| Eastern section | Yeas, 73 per cent | Nays, 27 per cent |
| Middle section | Yeas, 14 per cent | Nays, 86 per cent |
| Western section | Yeas, 42 per cent | Nays, 58 per cent |
Speaking of this table he says: “Such striking differences as these indicate clearly that there is something fundamental lying back of the vote. Each of these sections is an economic and social unit, the first representing the coast region, the second the interior, and the third the Connecticut valley and border districts of the state. In the eastern section the interests were commercial; there was the wealth, the influence, the urban population of the state.... The middle section of Massachusetts represented the interior agricultural interests of the state—the small farmers. From this section came a large part of the Shays faction in 1786. The Connecticut valley or western district may be subdivided into the northern, most interior, and predominantly Antifederal section, and the southern section, nearest the coast and predominantly Federal, with the trading towns of the Connecticut River in its southeastern part.”[[632]]
Harding, after an independent study of the opposition to the Constitution in Massachusetts, comes to substantially the same conclusion. Among the weighty elements in the struggle he places “the conflict of interest, partly real and partly fancied, between the agricultural and the commercial sections of the state.” Underlying the whole opposition, he continues, “was the pronounced antagonism between the aristocratic and the democratic elements of society in Massachusetts.... Massachusetts was not alone in this experience; in most, if not all, of the states a similar contest had arisen since the war. The men who at Philadelphia had put their names to the new Constitution were, it seems quite safe to affirm, at that time identified with the aristocratic interest.... There can be no question that this feeling [of antagonism between democracy and aristocracy] underlay most of the opposition in the Massachusetts convention.”[[633]]
Of course this second element of opposition—aristocracy versus democracy—introduced by Harding is really nothing but the first under another guise; for the aristocratic party was the party of wealth with its professional dependents; and the democratic party was the agrarian element which, by the nature of economic circumstances, could have no large body of professional adherents. This economic foundation of the class division was fully understood by Adams and set forth with unmistakable clearness in his Defence of the American Constitutions. Hamilton, Madison, and all thinkers among the Federalists understood it also. To speak of a democratic interest apart from its economic sources is therefore a work of supererogation; and it does not add, in fact, to an exposition of the real forces at work. Harding himself recognizes this and explains it in a luminous fashion in his introductory chapter.
And what were the economic and social antecedents of the opponents of the Constitution in the Massachusetts convention? Harding, with his customary directness, meets the inquiry: “A half-dozen obscure men, it must be answered, whose names are utterly unknown, even to most students of this period.” He continues: “William Widgery (or Wedgery) of New Gloucester, Maine, was one of these.[[634]] A poor, friendless, uneducated boy, he had emigrated from England before the Revolution, had served as a lieutenant on board a privateer in that contest, had then settled in Maine, had acquired some property, and by 1788 had served one term in the Massachusetts legislature.... Samuel Thompson, of Topsham, Maine, was another of the anti-federalist leaders. A self-made man, he had the obstinacy of opinion which such men often show.... He was wealthy for the times, but inclined to be niggardly.... Another determined opponent of the proposed Constitution was Samuel Nasson (or Nason) of Sanford, Maine. Born in New Hampshire and a saddler by trade, he became a store keeper in Maine, served awhile in the War ... and finally settled down as a trader at Sanford.... In 1787 he served a term in the General Court, but declined a reelection because he felt ‘the want of a proper education.’... From Massachusetts proper, Dr. John Taylor, of Douglas, Worcester County, was the most prominent opponent of the new Constitution.... But the slightest information, it seems, can now be gathered as to his history and personality. He had been one of the popular majority in the legislature of 1787 where he had taken an active part in procuring the extension of the Tender Law.... Another delegate from this part of the state who was prominent in the opposition was Captain Phanuel Bishop, of Rehoboth, Bristol County. In him the Rhode Island virus may be seen at work.... He was a native of Massachusetts and had received a public school education. When or why he had been dubbed Captain is not now apparent. Belknap styles him ‘a noted insurgent’; and he had evidently ridden into office on the crest of the Shaysite wave. His first legislative experience had been in the Senate of 1787 where he had championed the debtor’s cause.”[[635]]
This completes the list of leaders who fought bitterly against the Constitution to the end in Massachusetts, according to a careful student of the ratification in that state: three self-made men from the Maine regions and two representatives of the debtor’s cause. Nothing could be more eloquent than this description of the alignment.
Neither Harding nor Libby has, however, made analysis of the facts disclosed by the tax lists of Massachusetts or the records in the Treasury Department at Washington, which show unquestionably that the live and persistent economic force which organized and carried through the ratification was the personalty interests and particularly the public security interests. As has been pointed out, these had the most to gain immediately from the Constitution. Continental paper bought at two and three shillings in the pound was bound to rise rapidly with the establishment of the federal government. No one knew this better than the members of the federal Convention from Massachusetts and their immediate friends and adherents in Boston.
Of the total amount of funded 6 per cents in the state, £113,821, more than one-half, £65,730, was concentrated in the two counties, Essex and Suffolk, of which Boston was the urban centre—the two counties whose delegates in the state convention were almost unanimous in supporting the Constitution. Of the total amount of 3 per cents, £73,100, more than one-half, £43,857, was in these two counties. Of the deferred stock, amounting to £59,872, more than one-half, £32,973, was in these two counties. Of the total amount of all other securities of the state or the United States in the commonwealth, £94,893, less than one-third or £30,329, was in these counties. Of the total amount of money at interest in the state, £196,698, only about one-third, £63,056, was in these two counties, which supports the above conjecture that public securities were the active element.[[636]]
Further confirmation for this conjecture seems to be afforded by the following tables, showing the distribution of the vote and of public securities.[[637]] The first group shows the votes of the delegates from Essex and Suffolk counties—the Federalist strongholds—on the ratification, and also the amount of public securities in each as revealed by the tax lists of 1792:
| Essex | |||
| For the Constitution | 38 votes | Against | 6 votes |
| Suffolk | |||
| For the Constitution | 34 votes | Against | 5 votes |