The election of members to the Massachusetts Convention had shown widespread opposition to the proposed establishment of a National Government. Although the Constitutionalists planned well and worked hard, some towns did not want to send delegates at all; forty-six towns finally refused to do so and were unrepresented in the Convention.[1056] "Biddeford has backsliden & fallen from a state of Grace to a state of nature, met yesterday & a dumb Devil seized a Majority & they voted not to send, & when called on for a Reason they were dumb, mirabile dictu!"[1057] King Lovejoy was chosen for Vassalborough; but when the people learned that he would support the Constitution they "called another Meeting, turned him out, & chose another in his room who was desidedly against it."[1058]
The division among the people in one county was: "The most reputable characters ... on ... the right side [for the Constitution] ... but the middling & common sort ... on the opposite";[1059] and in another county "the Majority of the Common people" were opposed,[1060] which seems to have been generally true throughout the State. Of the sentiment in Worcester, a certain E. Bangs wrote: "I could give you but a very disagreeable account: The most of them entertain such a dread of arbitrary power, that they are afraid even of limited authority.... Of upwards of 50 members from this county not more than 7 or 8 delegates are" for the Constitution, "& yet some of them are good men—Not all [Shays's] insurgents I assure you."[1061]
Judge Sewall reported from York that the delegates there had been chosen "to Oppose the Business.... Sanford had one meeting and Voted not to Send any—But Mr. S. come down full charged with Gass and Stirred up a 2nd Meeting and procured himself Elected, and I presume will go up charged like a Baloon."[1062] Nathaniel Barrell of York, a successful candidate for the Massachusetts Convention, "behaved so indecently before the Choice, as extorted a severe Reprimand from Judge Sewall, and when chosen modestly told his Constituents, he would sooner loose his Arm than put his Assent to the new proposed Constitution, it is to be feared many of his Brethern are of his mind."[1063]
Barrell explained to Thatcher: "I see it [the Constitution] pregnant with the fate of our libertys.... I see it entails wretchedness on my posterity—Slavery on my children; ... twill not be so much for our advantage to have our taxes imposed & levied at the pleasure of Congress as [by] the method now pursued ... a Continental Collector at the head of a standing army will not be so likely to do us justice in collecting the taxes.... I think such a Government impracticable among men with such high notions of liberty as we americans."[1064]
The "Address of the Minority" of Pennsylvania's Convention had reached a few men in Massachusetts, notwithstanding the alleged refusal of the post-office to transmit it; and it did some execution. To Thomas B. Wait it "was like the Thunder of Sinai—its lightenings were irresistible" to him. He deplored the "darkness, duplicity and studied ambiguity ... running thro' the whole Constitution," which, to his mind, made it certain that "as it now stands but very few individuals do or ever will understand it.... The vast Continent of America cannot long be subjected to a Democracy if consolidated into one Government—you might as well attempt to rule Hell by Prayer."[1065]
Christopher Gore condensed into one sentence the motives of those who favored the Constitution as the desire for "an honorable & efficient Govt. equal to the support of our national dignity—& capable of protecting the property of our citizens."[1066]
The spirit of Shays's Rebellion inspired the opponents of the Constitution in Massachusetts. "Many of the [Shays's] insurgents are in the Convention," Lincoln informed Washington; "even some of Shays's officers. A great proportion of these men are high in the opposition. We could hardly expect any thing else; nor could we ... justly suppose that those men, who were so lately intoxicated with large draughts of liberty, and who were thirsting for more would ... submit to a Constitution which would further take up the reins of Government, which, in their opinion, were too straight before."[1067]
Out of three hundred and fifty-five members of the Massachusetts Convention, one hundred and sixty-eight held out against the Constitution to the very last, uninfluenced by the careful, able, and convincing arguments of its friends, unmoved by their persuasion, unbought by their promises and deals.[1068] They believed "that some injury is plotted against them—that the system is the production of the rich and ambitious," and that the Constitution would result in "the establishment of two orders in Society, one comprehending the opulent and great, the other the poor and illiterate."[1069] At no time until they won over Hancock, who presided over the Massachusetts Convention, were the Constitutionalists sure that a majority was not against the new plan.
The struggle of these rude and unlearned Massachusetts men against the cultured, disciplined, powerful, and ably led friends of the Constitution in that State was pathetic. "Who, sir, is to pay the debts of the yeomanry and others?" exclaimed William Widgery. "Sir, when oil will quench fire, I will believe all this [the high-colored prophesies of the Constitutionalists] and not till then.... I cannot see why we need, for the sake of a little meat, swallow a great bone, which, if it should happen to stick in our throats, can never be got out."[1070]
Amos Singletary "wished they [the Constitutionalists] would not play round the subject with their fine stories like a fox round a trap, but come to it."[1071] "These lawyers," said he, "and men of learning and moneyed men, that talk so finely, and gloss over matters so smoothly, to make us poor illiterate people swallow down the pill, expect to get into Congress themselves; they expect to be the managers of this Constitution, and get all the power and all the money, into their own hands, and then they will swallow up all us little folks like the great Leviathan; ... yes, just as the whale swallowed up Jonah."[1072] Replying to the Constitutionalist argument that the people's representatives in Congress would be true to their constituents, Abraham White said that he "would not trust a 'flock of Moseses.'"[1073]