OPPONENTS OF RATIFICATION
John Baird “took up land” and “appears to have been a man of mark west of the Alleghanies.” Held local offices.
Richard Bard was a farmer and proprietor of a mill.
John Bishop “was brought up as a farmer, an occupation he was engaged in all his life.... He had extensive business connections, and became an iron-master. He was a large landholder.” Advanced large sums of money to the Revolutionary cause.
Nathaniel Breading received a classical education, taught school, was in the War, and held local offices. “In deference to his constituents he did not sign the ratification.”
William Brown descendant of a farmer; was a frontiersman; in the War.
James Edgar was born on a farm and died on a farm.
William Findley received a fair English education and “towards the close of the war he removed with his family to Western Pennsylvania and took up a tract of land ... on which he resided until his death.”
John Andre Hanna received a good classical education; admitted to the bar and was a successful lawyer at Harrisburg.
John Harris was a farmer and laid out Mifflintown.
Joseph Hiester acquired the rudiments of a good education, and “until near age he worked upon his father’s farm when he went to Reading and learned merchandising.” Was in the War.
Jonathan Hoge. Nothing known.
Abraham Lincoln was brought up on a farm and died on a farm. Local office-holder.
John Ludwig was a substantial farmer. Was in the War. Local office-holder.
Nicholas Lotz was a millwright by occupation and established a mill near Reading. Was in the War.
James Marshel “moved to the western country some three years prior to the Revolution, and settled in what is now Cross Creek Township.” Frontiersman and local officer.
James Martin was born in the Cumberland valley and resided in what was then (1772) Colerain township. Was in the War.
Adam Orth was “brought up amid the dangers and struggles of Pennsylvania pioneer life. He received the limited education of the ‘back settlements.’... He was one of the pioneers in the manufacture of iron in Lebanon county.”
John Reynolds.
Joseph Powell.
John Smilie. His father settled in Lancaster county and evidently was a farmer. In 1781 John Smilie “removed with his family to then Westmoreland county,” which meant that he went to the frontier. Office-holder.
William Todd went to Western Pennsylvania about 1765 and later “removed to Westmoreland county where he settled upon land subsequently warranted to him.”
John Whitehill, “son of an Irish immigrant who settled on Pequea Creek in 1723.” Received a good education. Local office-holder. At his death he left “a large landed estate”.
Robert Whitehill, brother of the above Whitehill. “In the spring of 1771 he removed to Cumberland county, locating on a farm two miles west of Harrisburg.” Extensive public career. “Died at his residence in Cumberland county two miles west of the Susquehanna.” Evidently dependent largely upon agriculture, but farmer of some means.
Obviously such a table is more or less superficial so far as economic aspects are concerned, for the forms of wealth possessed by each member and the numerical proportions of the several forms at the time of the Pennsylvania state convention are not apparent. More than the ordinary margin must therefore be allowed for error on both sides. Evidently also it is difficult to classify these men from the meagre data given; but the following table may be taken to be roughly correct as to the men about whom we have some economic facts.
| FOR THE CONSTITUTION | AGAINST | |
|---|---|---|
| Merchants | 4 | 1 |
| Lawyers | 8 | 1 |
| Doctors | 2 | |
| Clergymen | 2 | |
| Farmers | 10 | 13 |
| Capitalists | 12 | 3 |
| Total classifiable | 38 | 18 |
Of the thirty-eight in favor of the Constitution, who may be reasonably classified, ten, or one-fourth, represented agricultural interests primarily. Of the eighteen, opposed to the Constitution, who may be satisfactorily classified, thirteen or more than two-thirds were primarily identified with agricultural interests. Of the forty-six favorable, twenty were capitalists and lawyers; of the twenty-three opposed, four were in these categories. When all allowance for error is made, the result is highly significant and bears out the general conclusion that the Constitution was a reflex of personalty rather than realty interests.
Maryland.—In Maryland the mercantile interests of the towns were all on the side of the Constitution; and as the urban centres were the seats of operations in public securities these too must be thrown into the balance. The opposition came from the rural districts and particularly from the paper money constituencies. Libby discovered there, “a correspondence between the friends of paper money and debt laws and the Anti-Federal party of 1788, both as to leaders and to the rank and file of the respective parties.”[[667]]
But it should be noted that we are now leaving the regions of small farms and of estates tilled by free labor and are coming into the districts where slavery and the plantation system dominate rural economy. Indeed, the slaveholding plantations were so extensive and the small farming class so restricted that the paper money party would have been seriously weakened had it not been for the fact that their ranks were recruited from other sources. A contemporary, speaking of the election of delegates to the convention, says: “Baltimore and Hartford counties alone are clearly anti-Federal, in which are many powerful and popular men who have speculated deeply in British confiscated property and for that reason are alarmed at shutting the door against state paper money. The same men, their relations and particular friends are more violently anti-Federal because they paid considerable sums into the treasury in depreciated continental currency and are scared at the sweeping clause ... which may bring about a due execution of the treaty between Great Britain and America to their loss.[[668]]
Virginia.—Fortunately, for Virginia we have a somewhat detailed study of the economic forces in the politics of that commonwealth by Dr. Charles H. Ambler. By way of preparation he examines the geographical distribution of economic characteristics, and takes up first the Tidewater region. Of this portion of the state, he says, “The industrial, social and political life of the Tidewater centered in the large estate.... The society which developed in the Tidewater ... resembled that of the mother country. It consisted of several strata separated by no clearly marked lines. Along the large rivers there were the great landowners who lived in a style of luxury and extravagance beyond the means of other inhabitants. Immediately below them were the half-breeds, persons descended from the younger sons and daughters of the landed proprietors. They had all the pride and social tastes of the upper class but not its wealth. Then came the ‘pretenders,’ men of industry and enterprise but not of established families.... Below these classes were the ‘yeomen,’ most of whom were very poor. The system of entail and primogeniture operated to preserve these strata intact.”[[669]] The Tidewater region was almost solid in favor of ratifying the Constitution.
The second geographical division of Virginia, according to Dr. Ambler, was the Piedmont region, which resembled in many respects the Tidewater but had some decided characteristics of its own. “Although one and two-thirds times as large as the Tidewater, the Piedmont, in 1790 contained a much smaller negro slave population. Immigrants from the northern colonies, who, as will be shown, had pushed into the Valley, came into the Piedmont from the rear. For the most part they were conscientiously opposed to slaveholding and consequently did not become tobacco-growers. On the other hand the poorer whites of the Tidewater had been pushed by the gradual advance of the plantation into the less desirable lands of the Piedmont. Lack of ability and the presence of conscientious scruples prevented them from becoming large planters. These elements constituted a large and influential democratic and non-slaveholding population in the Piedmont.”[[670]] This region was largely against ratifying the Constitution.
Beyond the Piedmont lay the Valley which was largely settled by Scotch-Irish and Germans, and the economic basis was the small farm with all that it implies. Here the political theories, says Ambler “differed widely from those entertained in the east. The Germans and the Scotch-Irish brought to the Valley the sacred traditions of the years of religious wars which taught hatred to an established church, antipathy to a government by the privileged, and a love for civic and personal liberty. To the Scotch-Irish, the political leaders, civil liberty meant freedom of person, the right of fee-simple possession, and an open door to civic honors.”[[671]] The markets for this region were at Baltimore and Philadelphia. This fact, coupled with several peculiar social characteristics may partially account for the heavy vote for the Constitution; but the sentiment in favor of the new government in this region has not yet been traced to economic reasons.
To the far West lay the Kentucky region whose frontier economic characteristics need no description. There the sentiment was almost solid against the ratification of the Constitution.
At the time of the movement for the adoption of a new national Constitution, the self-sufficient western regions of Virginia were practically indifferent; and the eastern section was the part of the state in which there was a conscious determination to bring about a change. At this time, says Ambler, “The towns of the Tidewater chafed under the British restrictions upon trade and desired better commercial relations between the states. Of the numerous petitions to the assembly on these subjects, that from Norfolk was, perhaps, the most significant. It claimed that the restrictions on the West India trade and the foreign commercial monopolies were producing injury to Virginia, and asked for restriction on British trade and better commercial relations between the states.... Petitions of a similar tone came from Fredericksburg, Falmouth, Alexandria, and Port Royal.”[[672]]
Against the indifference and opposition of the western districts, the east prevailed in the contest over the proposition to send delegates to the federal Convention; and Washington, Madison, Mason, Henry, Randolph, Wythe, and Blair were named—“all residents of the Tidewater, except Henry and Madison.”[[673]] This result was partly due to the fact that the Tidewater region was over-represented in the state legislature according to population, and partly to the superior cohesion of the interests affected.[[674]]
The same economic antagonism that was manifested in the selection of delegates to the federal Convention was again manifested in the state convention called to ratify the Constitution. “The democratic leaders of the interior,” says Ambler, “declared that it [the Constitution] sacrificed the state’s sovereignty. Accordingly they made a desperate fight to secure the election of delegates pledged to vote against ratification. When the canvass was ended it was not known which side would be successful, so evenly were the friends and enemies of the new plan of federal government matched. From the Tidewater came a strong delegation favorable to ratification. It numbered among its members the most prominent characters of the Virginia bar, former sympathizers with Great Britain, and representatives of interests essentially commercial. The other delegates favorable to ratification came from the Valley and the northwestern part of the state. Most of them had seen service in the Revolutionary armies and were largely under the influence of Washington. The Kentucky country and the Piedmont sent delegates opposed to ratification.... The vote on the ratification was: ayes 89, nays 79 ... practically all the lower Tidewater [being] in favor of ratification. Only two delegates from Shenandoah valley and that part of the Trans-Alleghany north of the Great Kanawha voted nay. The democratic Piedmont and the Kentucky country was almost unanimous in opposition to the Constitution.”[[675]]
These conclusions reached by Ambler closely support Libby’s survey. In speaking of the distribution of the vote on the Constitution in Virginia, he says: “Four well-marked sections are to be noted.... The first, the eastern, comprised all the counties in tidewater Virginia. Its vote on the Constitution stood 80 per cent for and 20 per cent against ratification. This was the region of the large towns, and where commercial interests were predominant. The middle district, lying farther west to the Blue Ridge mountains, represented the interior farming interests of the state; the class of small farmers made up the principal part of its population. Its vote on the Constitution stood 26 per cent for and 74 per cent against adoption. The third, the West Virginia district is really double, composed of the Shenandoah Valley, in which lay the bulk of the population and the sparsely settled Trans-Alleghany region. This, also, was an agricultural section with a population chiefly Scotch-Irish and Germans from Pennsylvania. Its vote stood 97 per cent for and 3 per cent against the Constitution....[[676]] The fourth, or Kentucky district comprised all that territory west of the great Kanawha to the Cumberland River. Its vote stood 10 per cent for and 90 per cent against.... The question of the opening of the Mississippi river was the decisive one in determining the vote of this section.”[[677]]
That public securities also carried some weight in the Virginia counties which were strongly favorable to the Constitution is shown by the following table of the delegates (all, except Thomas Read, favorable to the Constitution) to the state convention from the towns and the seaboard or tidewater regions. Those italicised were holders of paper to some amount and appear on the Index to Virginia Funds in the Mss. of the Treasury Department. Those not italicised were not discovered on the books.
Fairfax County—David Stuart and Charles Simms.
King George—Burdet Ashton and William Thornton.
Westmoreland—Henry Lee and Bushrod Washington.
Northumberland—Walter Jones and Thomas Gaskins.
Richmond County—Walker Tomlin (as Executor) and William Peachy (as Executor).
Lancaster—James Gordon and Henry Towles.
Gloucester—Warner Lewis and Thomas Smith.
York—John Blair and George Wyeth.
Princess Anne—Anthony Walke and Thomas Walke.
Norfolk—James Webb and James Taylor. (Portsmouth.)
Henrico—(Richmond City)—Edmund Randolph and John Marshall.
James City—Nathl. Burwell and Robert Andrews.
Elizabeth City—Miles King and Worlich Westwood.
Charlotte—Paul Carrington and Thomas Read.[[678]]
North Carolina.—North Carolina was at first overwhelmingly Anti-Federal. It had peculiar economic characteristics. Though in the south, it had a large body of small farmers; and the great slave-tilled plantation was not such a marked feature of its economy as it was of South Carolina. It had small mercantile interests as compared with Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, with their considerable seaport towns. And perhaps most significant of all was the fact that a very large proportion of the public securities in that state were bought up by speculators from northern cities[[679]] and therefore not held by native inhabitants in the centres of influence. This must have had a very deadening effect on the spirit of the movement for ratification.
Owing to these peculiarities, it is impossible to lay out North Carolina into such sharply differentiated economic regions as some of the other commonwealths. Nevertheless, certain lines are marked out by Libby in his survey of the vote in 1789 when the Constitution was finally ratified. “The counties around Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds constituted the bulk of the federal area.... This region was the earliest settled, the most densely populated, and represented most of the mercantile and commercial interests of the state.” With this region went some additional inland districts when the swing to the Federalists carried the state for ratification. The second region was in the centre of the state where the “interests were wholly agricultural;” this region was strongly Anti-Federal. To it was added the Tennessee region, also Anti-Federal, for the same reasons that carried western Virginia against the Constitution.[[680]]
South Carolina.—South Carolina presents the economic elements in the ratification with the utmost simplicity. There we find two rather sharply marked districts in antagonism over the Constitution. “The rival sections,” says Libby, “were the coast or lower district and the upper, or more properly, the middle and upper country. The coast region was the first settled and contained a larger portion of the wealth of the state; its mercantile and commercial interests were important; its church was the Episcopal, supported by the state.” This region, it is scarcely necessary to remark, was overwhelmingly in favor of the Constitution. The upper area, against the Constitution, “was a frontier section, the last to receive settlement; its lands were fertile and its mixed population were largely small farmers.... There was no established church, each community supported its own church and there was a great variety in the district.”[[681]]
A contemporary writer, R. G. Harper, calls attention to the fact that the lower country, Charleston, Beaufort, and Georgetown, which had 28,694 white inhabitants, and about seven-twelfths of the representation in the state convention, paid £28,081:5:10 taxes in 1794, while the upper country, with 120,902 inhabitants, and five-twelfths of the representation in the convention, paid only £8390:13:3 taxes.[[682]] The lower districts in favor of the Constitution therefore possessed the wealth of the state and a disproportionate share in the convention—on the basis of the popular distribution of representation.[[683]]
These divisions of economic interest are indicated by the abstracts of the tax returns for the state in 1794 which show that of £127,337 worth of stock in trade, faculties, etc. listed for taxation in the state, £109,800 worth was in Charleston, city and county—the stronghold of Federalism. Of the valuation of lots in towns and villages to the amount of £656,272 in the state, £549,909 was located in that city and county.[[684]]
The records of the South Carolina loan office preserved in the Treasury Department at Washington show that the public securities of that state were more largely in the hands of inhabitants than was the case in North Carolina. They also show a heavy concentration in the Charleston district.
At least fourteen of the thirty-one members of the state ratifying convention from the parishes of St. Philip and Saint Michael, Charleston (all of whom favored ratification) held over $75,000 worth of public securities, which amount was distributed unevenly among the following men:
John Blake
Danl. Cannon
Edw. Darrell
John F. Grimke
Wm. Johnson
Thomas Jones
Lewis Morris
Isaac Motte
C. C. Pinckney
John Pringle
David Ramsay
Nathaniel Russel
Josiah Smith
Danl. de Soussure[[685]]
Georgia.—Georgia was one of the states that gave a speedy and unanimous consent to the adoption of the Constitution. If there was any considerable contest there, no record of it appears on the surface; and no thorough research has ever been made into the local unprinted records.[[686]] Libby dismisses the state with the suggestion that the pressing dangers from the Indians on the frontiers, which were formidable and threatening in the summer and autumn of 1787, were largely responsible for the swift and favorable action of the state in ratifying the new instrument of government that promised protection under national arms.[[687]]
Three conclusions seem warranted by the data presented in this chapter:
Inasmuch as the movement for the ratification of the Constitution centred particularly in the regions in which mercantile, manufacturing, security, and personalty interests generally had their greatest strength, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that holders of personalty saw in the new government a strength and defence to their advantage.
Inasmuch as so many leaders in the movement for ratification were large security holders, and inasmuch as securities constituted such a large proportion of personalty, this economic interest must have formed a very considerable dynamic element, if not the preponderating element, in bringing about the adoption of the new system.
The state conventions do not seem to have been more “disinterested” than the Philadelphia convention; but in fact the leading champions of the new government appear to have been, for the most part, men of the same practical type, with actual economic advantages at stake.
The opposition to the Constitution almost uniformly came from the agricultural regions, and from the areas in which debtors had been formulating paper money and other depreciatory schemes.[[688]]
CHAPTER XI
THE ECONOMIC CONFLICT OVER RATIFICATION AS VIEWED BY CONTEMPORARIES
Having discovered the nature of the social conflict connected with the formation and adoption of the Constitution, and having shown the probable proportion of the people who participated in the conflict and the several group interests into which they fell, it is interesting, though not fundamentally important, to inquire whether the leading thinkers of the time observed the nature of the antagonisms present in the process. A full statement of the results of such an inquiry would require far more space than is at command in this volume; and consequently only a few illustrative and representative opinions can be given.
No one can pore for weeks over the letters, newspapers, and pamphlets of the years 1787–1789 without coming to the conclusion that there was a deep-seated conflict between a popular party based on paper money and agrarian interests, and a conservative party centred in the towns and resting on financial, mercantile, and personal property interests generally. It is true that much of the fulmination in pamphlets was concerned with controversies over various features of the Constitution; but those writers who went to the bottom of matters, such as the authors of The Federalist, and the more serious Anti-Federalists, gave careful attention to the basic elements in the struggle as well as to the incidental controversial details.
The superficiality of many of the ostensible reasons put forth by the opponents of the Constitution was penetrated by Madison. Writing to Jefferson, in October, 1788, he says: “The little pamphlet herewith inclosed will give you a collective view of the alterations which have been proposed by the State Conventions for the new Constitution. Various and numerous as they appear, they certainly omit many of the true grounds of opposition. The articles relating to Treaties, to paper money, and to contracts, created more enemies than all the errors in the system, positive and negative, put together.”[[689]]
Naturally the more circumspect of the pamphleteers who lent their support to the new system were careful about a too precise alignment of forces, for their strength often lay in the conciliation of opponents rather than in exciting a more deep-seated antagonism. But even in such conciliatory publications the material advantages to be expected from the adoption of the Constitution are constantly put forward.
Take, for example, this extract from a mollifying “Address to the Freemen of America” issued while the Convention was in the midst of its deliberations: “Let the public creditor, who lent his money to his country, and the soldier and citizen who yielded their services, come forward next and contribute their aid to establish an effective federal government. It is from the united power and resources of America only that they can expect permanent and substantial justice.... Let the citizens of America who inhabit the western counties of our states fly to a federal power for protection [against the Indians].... Let the farmer who groans beneath the weight of direct taxation seek relief from a government whose extensive jurisdiction will enable it to extract the resources of our country by means of imposts and customs. Let the merchant, who complains of the restrictions and exclusions imposed upon his vessels by foreign nations, unite his influence in establishing a power that shall retaliate those injuries and insure him success in his honest pursuits by a general system of commercial regulations. Let the manufacturer and mechanic, who are everywhere languishing for want of employment, direct their eyes to an assembly of the states. It will be in their power only to encourage such arts and manufactures as are essential to the prosperity of our country.”[[690]]
It is in the literature of the contest in the states where the battle over ratification was hottest that we find the most frank recognition of the fact that one class of property interests was in conflict with another. This recognition appears not so much in attacks on opponents as in appeals to the groups which have the most at stake in the outcome of the struggle, although virulent abuse of debtors and paper money advocates is quite common. Merchants, money lenders, public creditors are constantly urged to support the Constitution on the ground that their economic security depends upon the establishment of the new national government.
Perhaps the spirit of the battle over ratification is best reflected in the creed ironically attributed to each of the contending parties by its opponents. The recipe for an Anti-Federalist essay which indicates in a very concise way the class-bias that actuated the opponents of the Constitution, ran in this manner: “Wellborn, nine times—Aristocracy, eighteen times—Liberty of the Press, thirteen times repeated—Liberty of Conscience, once—Negro slavery, once mentioned—Trial by jury, seven times—Great Men, six times repeated—Mr. Wilson, forty times....—put them altogether and dish them up at pleasure.”[[691]]
To this sarcastic statement of their doctrines, the Anti-Federalists replied by formulating the “Political Creed of Every Federalist” as follows: “I believe in the infallibility, all-sufficient wisdom, and infinite goodness of the late convention; or in other words, I believe that some men are of so perfect a nature that it is absolutely impossible for them to commit errors or design villainy. I believe that the great body of the people are incapable of judging in their nearest concerns, and that, therefore, they ought to be guided by the opinions of their superiors.... I believe that aristocracy is the best form of government.... I believe that trial by jury and the freedom of the press ought to be exploded from every wise government.... I believe that the new constitution will prove the bulwark of liberty—the balm of misery—the essence of justice—and the astonishment of all mankind. In short, I believe that it is the best form of government which has ever been offered to the world. I believe that to speak, write, read, think, or hear any thing against the proposed government is damnable heresy, execrable rebellion, and high treason against the sovereign majesty of the convention—And lastly I believe that every person who differs from me in belief is an infernal villain. Amen.”[[692]]