was vigorously opposed both by her members and her Government.
Governed by these well-known sentiments, and sustained by so jealous a constituency, it need not be wondered at, that the Delegation from New York in the Fœderal Convention—a body which had originated in the action of the Legislature of that State, several months before—had firmly disapproved the pretensions, and resolutely opposed the designs, of several of the States, in the formation of a new Constitution; or that, when the simple result which she had proposed had been found unattainable, two of the three gentlemen who composed her Delegation in that Convention had considered it their duty to withdraw from its sessions, leaving her without a legal representation in that assembly, and throwing the entire responsibility of the result of its deliberations on the eleven States which had remained therein. Nor need it excite any surprise that, from that time forth, the opposition to the proposed "Constitution for the United States" had been nowhere so determined, so general, or so completely organized as in the State of New York; and that in no other State had that opposition been directed by so formidable an array of leaders, each of whom had been so entirely, so consistently, so effectively, or, during ss long a period, identified with the best interests of the State and of the Union. So thoroughly, indeed, had the opposition to the proposed Constitution been organized in that State, and with so much skill had it been directed by the experienced popular leaders, that the impending political crisis appears to have been fully understood, even while the Fœderal Convention was yet engaged in the discussion of the various projects of its members; and, through the newspapers of the day, as well as through tracts which had been prepared for the purpose, the fundamental principles of Governmental sci-
