constitution of Pennsylvania.…But the Pennsylvania constitution of 1776 was the work of the patriot party; of this party a very considerable number were Presbyterians; and the great Presbyterian counties were Cumberland, Westmoreland, Bedford, Dauphin and Fayette. In opposing the new plan these men simply opposed a system of government which, if adopted, would force them to undo a piece of work done with great labor and beheld with great pride and satisfaction. Every man, therefore, who gave his vote for the ratification of the national constitution, pronounced his state constitution to be bad in form, and this its supporters were not prepared to do. By these men the refusal of the convention to accept the amendments they offered was not regarded as ending the matter. They went back to the counties that sent them more determined than ever, but failed to gain to their side the great body of Presbyterians."48 To this class Wilson in his speech in the state convention adds the following: "Placemen, tax collectors and excisemen, who, should the new plan go into effect, would be turned out of office by the abolition or transfer to the Federal government of the places they held under the state."49 The Federal area contained a predominating German element, with English, among whom were Quakers, forming a large proportion of the remainder.50 Its counties were York, Lancaster, Chester, Montgomery, Philadelphia, Bucks, Luzerne, and Northampton, and contained the largest population, most of the men of wealth and influence and the commercial classes of the state. Pittsburg, with 400 inhabitants, was Federal in an Anti-Federal county, Westmoreland.51 Its location at the head of navigation on the Ohio indicates sufficiently its commercial tendencies and accounts for its Federal attitude. Luzerne county (including the old Wyoming valley), peopled from Connecticut, and led by a staunch Connecticut Federalist, Timothy Pickering, very naturally fell into line for the Constitutions.52 Huntingdon county seems to be rather an exception to the general grouping, as it clearly belongs to the great interior highland. But it is to be distinguished from the rest as being "the center of Tory strength and activity"53 for Western Pennsylvania during the Revolution. Washington, one of the divided counties, lay at the head of the Ohio and like Pittsburg, was not doubt influenced in its attitude by local environment sufficiently to be partly Federal. We see, therefore, that in this state physical geography dominated the division of parties and that the previous state quarrels over the constitution of 1776 furnished the basis of the new division into parties; and that among the Federalists were enrolled all the commercial and wealthy classes, while on the other side the small farmers of the interior towns largely predominated.
"The first state that ratified the Constitution, although its convention was not the first to assemble, was Delaware. It was a small, compact community, with the northerly portion of its territory lying near the city of Philadelphia, with which its people had constant and extensive intercourse. Its public men were intelligent and patriotic. In the national convention it had contended with great spirit for the interests of the smaller states, and its people now had the sagacity and good sense to perceive that they had gained every reasonable security for their peculiar rights. The public press of Philadelphia, friendly to the Constitution, furnished the means of understanding its merits, and the discussions in the convention of Pennsylvania, which assembled before that of Delaware, threw a flood of light over the whole subject, which the people of Delaware did not fail to regard."54 The following extract from a letter written by George Read to John Dickinson indicates the attitude of the state: "Finding that Virginia hath again taken the lead in the proposed convention at Philadelphia in May…it occurred to me, as a prudent measure on the part of our state, that its legislature should, in the act of appointment, so far restrain the powers of the commissioners, whom they shall name on this service, as that they may not extend to any alteration in that part of the fifth article of the present confederation, which gives each state one vote in determining questions in congress, and the latter part of the thirteenth article, as to future alterations—that is, that such clause shall be preserved or inserted for the like purpose, in any revision that shall be made and agreed to in the proposed convention. I conceive our existence as a state will depend upon our preserving such rights, for I consider the acts of congress hitherto, as to the ungranted lands in most of the larger states as sacrificing the just claims of the smaller and- bounded states to a proportional share therein, for the purpose of discharging the national debt incurred during the war ; and such is my jealousy of most of the larger states that I would trust nothing to their candor, generosity or ideas of public justice in behalf of this state.…Persuaded I am, from what I have seen occasionally in the public prints and heard in private conversations, that the voice of the states will be one of the subjects of revision, and in a meeting where there will be so great an interested majority, I suspect the argument or oratory of the smaller state commissioners will avail little. In such circumstances I conceive it will relieve the commissioners of the state from disagreeable argumentation, as well as prevent the downfall of the state, which (without an equal vote) would at once become a cypher in the union, and have no chance of an accession of district, or even citizens; for, as we presently stand, our quota is increased upon us, in the requisition of this year, more than thirteen-eightieths since 1775, without any other reason that I can suggest than a promptness in the legislature of this state to comply with all the congress requisitions from time to time. This increase alone, without addition would, in the course of a few years, banish many of its citizens and impoverish the remainder; therefore, clear I am that every guard that can be devised for this state's protection against future encroachment should be preserved or made."55 Again he wrote to Dickinson urging his attendance at the Philadelphia convention. He says: "I suspect it to be of importance to the small states that their deputies should keep a strict watch upon the movements and propositions from the larger states, who will probably combine to swallow up the smaller ones by addition, division or impoverishment."56…June 15, 1787, John Dickinson made the following remark to Madison in the Federal convention: "Some of the members from the small states wish for two branches in the general legislature, and are friends to a good national government, but we would sooner submit to foreign power than submit to be deprived, in both branches of the legislature, of an equality of suffrage, and thereby be thrown under the domination of the larger states."57 The state followed Read's suggestion and gave their delegates to the Federal Convention at Philadelphia the instructions to alter the Articles of Confederation "provided that such alterations or further provisions, or any of them, do not extend to that part of the fifth article of the confederation of the said states, finally ratified on the first day of March, in the year 1781, which declares that in determining questions in the United States in Congress assembled, each state shall have one vote."58 Thus it is to be seen that in Delaware the small state idea of equal representation in one of the law making bodies under the new government, was the leading reason for its ready and unanimous acquiescence to the new Constitution. New Jersey, voting unanimously for the constitution, was like Delaware, a small state, and had much the same fears of large state domination. But besides this, the pressure of the imposts levied by New York and Pennsylvania upon her citizens, made her all the more willing to accede to a government which provided for national regulation of trade. The following well expresses the attitude of New Jersey upon ratification: "But the people of New Jersey had, in truth, fairly considered the whole matter and had found what their own interests required. They alone, of all the states, when the national convention was instituted, had expressly declared that the regulation of commerce ought to be vested in the general government. They had learned that to submit longer to the diverse commercial and revenue systems in force in New York on the one side of them and in Pennsylvania on the other side, would be like remaining between the upper and nether millstone. Their delegates in the national convention had, it is true, acted with those of New York in the long contest concerning the representative system, resisting at every step each departure from the principle of the confederation, until the compromise was made which admitted the states to an equal representation in the Senate. Content with the security which this arrangement afforded, the people of New Jersey had the sagacity to perceive that their interests were no longer to be promoted by following in the lead of the Anti-Federalists of New York."59… It is well known that the question of ratification in Maryland was to a considerable extent a matter of personal leadership. Luther Martin led the Anti-Federalists, and Washington practically stood at the head of the Federal party in the state.60 But with all due allowance to this factor, the constitution was carried by an appeal to economic interests that lay deeper than mere political leadership. In Chapter III will be found a discussion of the part played by the paper money and debt faction. The following con-temporary evidence gives some hint at the other elements in the struggle for ratification. Extract of a letter from Baltimore, Dec. 12, 1787: "The mercantile interest in this town and the majority of the inhabitants of the state are in favor of the new federal plan; yet, like the state of New York, it will be strongly opposed by some men of great influence and very leading characters in the state. For which opposition, 'tis said, they are actuated by a dread of the loss of their own popularity."61 "The opposition to the new constitution in Maryland," says a correspondent, "labored under many disadvantages and the little exertion they made early evinced that the others had stolen to the windward of them.…In the next place, the aristocratic party in that state is considerable and devoted to the nod of its leaders. And the very idea of Mr. Martin's being connected with the opposition was sufficient to prejudice the Tories (who are another considerable part of the state) in favor of the system. Mr. Martin being very unpopular among that class of citizens, owing to the office he holds."62 "To the working people of Maryland, Feb. 27, 1788.—We common people are more properly citizens of America than of any particular state. Very many of our sort die in different parts from where they were born, and the constitution ordains that wheresoever we may find land for our children, there we shall also find exactly the same general liberty we left. Taxes, too, are to be everywhere equal. I allow that men, seeking power and profit, may wish to keep opportunities of that sort, in the state governments where they live; but I must think the general government, so far as it goes, better for the majority of the people who want land for their children. The interest of money here is said to be 25 per cent. No man can afford to borrow at that rate, to pay debts contracted at 6 per cent. To save bread for his children he had better go to jail. Were the land, which maintains children, now seized and sold, the few monied men here would get it all, for a little indeed; because in Europe, where money is so plenty that the highest interest is 5 per cent., the people there say that we make bad laws and too many of them, and they cannot trust themselves or their money among us, though they are pinched for land there. I think the Constitution will heal this grievous sore, and enable us to borrow money in other countries on reasonable terms to pay workmen for improving our lands and houses that we may make better crops. Taxes on imported goods, which congress will lay can distress none but the rich.…We shall be freed from tax gatherers."63 Such testimony as this reveals something more than political strife of state factions; it affords us a glimpse of the underlying economic factors that were at work among the majority of the voters in Maryland. In Virginia four well-marked sections are to be noted on the map. The first, the eastern, comprised all the counties in tidewater Virginia. Its vote on the Constitution stood 80 per cent. for and 20 per cent. against ratification. This was the region of the large towns, and where commercial interests were predominant. The middle district, lying farther west to the Blue Ridge mountains, represented the interior farming interests of the state; the class of small farmers made up the principal part of its population. Its vote on the Constitution stood 26 per cent. for and 74 per cent. against adoption. The third, the West Virginia district, is really double, composed of the Shenandoah valley, in which lay the bulk of the population, and the sparsely settled Trans-Alleghany region. This, also, was an agricultural section, with a population chiefly Scotch-Irish and Germans from Pennsylvania.64 Its vote stood 97 per cent. for and 3 per cent. against the Constitution.65 No section in any other state displayed greater unanimity and it is this peculiar solidarity that stamps it as important in the period under consideration. The fourth, or Kentucky, district comprised all that territory west of the Great Kanawha to the Cumberland river. Its vote stood 10 per cent. for and 90 per cent. against the Constitution. The two votes for ratification came from Jefferson county, which included a considerable part of the most thickly settled portion of Kentucky. The question of the opening of the Mississippi river was the decisive one in determining the vote of this section.66 A further complication was added by the attitude of the extreme wing of the opposition party who argued for nothing less than complete separation from the future Union; it was this faction that leaned toward alliance with Spain; and the treacherous behavior of Wilkinson and his coadjutors in attempting a complete separation of Kentucky from the Union made the matter for the time very serious. A recent historian of Kentucky puts the case thus: "The greater part of the political leaders of Kentucky were incensed at the refusal of the federal government to receive them. They desired that the constitution should not be adopted so that they might by the breaking up of the confederation, be left free to deal with their problems in their own way."67…The following extract from the letter of Wilkinson to Governor Miro of Louisiana, dated February 12, 1789, illustrates the drift of affairs during the preceding year: "The question of separation from the United States, although discussed with vehemence among the most distinguished inhabitants of this section of the country, had never been mentioned in a formal manner to the people at large, but now was the time for making this important and interesting experiment, and it became my indispensable mission to do so.…I can give you the solemn assurance that I found all the men belonging to the first class of society in the district, with the exception of Colonel Marshall,68 our surveyor, and Colonel Muter, one of our judges, decidedly in favor of separation from the United States and of alliance with Spain.…I deem it useless to mention to a gentleman well versed in political history, that the great spring and prime mover in all negotiations is money. Although not being authorized by you to do so, yet I found it necessary to use this lever, in order to confirm some of our most eminent citizens in their attachment to our cause, and to supply others with the means of operating with vigor. For these objects I have advanced five thousand dollars out of my own funds, and half of this sum, applied opportunely, would attract Marshall and Muter on our side, but it is now impossible for me to disburse it."69 The following extract from the objection to the Federal Constitution by George Mason well expresses the ideas of the Anti-Federal party in Virginia: "By requiring only a majority to make all commercial and navigation laws, the five southern states (whose produce and circumstances are totally different from those of the eight northern and eastern states) will be ruined, for such rigid and premature regulations may be made as will enable the merchants of the northern and eastern states, not only to demand an exorbitant freight, but to monopolize the purchase of commodities at their own price for many years, to the great injury of the landed interest, and the impoverishment of the people ; and the danger is greater as the gain on one side will be in proportion to the loss of the other. Whereas requiring two thirds of the members present in both houses would have produced mutual moderation, promoted the general interest and removed an insuperable objection to the adoption of the government."70 While the commercial interests of the tide-water and West Virginia sections were the chief factors in unifying the Federalists, a previous division of the people of the state on the assessment bill of 1784-571 tended to draw the dissenting sects, especially the Presbyterians and the Baptists, into alliance with Madison, and no doubt strength-ened his hold upon those sections where they predominated when the question of ratification came up in 1788. This bill came before the House of Delegates December 23, 1784. "It proposed a small tax on all taxable property for the support of teachers of the Christain religion, each tax-payer to name the society to which he wished his tax dedicated, and in case of refusal to do so, the tax to be applied to the maintenance of a school in the county.72 For a fair comparison of sentiment we should, perhaps, present in the main body of the map the vote of 1789, when the Constitution was adopted, rather than that of 1788, in order to show fairly the separation of the people into parties upon issues clearly defined, because thoroughly discussed and well understood by the majority. As it was, in 1788, so little disposed were the large opposition majority in the convention, even to spend time in discussing the merits of the Constitution, that Willie Jones, the Anti-Federalist leader, was for taking a vote at once and saving time and expense by a speedy adjournment.73 This is significant of the general sentiment in the great mass of interior counties in the state. The intense political activity of her sister states, South Carolina and Virginia, both during the elections and in the convention debates, stands out in marked contrast with this prevailing apathy in North Carolina.74 In fact, North Carolina seems only to have reached in 1789 the political stage of the other states in 1787 or 1788. In the arrangement of the vote upon the main map we have, therefore, only the germ of sectional divisions—the first faint lines of social and economic stratification. The counties around Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds constituted the bulk of the Federal area, only one of these counties being any considerable distance from the coast. This region was the earliest settled, the most densely populated, and represented most of the mercantile and commercial interests of the state.
The divided region75 of the state is associated with one Federal county and is cut off from the rest of the Federal counties by a belt of opposition at the east. This divided region, however, seems to have been somewhat peculiar. I am informed that it was settled by Scotch who fought for the Pretender at Culloden and who were banished to North Carolina upon condition of never again bearing arms against the King. These counties during the Revolution were full of Tories.76
The rest of the state, with Tennessee, was predominantly Anti- Federal, with only two Federal counties, one in North Carolina77 and one in Tennessee.78
Some of the elements that contributed to the adverse decision of North Carolina in 1788 upon the question of ratification may be indicated by the following extracts: "Mr. Lamb, as chairman of a committee in New York, which he styles the 'Federal Committee,' has written to Mr. Jones, T. Person and Tim Bloodworth, recommending them to be steadfast in opposition and inclosing a large packet of Anti-federal pamphlets to each of them."79
"The great deference this state has been accustomed to pay to the political opinions of the Old Dominion will, I believe, have a very bad effect on the determination of this great question."80
On Nov. 15, 1788, Patrick Henry wrote to Colonel Lee: "I mean not to take any part in deliberations held out of this state, unless in Carolina from which I am not very distant, and to whose politics I wish to be attentive. If congress do not give us substantial amendments, I will turn my eyes to that country, a connection with which may become necessary for me as an individual. I am in-deed happy where I now live81 in the unanimity which prevails on this subject; for in near twenty adjoining counties, I think at least nineteen twentieths are Anti-federal, and this great extent of country in Virginia lies adjoining to North Carolina, and with her forms a mass of opposition not easy to surmount."82
Among the Anti-federal leaders, Willie Jones easily stood first, as is indicated by the following: "Willie Jones, of Halifax, was the most influential politician in the state.…A patriot in the Revolution, he was now the acknowledged head of a great party. He was jealous of his authority, and prompt to meet any attempt to undermine his power. His knowledge of human nature was consummate, and in the arts of insinuation he was unrivaled. He had the powers of forecast and combination in an eminent degree.…He seldom shared in the discussions. His time of action was chiefly during the hours of adjournment; then it was that he stimulated the passions, aroused the suspicions or moderated the ardor of his followers; then it was that, smoking his pipe, and chatting of crops, ploughs, stock, dogs, etc., he stole his way into the hearts of honest farmers and erected there thrones for himself."83 The case of North Carolina in 1788 was well stated by Mr. Jones himself in the course of the debate in the first convention. He said: "We run no risk of being excluded from the Union when we think proper to come in. Virginia, our next neighbor, will not oppose our admission. We have a common cause with her. She wishes the same alterations. We are of the greatest importance to her. She will have great weight in congress, and there is no doubt but she will do everything she can to bring us into the Union. South Carolina and Georgia are deeply interested in our being admitted. The Creek nation would overturn these two states without our aid. They cannot exist without North Carolina. There is no doubt we shall obtain our amendments and come into the Union when we please."84
There were other prominent opposition leaders such as David Caldwell of Guilford county and Timothy Bloodworth of New Hanover county, whose influence was also important in their section;85 but no other one man possessed such control of the Anti-Federal delegates as Mr. Jones.
Six towns86 were represented in the convention of 1788 and the delegates of all but Hillsboro', Orange county, were Federal. It is of no little significance that these centers of population so uniformily belonged to this party, especially as three87 of them belonged to counties otherwise Anti-Federal. The conditions in Wilmington are fairly typical, and are thus described: "Soon after the war, commenced a feud between the town of Wilmington and the county of New Hanover. The leading men 'upon change' were either Tories or those whose lukewarmness had provoked suspicion: the agrestic population could but illy brook their prosperity. From that day to the present, the politics of the burgess have been antagonistical to those of the farmer. The merchants have ever been the predominant class in the borough: daily intercourse has enabled them with facility to form combinations that have given them the control of the moneyed institutions; while their patronage has added a potent influence with the press. A majority of the merchants have, generally, as now, been from the North."88
From the separate map of the vote of North Carolina in 1789 it will be seen that the Federal area had extended itself so as to include the divided region above mentioned with only the counties of New Hanover and Sampson still remaining Anti-Federal. This, then, is the first of the sections into which the state may be divided. Its population was mixed, Germans, English and French; its interests were commercial and it contained the great navigable streams of the state.
The opposition, as revealed in the map of North Carolina for 1789, was strongest in the center of the state, a region lying between the section just described and the Catawba river. Here, upon both sides of the Yadkin were settled the Pennsylvania Germans. Their interests were wholly agricultural, they had few towns and, being a German speaking community, were almost wholly isolated from the outside world.89 It was a section peculiarly conservative, as may be seen from its vote in 1789, when but two of its counties were Federal, one of which was divided.
Crossing the Catawba we come upon a section almost entirely Federal, but which in 1788 had but one Federal county (Lincoln).
In Tennessee the change from the condition of 1788 is still more marked. Every vote was cast for the Constitution except in one county (Sullivan), which was evenly divided (2-2).
Besides the Tennessee district, then, in 1789, three sections are to be noted in North Carolina, each with its own vote, its distinct characteristics and its separate interests. And while these sections were but faintly indicated in 1788, it is important to note that in 1789 they formed along the lines previously laid down by the first vote on ratification.
The key to the vote of South Carolina on the Constitution lies in the antagonism of sections, similar to that pointed out in Pennsylvania. The rival sections were the coast or lower district, and the upper, or more properly, the middle and upper country. The coast region was the first settled and contained a larger portion of the wealth of the state; its mercantile and commercial interests were important; its church was the Episcopal, supported by the state; its inhabitants were English or French. The upper district was widely different. It was a frontier section, the last to receive settlement; its lands were fertile and its mixed population were largely small farmers; many of them were Irish and Germans settled on bounty lands from the king; there was also a large number of settlers from other states, notably Scotch-Irish from Virginia.90 There was no established church, each community supported its own church and there was a great variety in the district.
With such differences as these, conflict might be expected. The coast region, and particularly the city of Charleston, held the balance of power and kept it long after it had been outnumbered in population by the upper country. This trouble began before the Revolution and when the lower district joined in the resistance to England, the upper country held aloof, not only from a feeling of sectional rivalry, but from loyalty to the king among many of the inhabitants, and from lack of a special grievance. Hence this region was, all during the war, full of tories and not to be relied upon.
After the war the old strife was renewed still more bitterly, and when the country took sides on the new Federal Constitution, it was a fresh occasion for the sections in South Carolina, to divide in conflict as they had so often done before. The violence of party strife admitted of but two factions, but between the two lay a belt of divided territory—in general all that portion of the state between the junction of the Broad and Saluda rivers and the northern boundary of the parishes of the lower or coast district, some forty or fifty miles from the coast. The vote of these three districts is respectively: lower, 88 per cent. for, and 12 per cent. against the Constitution; middle, 49 per cent. for and 51 per cent. against it91 upper, 20 per cent. for and 80 per cent. against it.
As a rule the tories voted for the Constitution, for after the Revolution the victorious whigs showed no mercy to their old enemies, and the tories were quite helpless. When the Constitution was up for adoption, it was welcomed and favored by the tories as a refuge from the lawlessness of whig domination. The two Federal and one divided district in the upper valley of the Broad and Saluda rivers are due, no doubt, to their strong tory element, for it was there alone in South Carolina, that they outnumbered the patriot party.92 A more detailed study of the local history of the state would doubtless reveal much else of interest in this connection.
In South Carolina, then, we have the two sections, representing respectively the agricultural and the commercial interests, the former opposed and the latter in favor of the new constitution. The conflict is complicated by previous sectional strife and by the presence of a foreign element which gave rise to a tory-whig strife within the up-per section itself, thus breaking up the unity of the sectional opposition to the Constitution. In no other state was there greater division on both sides than in South Carolina; and it argues for the strength of the political hostility between the lower and the upper country that it was able to keep the ranks as they appear in the vote among so many diverse nationalities and clashing interests.
The reasons that prompted the speedy and unanimous ratification of the Constitution by Georgia, may be seen from the following extract from an address by the general assembly of that state to President Washington soon after his inauguration: "In the course of the war, which established our independence, our citizens made proportionate exertions with those of any part of the whole, and in point of property they suffered most. The peace found the country a waste; with many natural advantages, we flattered ourselves with a speedy recovery, when we were attacked by the Indians.
"On this subject we wish to be delicate; much has already been said; we have asserted and it has been contradicted. Removed at a distance from the centre, our actions have been liable to misrepresentation, but we trust that, by this time, they are better explained. In the meantime, while our population has been checked, and our agriculture diminished, the blood of our citizens has been spilled, our public resources greatly exhausted, and our frontier still open to fresh ravages. The failure of the late negotiations for a peace with the Creek nation, and the circumstances which attended the same, are the best evidence of the necessity of our measures, and a proof of the late hostile dispositions of these people; but under the influence of the government and power of the union, it is to be hoped and expected that a different conduct will on their part prevail. On our part nothing shall be wanting to promote so desirable an estab-lishment. Another circumstance of additional calamity, attendant on our being the south frontier of the union, is the facility of our black people crossing the Spanish line, from whence we have never been able to reclaim them. This has already been productive of much injury to private persons, and, if not speedily restrained, may grow into an evil of national magnitude. We take this occasion of bringing this business into view, with a perfect reliance that you will cause such discussions to be made as shall be necessary to bring about a remedy."93
It appears, therefore, that the exposed frontier position of Georgia strongly impressed her with the importance of the Federal government.
Turning now from the economic and social groupings within the state to the interstate groupings, we find that they not only cross state lines but are arranged with reference to physical geography into great social and economic units. In New England the eastern belt of the Federal area extends along the coast with hardly a break from Maine to New York, Rhode Island being the only considerable interruption in its continuity. The Connecticut valley was another Federal region and was the decisive one for the Constitution in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and was very important in Connecticut. This coast area and this river valley were the oldest and consequently the richest and most commercial regions of New England, and their combined influence was able to secure the adoption of the Constitution there.
The grouping of the opposition areas in New England is also very significant. It will be seen that from about Lake Winnipiseogee southward through New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the Anti-Federal area extends with hardly a break, and it also reaches into northern Connecticut, and west of the Connecticut river and south of the Merrimac in Massachusetts, forming the great interior region of New England, the part most remote from commercial centers, with interests consequently predominantly agricultural. This was the debtor and paper money region and one peculiarly sensitive to taxation. It included factious Rhode Island, the Shays region in Massachusetts and the center of a similar movement in New Hampshire. The coincidence of opposition areas will be noted also in eastern New Hampshire and southwestern Maine, and in northwestern Connecticut and southwestern Massachusetts. In the same way the Federal area of Connecticut will be seen to be coincident with Federal and divided regions in New York, and also that of New Jersey with the same state. From New Jersey southward along the coast the Federal area runs in a belt, widest at the north including all of New Jersey and Del-aware, that part of Pennsylvania along the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers which may be called tide-water Penn-sylvania, all that part of Maryland east of the Susquehanna and Chesapeake Bay, including Baltimore and Annapolis, tide-water Virginia and the adjoining portion of Maryland, northeastern North Carolina with Wilmington and Newbern, southeastern South Carolina and all of Georgia. This region, it will be noted, includes all the best harbors, all the great sea coast shipping ports, and the most densely populated and wealthiest portions of the middle and southern states and represents, therefore, a predominantly commercial interest. That portion of it in Virginia; and North and South Carolina corresponds roughly with the region east of the fall line and geologically with the Tertiary area of the South. Parallel to this larger area lay two other Federal areas, the first including the Shenandoah Valley and adjoining counties, the second the valley of the Ohio river and its great tributaries. The first comprised York county, Pennsylvania, the western part of Maryland, and the valley between the Alleghany and Blue Ridge Mountains still farther to the southwest. This valley was the most fertile in that section of the country. It was the line of the great Scotch-Irish and German migration into the South, and was the interstate highway for the produce of this whole interior region. Its population, largely Scotch-Irish and Germans from Pennsylvania, showed a peculiar independence and clear sightedness in their decision regarding the new constitution, voting not like the isolated land owners farther east, but as members of the commercial class whose interests were bound up in securing an efficient and centralized national government. The second of these western Federal areas lay along the Ohio river. It is less strongly marked and more broken than the other, because it lay on the frontier where peculiar and often conflicting interests tended rather to separate than to unite it to the east. This region extended from Pittsburg to Louisville and is represented by west Northumberland county and Washington county in Pennsylvania, the western part of the West Virginia District of Virginia, and Jefferson county in the Kentucky district, and perhaps by Sumner county in Tennesse, on the Cumberland river.
We must not omit the city of Albany, at the head of the Hudson river navigation, a fur trade center of long standing and a point of distribution for produce to the south and of supplies to the west along the Mohawk, as well as a starting point for emigration into central New York. In North Carolina there were the interior towns of Halifax and Salisbury which were Federal in a large Anti-Federal district.
The opposition areas in New England have already been referred to. In New York this area seems for the most part isolated except on the southeast where it touches that of Massachusetts. In Pennsylvania the Anti-Federal area lies entirely surrounded, in the great interior highland of the state. In Virginia we come upon an opposition area that is broadly connected with that of North Carolina, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Tennessee. It is the great Anti-Federal area of the country, touching the sea only at scattered points in Virginia, and in North Carolina for nearly one half its coast line where harbors are almost lacking. It contained few harbors, it was less thickly settled and more interior in its ideas and interests. It was an economic and social unit, without reference to state lines, moved by common impulses, sharing common prejudices, alarmed by the same fears. One of the best illustrations of the effect of this sort of environment on a people is seen in the case of the Germans who settled in North Carolina from Pennsylvania. In the latter state the Germans supported the Constitution, in Maryland likewise, and when settled along the Shenandoah valley their votes were unitedly for the Constitution. But those who came into the interior of North Carolina, cut off from all outside interest, on no great commercial highway like the Susquehanna, the Delaware, or the Shenandoah Valley, became conservative, suspicious of new ideas, and were readily led by politicians into opposing what was really for their best interests. While those in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia were the strongest supporters of the new constitution, those in North Carolina were its most obstinate enemies, and even in 1789, the only united opposition came from these German counties in central North Carolina.
To sum up, the Constitution was carried in the original thirteen states by the influence of those classes, along the great highways of commerce, the sea-coast, the Connecticut river, the Shenandoah valley and the Ohio river; and in proportion as the material interests along these arteries of intercourse were advanced and strengthened, the Constitution was most readily received and most heartily supported. In other words, the areas of intercourse and wealth carried the constitution. It was these sections that Hamilton rallied to support his far-seeing financial policy for continued national development. And it was in the interior and agricultural sections of the country that Jefferson found material for a party to oppose his great rival.
As these commercial lines multiplied in number and importance the national idea became more and more dominant. But the initial conflict was fought out in the period of ratification.
One of the fundamental reasons for calling the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was a desire to provide for the public necessities a revenue adequate to the exigencies of the Union. Various attempts of the old congress to secure amendments to the Articles of Confederation having this end in view had been fruitless, on account of what Madison mentions as a reason for the refusal of Rhode Island to attend the convention at Philadelphia, namely: "An obdurate adherence to an advantage which her position gave her of taxing her neighbors through their consumption of imported supplies."95 Obviously, a relinquishment of this source of state revenue and a diversion of it to the uses of the Union meant for these states the imposition of internal taxes to make good the resulting deficiency. Such a proposition would be opposed by those regions which were averse to taxation in general. The deeply-rooted antipathy to systematic taxation felt by interior agricultural regions has been well shown by Professor Sumner in his biography of Alexander Hamilton. In his introduction to the debates in the convention, Madison says: "In the internal administration of the states, a violation of contracts had become familiar, in the form of depreciated paper made a legal tender, of property substituted for money, of installment laws,. and of the occlusions of the courts of justice, although evident that all such interferences affected the rights of other states, relative to creditors, as well as citizens within the state. Among the defects which had been severely felt, was want of a uniformity in cases requiring it, as laws of naturalization and bankruptcy, a coercive authority operating on individuals, and a guaranty of the internal tranquility of the states."96
In a letter of Madison to Edmund Randolph of Virginia, April 8, 1787, occurs the following: "Let it (the Federal government) have a negative, in all cases whatsoever, on the legislative acts of the states, as the king of Great Britain heretofore had. This I conceive to be essential, and the least possible abridgment of the state sovereignties. Without such a defensive power, every positive power that can be given on paper will he unavailing. It will also give internal stability to the states. There has been no moment, since the peace, at which the Federal assent would have been given to paper money."97
At the outset of the Convention, Governor Randolph is reported as follows: "In speaking of the defects of the Confederation, he professed a high respect for its authors, and considered them as having done all that patriots could do, in the then infancy of the science of constitutions and of confederacies; when the inefficiency of requisitions was unknown—no commercial discord had arisen among any states—no rebellion had appeared in Massachusetts—foreign debts had not become urgent—the havoc of paper money had not been foreseen—treaties had not been violated; and perhaps nothing better could be obtained, from the jealousy of the states with regard to their sovereignty."98
Such statements as these reveal the presence of a debtor party, whose opposition to the new constitution was to be expected, a party favoring paper money and stay and tender laws, and opposing added taxation. If the commercial classes were in favor of a constitution that promoted national credit, commercial intercourse, and the rights of the creditor, it is just as certain that one of the most important factors with which the historian of the period has to reckon was the existence of an opposition party which found its interests endangered by such constitutional provisions, as the clause forbidding the states to issue bills of credit or to make anything but gold and silver a tender for debts, and the clause forbidding the violation of the obligation of contracts. On the surface of the debates in the Constitutional Convention and in the ratification conventions of the various states, these issues do not appear so clearly as do controversies concerning the danger of the extension of the taxing power and respecting general abstract principles of liberty and state sovereignty. Nevertheless they were issues up for settlement, and the people felt themselves vitally concerned in the matter Seven of the states had issued paper money between 1785 and 1786, and there was a paper money party in every one of the thirteen states at the time of the ratification of the Constitution. This party demanded not only paper money, but also stay and tender and debt laws of such a character as would, if enacted, defraud the creditor of his dues. The same spirit made itself felt in the resistance encountered in many of the state legislatures to passing the necessary legislation to give effect to the British treaty of 1783, especially as relates to the securing of British debts. And it was to be expected, that, wherever this party was found, there would be a center of opposition to the Constitution; since its ratification meant an end to paper-money issues and a strict enforcement of debts.
It is proposed, in. this chapter, to examine the evidence in each of the states as to the character and location of this paper money party and to ascertain whether or not it corresponds to the party of opposition to the Federal Constitution.
The demands of the paper money party in this state in. 1786 may be clearly seen in the following extract: "There are perhaps (if it could be impartially known), three quarters at least, and more likely seven eighths of the people so factious and discontented as to wish paper money on loan may be made by government to give a spring to commerce and agriculture…extreme disorders require extreme medicines as their remedies. Paper money, or even leather buttons, when stamped by authority and funded with realities, will answer for internal commerce as well as silver and gold…The legislatures of those very opulent states, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island have absolutely made a paper currency, and the people in the state of Delaware are now violently calling on the legislature to do the same…If you would wish the like blessings of seven and perhaps now eight states in the union, who have made paper money on loans, summon resolution to speak out your minds and be no longer kept in a state of insensibility to your own sufferings, while your relief is so near at hand."99
The state legislature was finally induced in 1786 to form a plan for the emission of £50,000 in bills of credit on land security, to be a tender for state taxes and for fees and salaries of state officers. The vote on this bill stood 53 to 12.100 Of the affirmative vote, 24 were from towns Federal in 1788, and 27 were from those Anti-Federal. Of the 12 votes against the emission, 11 were from Federal towns and 1 from Anti-Federal towns.101 When the plan was submitted to the towns for their consideration, three Federal towns, Mason,102 Salisbury,103 and Portsmouth104 declared against paper money on any plan. The Anti-Federal towns of Atkinson and Plaistow, from which came the single vote in the legislature against the plan, voted subsequently for paper money on a more radical plan,105 while Concord, an Anti-Federal town voted against paper money on any plan.106
Altogether the opposition to paper money came from 16 towns or districts, 15 of which were Federal in 1788, and 1 Anti-Federal. Moreover, 13 of these towns or districts were in Rockingham and Grafton counties, the counties which furnished one half the Federal vote in 1788. In the act of the state legislature to give effect to the British treaty of 1783, the following vote appears:107 In favor, 38, opposed 31. Of the 38 votes, 25 came from towns or districts Federal in 1788, and 13 from those Anti-Federal. Of the 31 votes against the measure, 18 came from towns or districts Anti-Federal in 1788, and 13 from those Federal. These majorities show on which side lay the preponderance of Federal or Anti-Federal sentiment in 1788; and it may safely be concluded that in the party of opposition to the Constitution were arrayed most of the advocates of paper money legislation in New Hampshire.
In 1785 Massachusetts had voted not to issue paper money, but the distress among the farmers of Western Massachusetts, and the debtors generally in the state, kept the matter constantly before the people. The outcome was the well known Shays' rebellion. The relation of this insurrection to the adoption of the new constitution and the attitude of the followers of Shays on the question of ratification is well shown in the following extract of a letter from Henry Knox to Washington, February 10, 1783: "The Constitution has labored in Massachusetts exceedingly more than was expected. The opposition has not arisen from a consideration of the merits or demerits of the thing itself, as a political machine, but from a deadly principle levelled at the existence of all government whatever. The principle of insurgency expanded, deriving fresh strength and life from the impunity with which the rebellion of last year was suffered to escape. It is a singular circumstance that in Massachusetts, the property, the ability and the virtue of the state are almost solely in favor of the Constitution. Opposed to it are the late insurgents and all those who abetted their designs, constituting four fifths of the opposition."108 Again, Oliver Ellsworth, of Connecticut, addressing himself to Gerry said : "In Massachusetts the opposition began with you, and from motives most pitifully selfish and despicable, you addressed yourself to the feelings of the Shays' faction, and that faction will be your only support."109
Among the most characteristic features of the agitation in Western Massachusetts were the county conventions of Middlesex, Worcester, and Hampshire counties. In Middle-sex county (containing 41 towns in 1790) a convention was held at Concord, August 23, 1786; there were present delegates from a majority of the towns.110 In Worcester county (containing 50 towns in 1790) a convention was held at Paxton, October 6, 1786, in which 41 towns were represented.111 In Hampshire county (containing 61 towns in 1790) a convention was held at Hatfield, August 22-25, 1786, in which 50 towns were represented.112
In these three counties there were, then, (out of a total of 152 towns in 1790), in county conventions in 1786 delegates from over 112 of these towns. In 1788 the total vote of the delegates from these counties in the state convention upon the question of ratification was 44 for, and 101 against it.
The character of the resolutions adopted by these county conventions is significant. They may be classed as follows: First, those aimed at the Constitution, asking for amendment; second, those expressing dissatisfaction with the administration of the state, the salaries paid, etc. ; third, those asking that the government issue paper money. The following from the resolutions of the Hampshire county convention is typical for this last class: "Voted, That this convention recommend to the several towns in this county that they instruct their representatives to use their influence in the next general court to have emitted a bank of paper money, subject to a depreciation, making it a tender in all payments, equal to silver and gold, to be issued in order to call in the commonwealth's securities."113
The following extract from the charge given to the grand jury of the county of Middlesex, sums up the whole effect of the county conventions in Massachusetts: "These conventions have done more than the supreme legislature have a right to do—more than they dare do.. The whole legislature dare not attack a single article of the constitution. And that man who attempts it does the greatest injury in his power to his fellow citizens.…Emboldened by all this, and under full countenance of county conventions, as they imagined, being actually encouraged by some of their members, a lawless set of men involved in debt, began the treasonable insurrection in the upper part of Hampshire, in arms, to oppose and pull down all courts of justice. For you find it a fact that in every county which has been visited with county conventions, open rebellion and outrages have actually taken place, and in no other."114
From the foregoing it may be safely concluded that in Massachusetts the Shays movement was favored by the paper money party; and, in fact, they were but phases of the same difficulty. Upon this supposition I have made a comparison of results obtained by placing in one class all towns that favored paper money or supported the Shays movement, and in the other those towns opposed to the issue of paper money or that did not support Shays.115 Of the towns favoring paper money or supporting Shays in 1786, 2 were Federal and 21 Anti Federal in 1788. Of those opposing paper money and not supporting Shays in 1786, 20 were in 1788 Federal and 8 Anti-Federal.
One more fact is worth noting. On the third reading of the bill before the general court, giving effect to the British treaty of 1783, there were 18 votes cast in the negative.116 Of these, 13 came from towns Anti-Federal in 1788, and 4 from Federal towns.
This evidence is certainly conclusive proof that in Massachusetts the Anti-Federal stronghold in 1788 was the Shays stronghold in 1786, as well as the center of the paper money and debt agitation and the rallying ground for the county conventions. With all these facts in mind, the estimate of Knox that four-fifths of the Anti-Federal party were connected directly or indirectly with the Shays movement, seems not very far from the truth.
Connecticut was so overwhelmingly Federal that difference of sentiment respecting the fundamental provisions of the Constitution was not so marked as in the rest of the New England states. Nevertheless, we find here a paper money party, though insignificant in its numbers and influence. A bill providing for a tender act and one for the issue of paper money were summarily disposed of by the assembly, the former by a vote of 124 to 22.117 The town of Sharon, Anti-Federal in 1788, allowed a Shays leader to raise and equip a body of men for service under Shays."118 The same town also voted in town meeting that the state should emit paper money, and their delegate tried at two successive sessions to introduce a bill for that purpose.119
The following extract of a letter written from Sharon, March 8, 1787, well expresses the sentiments of the paper money party of this state: "Letter to the printers: I desire to see you manifest your impartiality by printing equally for both sides…for my part, I acknowledge boldly I am one of what they call the Anti-Federal party or faction…Friends and fellow citizens:—I will conclude with one word of advice to you concerning making choice of proper persons to do your business for you at the General Assembly…Don't be influ-enced by anybody's talking and nonsense. Choose fo |
