majority might vote against a frame of government; they could not be brought to vote against the Union.
But another and more concrete difficulty existed to obstruct the plans of the Clintonian leaders. The Anti-federalists were a landholding and therefore an up-state party, while New York City and its immediate vicinity were controlled by the commercial and mechanic classes, so strongly federal in their feeling that at this very election for the convention, though the opposers of the constitution had won overwhelmingly elsewhere, yet in New York City the Federalists drove the Anti-federalists from some of the polls by force, and even where this was not done the vote stood as ten to one for their ticket. "Reject the constitution," threatened the federal leaders, and "a separation of the Southern District from the other parts of the State . . would become the object of the Federalists and of the neighboring States."[1] This would not merely exclude the inland part of the state from the Union, it would shut it out from the sea. Worse still, it would lose to the country sections their share of the large revenues arising from the imposts on the rich commerce of New York City, and as this revenue was a principal reason for the refusal to join the Union (because of its necessary transference to the general government), the certain loss of it by a secession of the City removed a powerful motive of the Anti-federalists for opposing the constitution.
This danger of division, therefore, made the triumph of the Clinton party more apparent than real, and not daring to reject, nor willing to accept, the opponents of the constitution could only adopt the policy of delay, hoping that enough states would reject the new government to prevent its organization. Having postponed the state convention as long as possible, to gain time, it was next proposed when that body had met that they should take a "long adjournment as the safest and most artful course to effect their final purpose."[2] But as state after state accepted the constitution such action became
