There was still another question, of great practical importance, to be determined. Was the Constitution to go into operation at all, unless adopted by all the States, and if so, what number should be sufficient for its establishment? It appeared clearly enough, that to require a unanimous adoption would defeat all the labors of the Convention. Rhode Island had taken no part in the formation of the Constitution, and could not be expected to ratify it. New York had not been represented for some weeks in the Convention, and it was at least doubtful how the people of that State would receive the proposed system, to which a majority of their delegates had declared themselves to be strenuously opposed. Maryland continued to be present in the Convention, and a majority of her delegates still supported the Constitution; but Luther Martin confidently predicted its rejection by the State, and it was evident that his utmost energies would be put forth against it. Under these circumstances, to have required a unanimous adoption by the States would have been fatal to the experiment of creating a new government. Some of the members were in favor of such a number as would form both a majority of the States and a majority of the people of the United States. But

1 Two of the New York delegates, Messrs. Yates and Lansing, left the Convention on the 5th of July. Hamilton had previously returned to the city of New York, on private business. He left June 29 and returned August 13. It appears from his correspondence that

he was again in the city of New York on the 20th of August, and that he remained there until the 28th. On the 6th of September he was in the Convention. The vote of the State was not taken in the Convention after the retirement of Yates and Lansing.

there was an idea familiar to the people, in the number that had been required under the Confederation upon certain questions of grave importance; and in order that the Constitution might avail itself of this established usage, it was determined that the ratifications of the conventions of nine States should be sufficient to establish the Constitution between the States that might so ratify it.'

2

The Constitution, as thus finally prepared, received the formal assent of the States in the Convention, on the last day of the session. The great majority of the members desired that the instrument should go forth to the public, not only with an official attestation that it had been agreed upon by the States represented, but also with the individual sanction and signatures of their delegates. Three of the members present, however, Randolph and Mason of Virginia, and Gerry of Massachusetts, notwithstanding the proposed form of attestation contained no personal approbation of the system, and signified only that it had been agreed to by the unanimous consent of the States then present, refused to sign the instrument.3 The objections which these gentlemen had to different features of the Constitution would have been waived, if the Convention had been willing to take a course quite opposite to that which

1 Elliot, V. 499-501. The article embodying this decision was the 21st in the report of the committee of detail. It became, on the revision, Article VIII. of the Constitution.

2 September 17.

3 This form of attestation had been adopted in the hope of gaining the signatures of all the members, but without success.

had been thought expedient. They desired that the State conventions should be at liberty to propose amendments, and that those amendments should be finally acted upon by another general convention.' The nature of the plan, however, and the form in which it was to be submitted to the people of the States, made it necessary that it should be adopted or rejected as a whole, by the convention of each State. As a process of amendment by the action of the Congress and the State legislatures had been provided in the instrument, there was the less necessity for holding a second convention. The State conventions would obviously be at liberty to propose amendments, but not to make them a condition of their acceptance of the government as proposed.

A letter having been prepared to accompany the Constitution, and to present it to the consideration and action of the existing Congress, the instrument was formally signed by all the other members then present. The official record sent to the Congress of the resolutions, which directed that the Constitution be laid before that body, recited the presence of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. New York was not regarded as officially present; but in order that the proceedings might have

1 Mr. Madison has given the principal grounds of objection which these gentlemen felt to the Constitution. It is not necessary to repeat them here, as they were

nearly all met by the subsequent amendments, so far as they were special, and did not relate to the general tendency of the system. (See Madison, Elliot, V. 552-558.)

all the weight that a name of so much importance could give to them, in the place that should have been filled by his State, was recited the name of "Mr. Hamilton from New York." The prominence thus given to the name of Hamilton, by the absence of his colleagues, was significant of the part he was to act in the great events and discussions that were to attend the ratification of the instrument by the States. His objections to the plan were certainly not less grave and important than those which were entertained by the members who refused to give to it their signatures; but like Madison, like Pinckney and Franklin and Washington, he considered the choice to be between anarchy and convulsion, on the one side, and the chances of good to be expected of this plan, on the other. Upon this issue, in truth, the Constitution went to the people of the United States. There is a tradition, that, when Washington was about to sign the instrument, he rose from his seat, and, holding the pen in his hand, after a short pause, pronounced these words:-"Should the States reject this excellent Constitution, the probability is that an opportunity will never again offer to cancel another in peace, the next will be drawn in blood."

1 My authority for this anecdote is the Pennsylvania Journal of November 14, 1787, where it was

stated by a writer who dates his communication from Elizabethtown, November 7.