It is evident that a considerable number of the voters in Pennsylvania clearly understood the significance of the division of powers created by the Constitution. In a petition circulated and extensively signed by Philadelphia citizens immediately after the completion of the labors of the Convention and directed to the state ratifying convention, the memorialists expressed their approval of the Constitution, and added: “The division of the power of the United States into three branches gives the sincerest satisfaction to a great majority of our citizens, who have long suffered many inconveniences from being governed by a single legislature. All single governments are tyrannies—whether they be lodged in one man—a few men—or a large body of the people.”[[717]]
Maryland.—The contest in Maryland over the ratification was keen and spirited and every side of the question was threshed out in newspaper articles and pamphlets.[[718]] Through all the controversy ran the recognition of the fact that it was a struggle between debtors and creditors, between people of substance and the agrarians. Alexander Hanson in his considerable tract in favor of the ratification, dedicated to Washington, treats the charge that the Constitution was an instrument of property as worthy of a dignified answer. “You have been told,” he says, “that the proposed plan was calculated peculiarly for the rich. In all governments, not merely despotic, the wealthy must, in most things, find an advantage from the possession of that which is too much the end and aim of mankind. In the proposed plan there is nothing like a discrimination in their favor.... Is it a just cause of reproach that the Constitution effectually secures property? Or would the objectors introduce a general scramble?”[[719]]
Recognizing the importance of the interests at stake, another Federalist writer, “Civis,” in the Maryland Journal of February 1, 1788, appeals to the voters for delegates to the coming state convention to be circumspect in order to procure the ratification of the Constitution. He laments that “men of property, character, and abilities have too much retired from public employment since the conclusion of the war,” but expresses the hope “that, in this all important crisis, they will again step forth, with a true patriotic ardour, and snatch their dear country from the dreadful and devouring jaws of anarchy and ruin.” He cautions the citizens against voting for undesirable persons: “The characters whom I would especially point out as your particular aversion, in the present critical conjuncture, are all those in desperate or embarrassed circumstances, who may have been advocates for paper money, the truck-bill, or insolvent act; and who may expect to escape in the general ruin of the country.”
On the other hand many opponents of the Constitution in Maryland definitely declared the contest to be one between property and the people of little substance. Such was practically the view of Luther Martin[[720]] in basing his resistance on the ground that the new system prevented the states from interfering with property rights. The spirit of this opposition was also well reflected in a reply to the letter of “Civis,” mentioned above, which took the form of an ironical appeal to the voters to support only men of property and standing for the coming state convention. “Choose no man in debt,” it runs, “because being in debt proves that he wanted understanding to take care of his own affairs.... A man in debt can scarcely be honest.... Vote for no man who was in favor of paper money, for no honest man was for that measure. None but debtors and desperate wretches advocated the diabolical scheme.... Elect no man who supported the law allowing insolvent debtors to discharge their persons from perpetual imprisonment, by honestly delivering up all their property to the use of their creditors. The legislature have no right to interfere with private contracts, and debtors might safely trust to the humanity and clemency of their creditors who will not keep them in gaol all their lives, unless they deserve it.... Men of great property are deeply interested in the welfare of the state; and they are the most competent judges of the form of government, best calculated to preserve their property, and such liberties as it is proper for the common and inferior class of people to enjoy. Men of wealth possess natural and acquired understanding, as they manifest by amassing riches, or by keeping and increasing those they derive from their ancestors, and they are best acquainted with the wants, the wishes, and desires of the people, and they are always ready to relieve them in their private and public stations.”[[721]]
Virginia.—Madison remarked that he found in his state “men of intelligence, patriotism, property, and independent circumstances”[[722]] divided over the ratification of the Constitution although in some other commonwealths men of this stamp were “zealously attached” to the new government. This general reflection is not borne out however by some of his contemporaries. Marshall, as we have noted above,[[723]] regarded the conflict as being between two rather sharply divided parties, those who favored maintaining public and private rights in their full integrity and those who proposed to attack them through legislation.[[724]] In fact, Madison himself at a later date declared that “the superiority of abilities” was on the side of the Constitution.[[725]] Charles Lee claimed that “except a few characters, the members [of the Virginia convention] with the most knowledge and abilities and personal influence are also in favor of the Constitution.”[[726]]
In the opposition Patrick Henry put the whole mass of small farmers. “I believe it to be a fact,” he declared in the Virginia convention, “that the great body of yeomanry are in decided opposition to it. I may say with confidence that, for nineteen counties adjacent to each other, nine-tenths of the people are conscientiously opposed to it. I may be mistaken but I give you it as my opinion; and my opinion is founded on personal knowledge in some measure, and other good authority.... You have not solid reality—the hearts and hands of the men who are to be governed.”[[727]]
North Carolina.—It would have been strange if the leaders for and against the Constitution in this commonwealth had not taken cognizance of the nature of the conflict they were waging. The popular paper money and debtor party had been powerful and active and had aroused the solicitude of all men of substance; and the representatives of the latter, as practical men, knew what they were doing in supporting an overthrow of the old system. “It is essential to the interests of agriculture and commerce,” exclaimed Davie, in the state ratifying convention, “that the hands of the states should be bound from making paper money, instalment laws, and pine barren acts. By such iniquitous laws the merchant or farmer may be defrauded of a considerable part of his just claims. But in the federal court, real money will be recovered with that speed which is necessary to accommodate the circumstances of individuals.”[[728]] Speaking on the same theme, paper money, Governor Johnston said: “Every man of property—every man of considerable transactions, whether a merchant, planter, mechanic, or of any other condition—must have felt the baneful influence of that currency.”[[729]]
The recognition of the nature of the clash of interests is manifest in scattered correspondence, as well as in speeches. For example, in a letter to Iredell, January 15, 1788, Maclaine says: “In New Hanover county the people if left to themselves are in favor of the change. Some demagogues, a few persons who are in debt, and every public officer, except the clerk of the county court, are decidedly against any change; at least against any that will answer the purpose. Our friend Huske is the loudest man in Wilmington against the new constitution. Whether ambition, or avarice, or a compound of both actuates him I leave you to judge.... I expect in a few weeks The Federalist in a volume. He is certainly a judicious and ingenious writer, though not well calculated for the common people.... Your old friend Huske and Col. Read have joined all the low scoundrels in the County [i.e. the country party] and by every underhand means are prejudicing the common people against the new constitution. The former is a candidate for the county.”[[730]]
This conflict between the town and country is explained by Iredell’s biographer: “Soon after the [Revolutionary] War commenced a feud between the town of Wilmington and the county of New Hanover. The leading men ‘upon ’Change’ were either Tories or those whose lukewarmness had provoked suspicion: the agrestic population could but illy brook their prosperity. From that day to the present [1857] the politics of the burgess have been antagonistical to those of the former. The merchants have ever been the predominant class in the borough: daily intercourse has enabled them with facility to form combinations that have given them the control of the moneyed institutions while their patronage has added a potent influence with the press.”[[731]]
South Carolina.—The materials bearing on the ratification of the Constitution in South Carolina which are available to the northern student are relatively scanty.[[732]] Nevertheless, in view of the marked conflict between the agrarian back-country and the commercial seaboard, it may easily be imagined that it was not unobserved by the leaders in the contest over ratification who championed the respective regions. This antagonism came out in a pamphlet war over the amendment of the state constitution which was being waged about the time of the adoption of the new federal system. In this war, “Appius,” the spokesman for the reform party is reported to have declared that “wealth ought not to be represented; that a rich citizen ought to have fewer votes than his poor neighbor; that wealth should be stripped of as many advantages as possible and it will then have more than enough; and finally, that in giving property the power of protecting itself, government becomes an aristocracy.”[[733]]