may be reassumed by the People, whensoever it shall become necessary to their Happiness; that every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the departments of Government thereof, remains to the People of the several States, or to their respective State Governments to whom they may have granted the same; And that those Clauses in the said Constitution, which declare that Congress shall not have or exercise certain Powers, do not imply that Congress is entitled to any Powers not given by the said Constitution; but such Clauses are to be construed either as exceptions to certain specified Powers, or as inserted merely for greater Caution." Indeed, the State of New York was so opposed to the Constitution that ratification seemed at one time to be out of the question.

The reserved right of North Carolina was thus expressed: "I. THAT each state in the union shall, respectively, retain every power, jurisdiction and right, which is not by this constitution delegated to the Congress of the United States, or to the departments of the Federal Government." And in the instrument of ratification of Rhode Island, more than a year after the Constitution had gone into effect, that hotbed of State rights proposed, among its amendments, "1st The United States shall guarantee to each State its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right, which is not by this constitution expressly delegated to the United States."

Two States seemed to be competitors for the honor of being the ninth of those ratifying. As a matter of fact, the honor belongs to New Hampshire, which approved the Constitution on June 21, 1788. Five days later, Virginia ratified the Constitution, without knowing that New Hampshire had already done so. Virginia was therefore the tenth. The eleventh was New York, when the knowledge reached

the Convention that New Hampshire and Virginia had already entered the more perfect Union.

Mr. Madison bore the brunt of the battle of giants in the Virginia Convention, just as Alexander Hamilton (both small men physically) battled for the Constitution in New York. Madison was not alone. His greatest supporter was George Washington, although he was not a member of the Convention. Had he not sacrificed his personal inclination and repaired to the Federal Convention in Philadelphia, and consented to preside over that body, it is probable that nothing approaching a more perfect Union would have been devised. Had he opposed the constitution, it would have had no more chance than Cornwallis at Yorktown. He was for it, however, with body and soul, believing that a failure to ratify it would set loose the evils barely held in check. With it, he believed the future of the States was assured. And great as was his influence, and well-known as were his views, the struggle was fierce, long-drawn-out, and in the end a compromise. Within the Convention Madison was aided by Edmund Randolph, who, in refusing to sign the Constitution had reserved freedom of action in the Convention. In the interval between the two bodies, he had apparently come to the conclusion that a new Convention was impracticable, and doubtless the persuasion of his friends, of whom Washington was the greatest and not the least ardent, influenced him to advocate in Virginia what he had opposed in Philadelphia. A younger lieutenant there was, who had nothing to retract, and in the debates in the Convention of his native State, he gave evidence of that intellectual power which had made of his judgments expounding the Constitution masterpieces of reasoned analysis and of judicial eloquence. Few would have predicted-least of all himselfthat John Marshall, then thirty-two years old, was to render effective the instrument for whose ratification he raised his voice and cast his vote.

But opposed to Madison was Patrick Henry, who had once proclaimed himself to be an American, but who, on this occasion, remembered that he was a Virginian. Every American school boy knows, or should know, by heart, his impassioned outbursts in the early days of the Revolution. But he was not only a tongue of fire that leaped into flame upon provocation-he was, in the opinion of that most balanced of men, George Washington, a capable public servant, because Washington urged him to accept the Senatorship from Virginia (1794). He was, in the opinion of the same great authority, a sound lawyer, for Washington offered him the Chief Justiceship of the United States (1795). And there must have been something more in him whom Washington offered the Secretaryship of State (1795) in his own administration. Nor was this all. Having refused the Governorship of Virginia in 1796, to which he had been elected by the Assembly of his State, in the year of his death (1799), Henry declined the post of envoy to France, offered him by President Adams. The views of such a man can not be rejected as factious opposition to the Constitution which he might have helped to frame, had he not declined to attend the Federal Convention as a delegate of his State. He believed it to be dangerous to the liberties of the country because of its centralizing character.

Then, passing over minor lights, there was George Mason, who had attended the Federal Convention, where he rendered enormous service, which his refusal to sign the Constitution has caused thoughtless advocates of that instrument to overlook. His insistence upon a three-fourths vote of Congress in case of navigation laws was a small matter in view of the larger issues at stake, and a concession in the matter of the bill of rights, to which he attached supreme importance, would doubtless have caused him to accept an instrument in the sense in which many of the members accepted it—not as perfect, but as the best which could

be got under the circumstances. And after all, a bill of rights the Constitution was to have-not in the form in which Mason proposed it, but in substance. Even more with Mason than with Henry, principle governed. He opposed the Constitution not merely because it deprived Virginia of certain rights, but because he believed with every fiber of his body, that local government should be kept strong, and central government weak.

The quiet, unobtrusive Madison was indeed, a very Daniel in the lion's den! Madison, however, proved himself to be a match even for Henry, the tongue of flame, and for George Mason, the ablest debater whom he had ever known. His weapons were knowledge and tact. He knew every word of the Constitution; and the members of the Convention knew that he knew it. They also knew that he was not less attached to the liberties of his State than to the Union, which would effectually guarantee them. He felt that if he could get the entire text of the Constitution before the Convention, and have it read as a whole, before it was attacked in part, its general excellence would cause it to prevail, leaving defects to be corrected by amendments under the fifth Article of the Constitution. He was right, and the event proved him to be right. But notwithstanding his knowledge, his sincerity and his tact, seventy-nine delegates voted against, to eighty-nine for ratification—a ratification coupled with impressions, bill of rights and amendments. The “impressions" stated that "no right of any denomination can be cancelled abridged restrained or modified by the Congress by the Senate or House of Rrepresentatives acting in any Capacity by the President or any Department or Officer of the United States except in those instances in which power is given by the Constitution for those purposes."

A bill of rights was adopted by the Convention and was to be laid before the Congress in order that it might be

engrafted upon the Constitution, "asserting and securing from encroachment the essential and unalienable Rights of the People." This was a general statement; but George Mason was a man of particularities. Therefore, the bill of rights was to be "in some such manner as the following." The "following" consisted of twenty carefully drawn articles. Then the amendments, likewise in twenty articles, with an instruction to the representatives of Virginia in the Senate and the House to insist upon their incorporation in the Constitution, and in the meantime, the government of the Union should act in accordance with their spirit.

The northern State of New York was, if possible, more determined than the southern State of Virginia. Like that State, it declared that "the Powers of Government may be reassumed by the People, whensoever it shall become necessary to their Happiness," and it specified more clearly the people in mind, namely, "the People of the several States." The Convention then stated a series of impressions and explanations, and ratified the Constitution as they expressly stated, "Under these impressions and declaring that the rights aforesaid cannot be abridged or violated, and that the Explanations aforesaid are consistent with the said Constitution. And in confidence that the Amendments which shall have been proposed to the said Constitution will receive an early and mature Consideration."

It would seem as if language could not be used more clearly as a vehicle of thought. Of course, this action on the part of the Convention was not pleasing to Alexander Hamilton, who had stood for a high-toned—that is, consolidated-government of the Union, in which the States should be reduced to the situation of provinces. Their governors were to be appointed by the general government, and the President of the United States was to hold office during good behavior. These were his views expressed in the Convention, and a monarchy in form, although not in