tion, and on her decision of the question of its acceptance and ratification, to a greater extent than on that of any other State, depended the future welfare of the United States, and the place, if any, which they should occupy in the great family of nations. - Within the borders of New York, and among her members, had originated the greater number of the measures which had led to the War of the Revolution; and, inspired by her example, and encouraged by her success, not unfrequently, also, directed by her popular leaders, her twelve associates had learned, at an early date, to look to her as to a leader, in the assertion of their own political rights, as well as in the more decided opposition which, from time to time, they had made to the representatives and to the measures of the sovereign. In the protracted struggle for independence which had ensued, her inhabitants had suffered more from the enemy, and during a longer period, than those of any other State; and her territory — which had been held by the Sovereign of Great Britain from an early day, by right of conquest-was the last which had been abandoned by the royal forces, nor, even then, had it been fully and formally surrendered, in the mode which had been prescribed by the military usage of that day. - Of the thirteen members of the sisterhood of States, after the war had been terminated in an honorable peace, New York alone had discharged all her financial obligations to the United States; and when the failure of her sister States to meet the requisitions of the Fœderal Congress had produced disaster, and had threatened the worst results, she had not hesitated to make still further payments into the Fœderal treasury, in anticipation of future requisitions, her People, meanwhile, sustaining her Government in its devotion to the Union, and the inhabitants of her extended territory, from the wrecks of their fortunes and from the current fruits of their labors and of their enterprise, as promptly supplying the means for the consummation of her purposes. At length, wearied with the continued shortcomings of her sister States, and, probably, aroused by the frequent insults and threats of dismemberment which had been freely indulged in by more than one of her immediate neighbors, all of whom had envied her rising greatness, without at any time aspiring to her fidelity to the Fœderal compact- on the suggestion of one of the most distinguished and most patriotic, but most maligned, of her citizens, New York had been the first to propose measures for a complete revision of the Fœderal Constitution. In this hazardous undertaking, however, while she had steadily sought the extension of sufficient authority to the Fœderal Congress to render the existing Government entirely efficient for the purposes for which it had been organized, New York had never lost sight of her own dignity, nor ceased to guard, in the most careful manner, all her rights as a free, sovereign, and independent Commonwealth. Accordingly, while she had steadily sought the DELEGATION, by the several constituent States of the Confederacy, of sufficient authority to the Fœderal Congress to maintain the credit of the United States, to pay their obligations, and, generally, to execute its duties with more efficiency and despatch, she had as steadily opposed every movement which might be construed to imply a SURRENDER of the prerogatives of her sovereignty, or which, in the future, might be considered as her approval of a centralization of "the Right to Command;" and every proposition which possibly might serve at any time to obliterate the lines of the several States, or to consolidate the thirteen distinct Peoples and Sovereignties which then existed within the Union, into one People, one Nation, one Sovereignty, was vigorously opposed both by her members and her Government. Governed by these well-known sentiments, and sustained by so jealous a constituency, it need not be wondered at, that the Delegation from New York in the Fœderal Convention-a body which had origi nated in the action of the Legislature of that State, several months before- had firmly disapproved the pretensions, and resolutely opposed the designs, of several of the States, in the formation of a new Constitution; or that, when the simple result which she had proposed had been found unattainable, two of the three gentlemen who composed her Delegation in that Convention had considered it their duty to withdraw from its sessions, leaving her without a legal representation in that assembly, and throwing the entire responsibility of the result of its deliberations on the eleven States which had remained therein. Nor need it excite any surprise that, from that time forth, the opposition to the proposed" Constitution for the United States " had been nowhere so determined, so general, or so completely organized as in the State of New York; and that in no other State had that opposition been directed by so formidable an array of leaders, each of whom had been so entirely, so consistently, so effectively, or, during so long a period, identified with the best interests of the State and of the Union. So thoroughly, indeed, had the opposition to the proposed Constitution been organized in that State, and with so much skill had it been directed by the experienced popular leaders, that the impending political crisis appears to have been fully understood, even while the Federal Convention was yet engaged in the discussion of the various projects of its members; and, through the newspapers of the day, as well as through tracts which had been prepared for the purpose, the fundamental principles of Governmental sci ence, the existing necessities of the United States, and the relative rights and duties of the constituent States. and of the Union, had been discussed before the People, with marked ability and the utmost diligence. The termination of the labors of the Federal Convention, and the promulgation of its proposed plan of Government, served rather to concentrate than to diminish the strength of the opposition; and, thenceforth, from every county in the State, the arguments and appeals of the "Anti-Fœderalists"-as the States'-Rights party of that day was subsequently called — were hurled against the devoted instrument, without ceasing, and with the most relentless severity. - On Thursday, the twenty-seventh day of September, 1787, the same day on which the draught of the proposed Constitution had been promulgated in the city of New York, and side by side with that document in The New York Journal, the ancient organ of "THE SONS OF LIBERTY" in that city, there had also appeared the first of a series of powerfully written essays, over the signature of "CATO," in which the condemnation of the proposed form of Government had been pronounced in the most emphatic terms. This antagonistic effusion, a few days afterwards, had been seconded in the same paper by the first of another series, even more ably written than the former, over the signature of "BRUTUS,” -probably from the pen of one of the most accomplished statesmen of that period, who was, also, one of the most elegant writers of the day; while, in an "Extraordinary" sheet of the same Journal, on the same day, there had also appeared the first number of a third series, over the signature of "CEntinel," which had been copied from the Philadelphia press, in which also the action of the Convention had been han dled with great severity. Still later, "CINCINNATUS" supported the assault; and " BRUTUS, JR.," "A SON OF LIBERTY," one. new At the same time, while the opponents of the “ system" harmonious in their sentiments and united in their action were thus resolutely and skilfully resisting it throughout the State, its nominal friends were widely separated in their sentiments; and, in many cases, they were apathetic, if not discordant, in their action. At best, they were only few in number, when compared with their adversaries; and, in the lukewarmness of some of them, and in the entire inaction of others of their number, there was little to afford encouragement, nothing to insure success. But, not alone by reason of the apathy and the discord which existed among the nominal friends of the proposed Constitution, nor of the harmonious and energetic opposition of those who disapproved its provisions, nor of the numerical weakness of the former when compared with the strength and perfect organization of the latter, was the position which New York then occupied so peculiar, and at the same time so important. : |