that every power not expressly granted remains in the people. This, he stated, was the view taken by a large majority of the national Convention, in which no direct proposition was ever made, according to his recollection, for the insertion of a bill of rights. There is, undoubtedly, a general truth in this argument, but, like many general truths in the construction of governments, it may be open to exceptions when applied to particular subjects or interests. It appears to have been, for the time, successful; probably because the opponents of the Constitution, with whom Mr. Wilson was contending, did not bring forward specific propositions for the declaration of those particular rights which were made the subjects of special action in other State conventions.

Besides a very thorough discussion of these great subjects, Mr. Wilson entered into an elaborate examination and defence of the whole system proposed in the Constitution. He was most ably seconded in his efforts by Thomas McKean, then Chief Justice of Pennsylvania and afterwards its Governor, the greater part of whose public life had been passed in the service of Delaware, his native State, and who had always been a strenuous advocate of the interests of the smaller States, but who found himself satisfied with the provision for them made by the Constitution for the construction of the Senate of

1 This was a mistake. On the 12th of September, Messrs, Gerry and Mason moved for a committee

to prepare a bill of rights, but the motion was lost by an equal division of the States. Elliot, V. 538.

the United States. "I have gone," said he, "through the circle of office, in the legislative, executive, and judicial departments of government; and from all my study, observation, and experience, I must declare, that, from a full examination and due consideration of this system, it appears to me the best the world has yet seen. I congratulate you on the fair prospect of its being adopted, and am happy in the expectation of seeing accomplished what has long been my ardent wish, that you will hereafter have a salutary permanency in magistracy and stability in

the laws."

The result of the discussion in the convention of Pennsylvania was the ratification of the Constitution. The official ratification sent to Congress was signed by a very large majority of the delegates, and contains no notice of any dissent. But the representatives of that portion of the State which lay west of the Susquehanna generally refused their assent, and their district afterwards became the place in which the proposition was considered whether the government should be allowed to be organized.3

The convention of New Jersey was in session at the time of the ratification by Pennsylvania. Mr. Madison had passed through the State, in the au

1 Mr. McKean, although his residence was at Philadelphia, represented the lower counties of Delaware in Congress from 1774 to 1783. In 1777 he was made Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, being at the same time a member of Con

gress and President of the State of Delaware.

2 The Constitution was ratified by a vote of 46 to 23.

3 This was at a meeting held at Harrisburg, September 3d, 1788.

tumn, on his way to the Congress, then sitting in the city of New York, and could discover no evidence of serious opposition to the Constitution. Lying between the States of New York and Pennsylvania, New Jersey was closely watched by the friends and the opponents of the Constitution in both of those States, and was likely to be much influenced by the predominating sentiment in the one that should first act.1 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 the nether millstone. Their delegates in the national Convention had, it is true, acted with those of New York, in the long contest concerning

1 The opposite parties were so much excited against each other, and the course of New Jersey was viewed with so much interest at Philadelphia among the "Federalists," that a story found currency and belief there, to the effect that Clinton, the Governor of New York, had offered the State of New Jersey, through one of its influential citizens, one half of the

impost revenue of New York, if she would reject the Constitution. The preposterous character of such a proposition stamps the rumor with gross improbability. But its circulation evinces the anxiety with which the course of New Jersey was regarded in the neighboring States, and it is certain that the opposition in New York made great efforts to influence it.

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 likely to be promoted by following in the lead of the AntiFederalists of New York. Their delegates unanimously ratified the Constitution on the 12th of December, five days after the ratification of Pennsylvania.

A few days later, there came from the far South news that the convention of Georgia had, with like unanimity, adopted the Constitution. Neither the people of the State, nor their delegates, could well have acted under the influence of what was taking place in the centre of the Union. Their situation was too remote for the reception, at that day, within the same fortnight, of the news of events that had occurred in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and they could scarcely have read the great discussions that were going on in various forms of controversy in the cities of New York and Philadelphia, and throughout the Middle and the Eastern States. Wasted excessively during the Revolution, by the nature of the warfare carried on within her limits; left at the peace to contend with a large, powerful, and cruel tribe of Indians, that pressed upon her western settlements; and having her southern frontier bordering upon the unfriendly territory of a Span

ish colony, the State of Georgia had strong motives to lead her to embrace the Constitution of the United States, and found little in that instrument calculated to draw her in the opposite direction. Her delegates had resisted the surrender of control over the slave-trade, but they had acquiesced in the compromise on that subject, and there was in truth nothing in the position in which it was left that was likely to give the State serious dissatisfaction or uneasiness. The people of Georgia had something more important to do than to quarrel with their representatives about the principles or details of the system to which they had consented in the national Convention. They felt the want of a general government able to resist, with a stronger hand than that of the Confederation, the evils which pressed upon them. Their assent was unanimously given to the Constitution on the 2d of January, 1788.

The legislature of Connecticut had ordered a convention to be held on the 4th of January. When the elections were over, it was ascertained that there was a large majority in favor of the Constitution;

1 The situation of Georgia was brought to the notice of Washington immediately after his first inauguration as President of the United States, in an Address presented to him by the legislature of the State, in which they set forth two prominent subjects on which they looked for protection to "the influence and power of the Union."

One of these was the exposure of their frontier to the ravages of the Creek Indians. The other was the escape of their slaves into Florida, whence they had never been able to reclaim them. Both of these matters received the early attention of Washington's administration.