XLVIII. CHAPTER the fertile region of the Genesee, and thence to the west. ern limit of New York, reserving, however, to that state '787. one mile in depth along the east shore of the Niagara River a territory exceeding in extent and greatly sur passing in fertility the present state of Massachusetts. It was agreed that these lands should remain tax-free so long as they continued the property of Massachusetts. and for fifteen years after. If Massachusetts disposed of her right in the soil before extinguishing the Indian title, she was to have a disinterested commissioner pres ent at all treaties held by the purchasers with the Indians; and no treaty was to be valid unless first approved by the Massachusetts Legislature. This arrangement having been announced in Congress, the suit pending there was discontinued. Oct. The other suit above referred to was between the states of South Carolina and Georgia, in relation to their boundaries toward the sources of the Savannah, and especially as to the jurisdiction of the territory west of the Altamaha, claimed by the one party under the Carolina charter, and by the other under the proclamation of 1763, annexing to Georgia the territory between the Altamaha and the St. Mary's. These suitors, also, had arranged their boundaries by mutual consent, South Carolina having ceded to Georgia all her claims to territory west of the Savannah and the Tugaloo branch of it, and the most northern head of that branch, and this settlement being April 22. announeed to Congress, that suit also was discontinued. The geography of that region was not yet well understood, and, after this ample concession to Georgia, the Aug. delegates from South Carolina executed a deed of cession to the United States of all her remaining claims to western territory—a cession which might as wel. have becu spared, since the lines described by it included nothing. XLVIII. Feb. North Carolina and Georgia being now loudly called CHAPTER apon for cessions of their western claims similar to those made by the other claimant states, Georgia presently of 1788. fered to cede all the territory west of the Chattahoochee, and between the thirty-first and thirty-second parallels of north latitude-a territory to which Georgia had, in fact, no right, it having been formerly included in the British province of West Florida, and being now in the occupation of the Spaniards. She demanded, in return for this barren cession, a guarantee of the remaining territory north of the thirty-second parallel, which Congress refused to give, or to accept her cession, unless so extended as to include all the district west of the Chattahoochee --a cession not finally obtained till several years after, and then only by purchase and on conditions very onerous to the United States. The office of governor of Georgia had been filled in successive years by Lyman Hall, chosen in 1783, John Houston, Samuel Elbert, Edward Telfair, and George Matthews, presently succeeded by George Handley and George Walton. It still remained very doubtful what would be the fate of the Federal Constitution in the states. The debates in the Convention at Philadelphia, like those formerly In Congress on adopting the Articles of Confederation, had evinced a conflict of local interests, a jealousy of state sovereignty, and a distrust and dread of any superior or superintending authority, by no means favorable to the new system. Those debates had been secret, and still remained so; but similar ideas and feelings might be expected to influence the state conventions. The extensive powers which the new Constitution proposed to vest in the federal government might seem to bear too strong a resemblance to that controlling authority of the mother country so lately shaken off, and each state might CHAPTER entertain doubts whether her own small share in the XLVIII. national sovereignty would prove a sufficient protection 1787. against the rapacity of that great power and authority proposed to be vested in the federal government. Besides these obstacles to the adoption of the Consti tution which had been equally obstacles in framing it, there existed out of doors, widely diffused among the people, a sentiment, which, in the Convention, except once or twice from Franklin, had hardly found the slightest expression. The members of that Convention, be longing almost exclusively to what is called the conservative class, had seemed to look upon property not so much as one right, to be secured like the rest, but as the great and chief right, of more importance than all others. The great evils of the times, in their eyes, were the inability of the state governments to collect taxes enough to fulfill the public engagements, and the "leveling spirit of democracy," denounced by Gerry, in his closing speech, as "the worst of all political evils." This very spirit of democracy the new Constitution must now encountera spirit which pervaded the mass of the people, and made itself felt in the state Legislatures, disposing them rather to throw off old burdens than to submit to new ones, and filling them with apprehensions lest personal freedom should be sacrificed to the interests of property, and the welfare of the many to the convenience of the few. Hence that widespread outcry, so generally raised, the most popular objection to the new Constitution, that it had no Bill of Rights, and was deficient in guarantees for personal libertya cry very loudly echoed by Patrick Henry and others in Virginia, and along with it the somewhat inconsistent cry, that Congress, under the new Constitution, would have the power to abolish slavery. As a counterbalance to this feeling of doubt and dis.. XLVIII. trust on the part of the body of the people, a very large CHAPTER proportion of influential citizens at once declared themselves in favor of the plan. It was warmly supported by 1787. the public creditors, who saw in it their only prospect of payment, and by the merchants, who hoped much from the regulation of commerce. The depressed state of industry, the dangerous disturbances which had lately broken out, the general sentiment of the inefficiency of the existing system, and the hope of remedy from almost any change these considerations were not without influence upon many who had no by-ends to serve, and whose interest was identical with the public welfare. The small local politicians, especially the advocates and spokesmen of the feelings and wishes of the less educated and less wealthy portion of the community, were, for the most part, opposed to a system which, by diminishing the consequence of the state governments, might also diminish their own. The advocates of paper money, and of stop and tender laws, took the same side, as did all those whose ruined and desperate circumstances led them to prefer disturbance and revolution to the preservation of social order. Even a large number of worthy citizens, including several of great eminence and influence, thought it better to run the risk of anarchy than to adopt a frame of government which seemed to them a dangerous instrument of tyranny, certain to lead to great abuses, if not to the very overthrow of liberty. On behalf of the friends of the new Constitution, or, as they soon began to call themselves, the Federal party, a series of articles, entitled the "Federalist," written by Hamilton and Madison, with a few numbers by Jay, made their appearance in a New York paper. These articles, which defended the new frame of government with uncommon ability, and answered the various objections XLVIII. Dec. 12. CHAPTER against it, were generally republished throughout the Union, and every where produced a deep impression. 1787. Delaware was the first state to accept the Constitu Dec. 7, tion-an example speedily imitated by Pennsylvania. The Constitutionalists, as they called themselves, the partisans of the existing state Constitution, were inclined to go against it; but their opponents had now a majority in the Assembly, and in the Corvention of that state the Constitution was very ably defended by Wilson, who had Dec. 18. taken so active a part in framing it. Ratifications by 1788. New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut followed. TrumJan. 9. bull had been succeeded as governor of Connecticut in 1784 by Matthew Griswold, and in 1785 by Samuel Huntington, who held the office for the next nine years. Jan. 2. Jan. 22. The Continental Congress at length organized itself by the election of Cyrus Griffin, of Virginia, as president; but attention was absorbed by the proceedings in the states respecting the proposed Constitution, and there was seldom a quorum to do business. The Massachusetts Convention was looked to with great interest, both on account of the close division of opinion in that state, and of the effect which a decision either way would have in the neighboring doubtful states of New York and New Hampshire. The clergy, lawyers, and merchants of Massachusetts, and the late Con tinental officers, were almost unanimous in favor of ratification. The Constitution was opposed by the friends of paper money, by those concerned in the late insurrection, of whom some fifteen or twenty, in spite of the Disfranchising Act, had seats in the Convention, and by many of the delegates from Maine, who feared lest it might prove an obstacle to their favorite project of becoming an independent state. Momentous as the question was, it seems to have turned, like so many other |