[400] Passed September 28, 1787. Journals, XII. 149-166.
[401] This is the substance of a careful account given by General Knox to General Washington. (Works of Washington, IX. 310, 311.)
[402] A town on the Hudson River, seventy-five miles north of the city of New York.
[403] He went abroad in the summer of 1784.
[404] Compare Mr. Jefferson's autobiography, and his correspondence, in the first, second, and third volumes of his collected works (edition of 1853), and the letters of Mr. Madison.
[405] In the newspapers of the time there is to be found a story that Mr. Mason was very roughly received on his arrival at the city of Alexandria, after the adjournment of the national Convention, on account of his refusal to sign the Constitution. The occurrence is not alluded to in Washington's correspondence, although he closely observed Mr. Mason's movements, and regarded them with evident anxiety. The story is told in the Pennsylvania Journal of October 17, 1787,—a strong Federal paper. I know of no other confirmation of it than the fact that the people of Alexandria embraced the Constitution from the first with "enthusiastic warmth," according to the account given by General Washington to one of his correspondents. (Works, IX. 272.)
[406] Washington's Works, IX. 266, 267, 273, 340-342, 345, 346.
[407] This debate of three days in the South Carolina legislature was one of the most able of all the discussions attending the ratification of the Constitution. Mr. Lowndes was overmatched by his antagonists, but he resisted with great spirit, finally closed with the declaration that he saw dangers in the proposed government so great, that he could wish, when dead, for no other epitaph than this: "Here lies the man that opposed the Constitution, because it was ruinous to the liberty of America." He lived to find his desired epitaph a false prophecy. He was the father, of the late William Lowndes, who represented the State of South Carolina in Congress, with so much honor and distinction, during the administration of Mr. Madison.
[408] Mr. Martin's objections extended to many of the details of the Constitution, but his great argument was that directed against its system of representation, which he predicted would destroy the State governments.
[409] Hamilton, Works, II. 419, 420.