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been, for her intelligence, - still she wore a name of more than ordinary consideration among her sisters of the Confederacy. If it should go forth to New York, to Virginia, to the Carolinas, that Massachusetts had pronounced the Constitution unfit for the acceptance of a free people, or had declared that public liberty could not be preserved under it without the addition of provisions which its framers had not made, the effect might be disastrous beyond all previous calculation. The legislature of New York, in session at the same time with the convention of Massachusetts, was much divided on the question of submitting the Constitution to a convention, and it was the opinion of careful observers that the result in either way in the latter State would involve that in the former. In Virginia the elections for their convention were soon to take place. In Pennsylvania the minority were becoming restless under their defeat, and were agitating plans which looked to the obstruction of the government when an attempt should be made to organize it. The convention of South Carolina was not to meet until May, and North Carolina stood in an extremely doubtful position. A great weight of responsibility rested therefore upon the convention of Massachu

setts.

Its proceedings commenced with a desultory debate upon the several parts of the instrument, which lasted until the 30th of January; the friends of the Constitution having carefully provided, by a vote at the outset, that no separate question should be taken.

The discussion of the various objections having been exhausted, Parsons' moved that the instrument be assented to and ratified. One or two general speeches followed this motion, and then Hancock, the President of the convention, descended from the chair, and, with some conciliatory observations, laid before it a proposition for certain amendments. This step was not taken by him upon his own suggestion merely, although he was doubtless very willing to be the medium of a reconciliation between the contending parties. He was at that time Governor of the State, and had been placed in the chair of the convention, partly in deference to his official station and his personal eminence, and partly because he held a rather neutral position with respect to the Constitution. These circum

stances, as well as his Revolutionary distinction, led the friends of the Constitution to seek his intervention; and his love of popularity and deference made the office of arbitrator exceedingly agreeable to him. The selection was a wise one, for Hancock had great influence with the classes of men composing the opposition, and he could not be suspected of any undue admiration of the system the adoption of which he was to recommend.

It

He proceeded with characteristic caution. does not appear, from what is preserved of the remarks with which he presented his amendments, whether he intended they should become a condition

1 Theophilus Parsons, afterwards the celebrated Chief Justice of Massachusetts.

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precedent to the ratification, or should be adopted as a recommendation subsequent to the assent of the convention to the Constitution then before it. He brought them forward, he said, to quiet the apprehensions and remove the doubts of gentlemen, relying on their candor to bear him witness that his wishes for a good constitution were sincere. But the form of ratification which he proposed contained a distinct and separate acceptance of the Constitution, and the amendments followed it, with a recommendation that they "be introduced into the said Constitution." Samuel Adams, with much commendation of the Governor's proposition, immediately affected to understand it as recommending conditional amendments, and advocated it in that sense. Other members of the opposition understood it in the opposite sense, and, fearing its effect, insisted that the convention had no power to propose amendments, and that there could be no probability that, if recommended to the attention of the first Congress that might sit under the Constitution, they would ever be adopted. Upon both of these points, the arguments of the other side were sufficient to convince a few of the more candid members of the opposition, and the Constitution was ratified on the 7th of February, by a majority of nineteen votes,' the ratification being followed by a recommendation of certain amendments, and an injunction addressed to the representatives of the State in Congress to insist at all times on their being considered and Yeas, 187; nays, 168.

acted upon in the mode provided by the fifth article of the Constitution.

The smallness of the majority in favor of the Constitution was in a great degree compensated by the immediate conduct of those who had opposed it. Many of them, before the final adjournment, expressed their determination, now that it had received the assent of a majority, to exert all their influence to induce the people to anticipate the blessings which its advocates expected from it. They acted in accordance with their professions; and those portions of the people whose sentiments they had represented exhibited generally the same candor and patriotism, and acquiesced at once in the result. This course of the opposition in Massachusetts was observed elsewhere, and largely contributed to give to the action of the State, in proposing amendments, a salutary influence in some quarters, which would otherwise have probably failed to attend it.

The amendments proposed by the convention of Massachusetts were, as was claimed by those who advocated them, of a general, and not a local character; but they were at the same time highly characteristic of the State. They may be divided into three classes. One of them embraced that general declaration which was afterwards incorporated with the amendments to the Constitution, and which expressly reserved to the States or the people the powers not delegated to the United States. Another class of them comprehended certain restraints upon the powers granted to Congress by the Constitution,

with respect to elections, direct taxes, the commercial power, the jurisdiction of the courts, and the power to consent to the holding of titles or offices conferred by foreign sovereigns. The third class contemplated the two great provisions of a presentment by a grand jury, for crimes by which an infamous or a capital punishment might be incurred, and trial by jury in civil actions at the common law between citizens of different States.

The people of Boston, although in general strongly in favor of the Constitution, had carefully abstained from every attempt to influence the convention. But now that the ratification was carried, they determined to give to the event all the importance that belonged to it, by public ceremonies and festivities. On the 17th of February, there issued from the gates of Faneuil Hall an imposing procession of five thousand citizens, embracing all the trades of the town and its neighborhood, each with its appropriate decorations, emblems, and mottoes. In the centre of this long pageant, to mark the relation of everything around it to maritime commerce, and the relation of all to the new government, was borne the ship Federal Constitution, with full colors flying, and attended by the merchants, captains, and seamen of the port. On the following day, the rejoicings were terminated by a public banquet, at which each of the States that had then adopted the Constitution

1

1 This was the first of a series of similar pageants, which took place in the other principal cities

of the Union, in honor of the ratification of the Constitution.

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