In other States its friends had whipped up all possible speed. Not a week had passed after the Federal Convention had laid the proposed Constitution before Congress when a resolution was introduced in the Legislature of Pennsylvania for the election, within five weeks,[1003] of delegates to a State Convention to ratify the "New Plan." When its opponents, failing in every other device to delay or defeat it, refused to attend the sessions, thus breaking a quorum, a band of Constitutionalists "broke into their lodgings, seized them, dragged them though the streets to the State House and thrust them into the Assembly room with clothes torn and faces white with rage." And there the objecting members were forcibly kept until the vote was taken. Thus was the quorum made and the majority of the Legislature enabled to "pass" the ordinance for calling the Pennsylvania State Convention to ratify the National Constitution.[1004] And this action was taken before the Legislature had even received from Congress a copy of that document.
The enemies in Pennsylvania of the proposed National Government were very bitter. They said that the Legislature had been under the yoke of Philadelphia—a charge which, indeed, appears to be true. Loud were the protests of the minority against the feverish haste. When the members of the Pennsylvania Convention, thus called, had been chosen and had finished their work, the Anti-Constitutionalists asserted that no fair election had really taken place because it "was held at so early a period and want of information was so great" that the people did not know that such an election was to be held; and they proved this to their own satisfaction by showing that, although seventy thousand Pennsylvanians were entitled to vote, only thirteen thousand of them really had voted and that the forty-six members of the Pennsylvania Convention who ratified the Constitution had been chosen by only sixty-eight hundred voters. Thus, they pointed out, when the State Convention was over, that the Federal Constitution had been ratified in Pennsylvania by men who represented less than one tenth of the voting population of the State.[1005]
Indeed, a supporter of the Constitution admitted that only a small fraction of the people did vote for members of the Pennsylvania State Convention; but he excused this on the ground that Pennsylvanians seldom voted in great numbers except in contested elections; and he pointed out that in the election of the Convention which framed the State's Constitution itself, only about six thousand had exercised their right of suffrage and that only a little more than fifteen hundred votes had been cast in the whole Commonwealth to elect Pennsylvania's first Legislature.[1006]
The enemies of the proposed plan for a National Government took the ground that it was being rushed through by the "aristocrats"; and the "Independent Gazetteer" published "The humble address of the low born of the United States of America, to their fellow slaves scattered throughout the world," which sarcastically pledged that "we, the low born, that is, all the people of the United States, except 600 or thereabouts, well born," would "allow and admit the said 600 well born immediately to establish and confirm this most noble, most excellent, and truly divine constitution."[1007]
James Wilson, they said, had been all but mobbed by the patriots during the Revolution; he never had been for the people, but always "strongly tainted with the spirit of high aristocracy."[1008] Yet such a man, they declared, was the ablest and best person the Constitutionalists could secure to defend "that political monster, the proposed Constitution"; "a monster" which had emerged from "the thick veil of secrecy."[1009]
When the Pennsylvania State Convention had assembled, the opponents of the Constitution at once charged that the whole business was being speeded by a "system of precipitancy."[1010] They rang the changes on the secret gestation and birth of the Nation's proposed fundamental law, which, said Mr. Whitehill, "originates in mystery and must terminate in despotism," and, in the end, surely would annihilate the States.[1011] Hardly a day passed that the minority did not protest against the forcing tactics of the majority.[1012] While much ability was displayed on both sides, yet the debate lacked dignity, courtesy, judgment, and even information. So scholarly a man as Wilson said that "Virginia has no bill of rights";[1013] and Chief Justice McKean, supported by Wilson, actually declared that none but English-speaking peoples ever had known trial by jury.[1014]
"Lack of veracity," "indecent," "trifling," "contempt for arguments and person," were a few of the more moderate, polite, and soothing epithets that filled Pennsylvania's Convention hall throughout this so-called debate. More than once the members almost came to blows.[1015] The galleries, filled with city people, were hot for the Constitution and heartened its defenders with cheers. "This is not the voice of the people of Pennsylvania," shouted Smilie, denouncing the partisan spectators. The enemies of the Constitution would not be "intimidated," he dramatically exclaimed, "were the galleries filled with bayonets."[1016] The sarcastic McKean observed in reply that Smilie seemed "mighty angry, merely because somebody was pleased."[1017]
Persons not members of the Convention managed to get on the floor and laughed at the arguments of those who were against the Constitution. Findley was outraged at this "want of sense of decency and order."[1018] Justice McKean treated the minority with contempt and their arguments with derision. "If the sky falls, we shall catch larks; if the rivers run dry, we shall catch eels," was all, said this conciliatory advocate of the Constitution, that its enemies' arguments amounted to; they made nothing more than a sound "like the working of small beer."[1019]
The language, manners, and methods of the supporters of the Constitution in the Pennsylvania Convention were resented outside the hall. "If anything could induce me to oppose the New Constitution," wrote a citizen signing himself "Federalist," "it would be the indecent, supercilious carriage of its advocates towards its opponents."[1020]
While the Pennsylvania State Convention was sitting, the Philadelphia papers were full of attacks and counter-attacks by the partisans of either side, some of them moderate and reasonable, but most of them irritating, inflammatory, and absurd. A well-written petition of citizens was sent to the Convention begging it to adjourn until April or May, so that the people might have time to inform themselves on the subject: "The people of Pennsylvania have not yet had sufficient time and opportunity afforded them for this purpose. The great bulk of the people, from the want of leisure from other avocations; their remoteness from information, their scattered situation, and the consequent difficulty of conferring with each other" did not understand the Constitution, declared this memorial.