Randolph finally abandoned all opposition and resolved to support the Constitution even to the point of resisting the very plan he had himself proposed and insisted upon; but nobody, with the possible exception of Washington, was informed of this Constitutionalist master-stroke until the Convention met;[1131] and, if Washington knew, he kept the secret. Thus, although the Constitutionalists were not yet sure of Randolph, they put up no candidate against him in Henrico County, where the people were very much opposed to the Constitution. To have done so would have been useless in any event; for Randolph could have been elected almost unanimously if his hostility to the proposed Government had been more vigorous, so decided were the people's dislike and distrust of it, and so great, as yet, the Governor's popularity. He wrote Madison a day or two before the election that nothing but his personal popularity "could send me; my politicks not being sufficiently strenuous against the Constitution."[1132] The people chose their beloved young Governor, never imagining that he would appear as the leading champion of the Constitution on the Convention floor and actually oppose amending it before ratification.[1133]
But the people were not in the dark when they voted for the only candidate the Constitutionalists openly brought out in Henrico County. John Marshall was for the proposed National Government, outright and aboveboard. He was vastly concerned. We find him figuring out the result of the election in northern Virginia and concluding "that the question will be very nice."[1134] Marshall had been made the Constitutionalist candidate solely because of his personal popularity. As it was, even the people's confidence in him barely had saved Marshall.
"Marshall is in danger," wrote Randolph; "but F. [Dr. Foushee, the Anti-Constitutionalist candidate] is not popular enough on other scores to be elected, altho' he is perfectly a Henryite."[1135] Marshall admitted that the people who elected Randolph and himself were against the Constitution; and declared that he owed his own election to his individual strength with the people.[1136] Thus two strong champions of the Constitution had been secured from an Anti-Constitutionalist constituency; and these were only examples of other cases.
The Anti-Constitutionalists, too, straining every nerve to elect their men, resorted to all possible devices to arouse the suspicions, distrust, and fears of the people. "The opposition to it [the Constitution] ... is addressed more to the passions than to the reason," declared Washington.[1137]
Henry was feverishly active. He wrote flaming letters to Kentucky that the Mississippi would be lost if the new plan of government were adopted.[1138] He told the people that a religious establishment would be set up.[1139] The Reverend John Blair Smith, President of Hampden Sidney College, declared that Henry "has descended to lower artifices and management ... than I thought him capable of."[1140] Writing to Hamilton of the activities of the opposition, Washington asserted that "their assiduity stands unrivalled";[1141] and he informed Trumbull that "the opponents of the Constitution are indefatigable."[1142]
"Every art that could inflame the passions or touch the interests of men have been essayed;—the ignorant have been told that should the proposed government obtain, their lands would be taken from them and their property disposed of;—and all ranks are informed that the prohibition of the Navigation of the Mississippi (their favorite object) will be a certain consequence of the adoption of the Constitution."[1143]
Plausible and restrained Richard Henry Lee warned the people that "by means of taxes, the government may command the whole or any part of the subjects' property";[1144] and that the Constitution "promised a large field of employment to military gentlemen, and gentlemen of the law; and in case the government shall be executed without convulsions, it will afford security to creditors, to the clergy, salary-men and others depending on money payments."[1145]
Nor did the efforts of the Virginia opponents of a National establishment stop there. They spread the poison of personal slander also. "They have attempted to vilify & debase the characters who formed" the Constitution, complained Washington.[1146] These cunning expedients on one side and desperate artifices on the other were continued during the sitting of the Virginia Convention by all the craft and guile of practical politics.
After the election, Madison reported to Jefferson in Paris that the Northern Neck and the Valley had elected members friendly to the Constitution, the counties south of the James unfriendly members, the "intermediate district" a mixed membership, with Kentucky divided. In this report, Madison counts Marshall fifth in importance of all Constitutionalists elected, and puts only Pendleton, Wythe, Blair, and Innes ahead of him.[1147]
When the Convention was called to order, it made up a striking and remarkable body. Judges and soldiers, lawyers and doctors, preachers, planters, merchants, and Indian fighters, were there. Scarcely a field fought over during the long, red years of the Revolution but had its representative on that historic floor. Statesmen and jurists of three generations were members.[1148]