ET. 55.] - ADJOURNMENT OF THE CONVENTION. 73 the pen in his hand, after a short pause, pronounced these words: "Should the states reject this excellent constitution, the probability is that an opportunity will never again offer to cancel another in peace the next will be drawn in blood." While the members were signing, Doctor Franklin, looking toward the chair occupied by Washington, at the back of which a sun was painted, observed to the persons near him: "I have often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that sun behind the president, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: at length I have the happiness to know it is a rising, not a setting sun." The great convention adjourned on the seventeenth of September, after directing a copy of the constitution, with an accompanying letter, to be sent to the Congress. The journal of the convention was placed in the hands of Washington (by whom it was afterward deposited in the department of state); and on the following morning he wrote in his dairy: "The business being thus closed, the members adjourned to the City Tavern, dined together, and took a cordial leave of each other; after which, I returned to my lodgings, did some business with, and received the papers from, the secretary of the convention, and retired to meditate on the momentous work which had been executed, after not less than five, for a large part of the time six, and sometimes seven hours' sitting every day (except Sundays, and the ten days' adjournment to give a committee an opportunity and time to arrange the business) for more than four months." "No man's ideas are more remote from the plan than my own," he said; "but is it possible to deliberate between anarchy and confusion on one side, and the chance of good on the other?" A large majority of the members desired that the instrument should go forth to the people, not only as the act of the convention, but with the individual sanction and signatures of their representatives. Franklin, desirous of having it promulgated with such sanction, arose with a written speech in his hand when the engrossed copy was brought in, in which, with pleasant words, he endeavored to allay the irritated temper of some of the delegates, and procure for the constitution unanimous signature. Mr. Wilson read the speech, and it was closed with a form suggested by Gouverneur Morris, which might be signed without implying personal approval of the instrument: "Done by consent of the states present. In testimony whereof, we have subscribed," et cetera. The appeals of Hamilton and Franklin, a few approving words of Washington, and the example of Madison and Pinckney, secured the signatures of several dissatisfied members; and all present, except Mason and Randolph of Virginia, and Gerry of Massachusetts, signed the constitution.* The absence of the colleagues of Mr. Hamilton (Yates and Lansing), who had left the convention in disgust on the first of July, caused New York to be regarded as not officially present; but, to secure for the proceedings the weight of a name so important as that of Hamilton, in the place that should have been filled by his state, was recited "Mr. Hamilton of New York." "There is a tradition," says Curtis, "that when Washington was about to sign the instrument, he rose from his seat, and holding ---- *The following are the names of the delegates who signed the constitution: GEO. WashingTON, President, and deputy from Virginia. New Hampshire-John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman. Massachusetts- Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King. Connecticut - William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman. New York- Alexander Hamilton. New Jersey William Livingston, David Brearly, William Paterson, Jonathan Dayton. Pennsylvania — Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George Clymer, Thomas Fitzsimmons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris. Delaware-George Reed, Gunning Bedford, jr., John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom. Maryland-James M'Henry, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll. Virginia —John Blair, James Madison, jr. North Carolina - William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson. South Carolina-John Rutledge, Charles C. Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler. Georqia - William Few, Abraham Baldwin. Attest: William Jackson, Secretary. ET. 55.] ADJOURNMENT OF THE CONVENTION. 73 the pen in his hand, after a short pause, pronounced these words: "Should the states reject this excellent constitution, the probability is that an opportunity will never again offer to cancel another in peace the next will be drawn in blood." While the members were signing, Doctor Franklin, looking toward the chair occupied by Washington, at the back of which a sun was painted, observed to the persons near him: "I have often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that sun behind the president, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: at length I have the happiness to know it is a rising, not a setting sun." The great convention adjourned on the seventeenth of September, after directing a copy of the constitution, with an accompanying letter, to be sent to the Congress. The journal of the convention was placed in the hands of Washington (by whom it was afterward deposited in the department of state); and on the following morning he wrote in his dairy: "The business being thus closed, the members adjourned to the City Tavern, dined together, and took a cordial leave of each other; after which, I returned to my lodgings, did some business with, and received the papers from, the secretary of the convention, and retired to meditate on the momentous work which had been executed, after not less than five, for a large part of the time six, and sometimes seven hours' sitting every day (except Sundays, and the ten days' adjournment to give a committee an opportunity and time to arrange the business) for more than four months." CHAPTER VII. THE CONSTITUTION SUBMITTED TO THE STATE LEGISLATURES-THE GREAT CONFLICT OF OPINIONS-WASHINGTON'S LETTERS TO MRS. GRAHAM AND LAFAYETTE ON THE SUBJECT-HAMILTON PREPARES FOR THE BATTLE-HIS PRELIMINARY REMARKS OPPOSITION TO THE CONSTITUTION-THE FEDERALIST — STORMY DEBATES IN STATE CONVENTIONS-RATIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION -MEASURES FOR ESTABLISHING THE NEW GOVERNMENT - WASHINGTON'S THANKFULNESS FOR THE RESULT-WASHINGTON SPONTANEOUSLY NOMINATED FOR THE PRESIDENCY-HIS GREAT RELUCTANCE TO ENTER UPON PUBLIC LIFE AGAIN LETTERS TO HIS FRIENDS ON THE SUBJECT-WASHINGTON ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES-PREPARATIONS FOR LEAVING HOMEVISIT TO, AND PARTING WITH HIS MOTHER-HIS JOURNEY TO THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT LIKE A TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION HONORS BY THE WAYARRIVAL AND RECEPTION AT NEW YORK-HIS SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY. THE Congress, on the twenty-eighth of September, unanimously resolved to send the constitution adopted by the convention, and the accompanying letters, to the legislatures of the several states, and to recommend them to call conventions within their respective jurisdictions to consider it. And it was agreed, that when nine of the thirteen states should ratify it, it should become the fundamental law of the republic. And now commenced the first great and general conflict of political opinions since the establishment of the independence of the United States; and in each of the several commonwealths, men of the first rank in talent, social position, and sound moral aud political integrity, became engaged in the discussion of the great question of national government. That conflict had commenced in the general convention, but the proceedings of that body were under the seal of secresy. Yet the positions assumed by the delegates ÆT. 55.] DIFFERENCE OF OPINION. 75 in the general discussion in their several states, revealed the fact that extreme diversity of opinion had prevailed in the convention, and that the constitution was composed of compromises marked with the scars of severe conflict. Referring to these differences of opinion in the convention, Washington remarked to Catharine Macaulay Graham, in a letter written on the sixteenth of November, that "the various and opposite interests which were to be conciliated, the local prejudices which were to be subdued, the diversity of opinions and sentiments which were to be reconciled, and, in fine, the sacrifices which were necessary to be made on all sides for the general welfare, combined to make it a work of so intricate and difficult a nature, that I think it is much to be wondered at that anything could have been produced with such unanimity as the constitution proposed . . . . . Whether it will be adopted by the people or not remains yet to be determined." To Lafayette he wrote in February following: "It appears to me little short of a miracle that the delegates from so many states, different from each other, as you know, in their manners, circumstances, and prejudices, should unite in forming a system of national government, so little liable to well-founded objections." After alluding to its obvious defects, he continued: "With regard to the two great points, the pivots upon which the whole machine must move, my creed is simply: First, that the general government is not invested with more powers than are indispensably necessary to perform the functions of a good government; and, consequently, that no objection ought to be made against the quantity of power delegated to it. Secondly, that these powers, as the appointment of all rulers will for ever arise from, and at short stated intervals recur to, the free suffrage of the people, are so distributed among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, into which the general government is arranged, that it can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any other despotic or oppresive form, so long as there shall remain any virtue in the body of the people. "I would not be understood, my dear marquis, to speak of conse |