In the midst of these discussions, and while the opposition were making every effort to protract them until the 23d of June, when the assembling of the legislature would afford a colorable pretext for an adjournment, Colonel Oswald of Philadelphia arrived at Richmond, with letters from the AntiFederalists of New York and Pennsylvania to the leaders of that party at Richmond, for the purpose of concerting a plan for the postponement of the decision of Virginia until after the meeting of the convention of New York. It was supposed that, if this could be effected, the opponents of the Constitution in New York would be able to make some overture to the opposition in Virginia, for the same course of action in both States. If this could not be brought about, it was considered by the opposition at Richmond that the chances of obtaining a vote for previous amendments would be materially increased by delay. The parties in their convention were nearly balanced, at this time. Mr. Madison estimated the Federal majority at not more than three or four votes, if indeed the Federalists had a majority, on the 17th of June, the day on which the convention of New York was to meet.1

But we must now leave the convention of Virginia, and turn our eyes to the pleasant village on the banks of the Hudson, where the convention of New York was already assembling. Hamilton was

1 He thought at this moment that, if the Constitution should be lost, the Mississippi question would be the cause. The members from

Kentucky were then generally hostile. (See a letter from Madison to Hamilton, of June 16th, Hamilton's Works, I. 457.)

there, and was its leading spirit. How vigilant and thoughtful he was, we know; -sometimes watching for the messenger who might descend the eastern hills with reports from New Hampshire, sometimes turning to the South and listening for the footfall of his couriers from Virginia; - but always preparing to meet difficulties, always ready to contest every inch of ground, and never losing sight of the great end to be accomplished. The hours were slow and heavy to him. The lines of horse-expresses which he had so carefully adjusted, and at whose intersection he stood to collect the momentous intelligence they would bring him, were indeed a marvel of enterprise at that day; but how unlike were they to the metallic lines that now daily gather for us, from all the ends of the land and with the speed of lightning, minute notices of the most trivial or the most important events! Still, such as his apparatus was, it was all that could be had; and he awaited, alike with a firm patience and a faithful hope, for the decisive results. Even at this distance of time, we share the fluctuations of his anxious spirit, and our patriotism is quickened by our sympathy.

Rarely, indeed, if ever, was there a statesman having more at stake in what he could not personally control, or greater cause for solicitude concerning the public weal of his own times or that of future ages, than Hamilton now had. His own prospects of usefulness, according to the principles which had long guided him, and the happiness or the misery of his country, were all, as he was deeply convinced,

involved in what might happen within any hour of those few eventful days. The rejection of the Constitution by Virginia would, in all probability, cause its rejection by New York. Its rejection by those States would, as he sincerely believed, be followed by eventual disunion and civil war. But if the Constitution could be established, he could see the way open to the happiness and welfare of the whole Union; for although it was not in all respects the system that he would have preferred, he had shown, in the Federalist, how profoundly he understood its bearing upon the interests of the country, into what harmony he could bring its various provisions, and what powerful aid he could give in adjusting it into its delicate relations to the States. He had, too, already conceived the hope that its early administration might be undertaken by Washington; and with the government in the hands of Washington, Hamilton could foresee the success which to us is now historical.

To say that Hamilton was ambitious, is to say that he was human; and he was by no means free from human imperfections. But his was the ambition of a great mind, regulated by principle, and made incapable, by the force and nature of his convictions, of seeking personal aggrandizement through any course of public policy of which those convictions were not the mainspring and the life. In no degree is the character of any other American statesman undervalued or disparaged, when I insist on the importance to all America, through all time, of Hamil

ton's public character and conduct in this respect. It was because his future opportunities for personal distinction and usefulness were now evidently at stake in the success of a system that would admit of the exercise of his great powers in the service of the country, a system that would afford at once a field for their exercise and for the application of his political principles, -and because he could neither seek nor find distinction in a line of politics which tended to disunion, -that his position at this time. is so interesting and important. As a citizen of New York, too, his position was personally critical. He had carried on a vigorous contest with the opponents of the Constitution in that State; he had encountered obloquy and misrepresentation and rancor, perhaps he had provoked them. He had told the people of the State, for years, that they had listened to wrong counsels, when they had lent themselves to measures that retarded the growth of a national spirit and an efficient general government. The correctness of his judgment was now, therefore, openly and palpably in the issue. His public policy, with reference to the relations of the State to the Union, was now to stand, or to fall, with the Constitution proposed.

When he entered the convention of the State, he was convinced that the Anti-Federalists were determined that New York should not become a member of the new Union, whatever might be done by the other States.' He had also received information,

1 See his correspondence with Madison, Works, I. pp. 450-469.

which led him to believe that the Governor, Clinton, had in conversation declared the Union unnecessary; but of this, if true, he could make no public use. His suspicions were certainly justified by the tendency of the arguments made use of by the opposition, during the few first days of the session; for it was the tendency of those arguments to maintain the idea that New York could very well stand alone, even if the Constitution should be established by nine States, she refusing to be one of them. With this view, they pressed the consideration under which they had all along acted, that the Confederation, if amended, would be sufficient for all the proper purposes of a general government; and their plan for such an amendment of the Confederation was, to provide that its requisitions for money should continue to be made as they had been, and that Congress should have the new power of compelling payment by force, when a State had refused to comply with a requisition.

Hamilton answered this suggestion with great energy. It is inseparable, he said, from the disposition of bodies which have a constitutional power of resistance, to inquire into the merits of a law. This had ever been the case with the federal requisitions. In this examination, the States, unfurnished with the lights which directed the deliberations of the general government, and incapable of embracing the general interests of the Union, had almost uniformly weighed the requisitions by their own local interests, and had only executed them so far as an