we sent men to the Federal Convention, now is the time to reap the fruit of our labour; and if we do not do it now, I am afraid we shall never have another opportunity."

Attitude of

Adams

It may be doubted whether all the eloquence of Fisher Ames could have stated the case more forcibly than it was put by this plain farmer from the Berkshire hills. Upon Ames, with King, Parsons, Bowdoin, and Strong, fell the principal work in defending the Constitution. For the first two weeks, Samuel Samuel Adams scarcely opened his mouth, but listened with anxious care to everything that was said on either side. The convention was so evenly divided that there could be no doubt that his single voice would decide the result. Every one eagerly awaited his opinion. In the debate on the two years' term of members of Congress, he had asked Caleb Strong the reason why the Federal Convention had decided upon so long a term; and when it was explained as a necessary compromise between the views of so many delegates, he replied, "I am satisfied." "Will Mr. Adams kindly say that again?" asked one of the members. “I am satisfied," he repeated; and not another word was said on the subject in all those weeks. So profound was the faith of this intelligent and skeptical and independent people in the sound judgment and unswerving integrity of the Father

of the Revolution! As the weeks went by, and the issue seemed still dubious, the workingmen of Boston, shipwrights and brass-founders and other mechanics, decided to express their opinion in a way that they knew Samuel Adams would heed. They held a meeting at the Green Dragon tavern, passed resolutions in favour of the Constitution, and appointed a committee, with Paul Revere at its head, to make known these resolutions to the great popular leader. When Adams had read the paper, he asked of Paul Revere, "How many mechanics were at the Green Dragon when these resolutions passed?" "More, sir, than the Green Dragon could hold." "And where were the rest, Mr. Revere?" "In the streets, sir." "And how many were in the streets?" "More, sir, than there are stars in the sky."

Between Samuel Adams and Thomas Jefferson there were several points of resemblance, the chief of which was an intense faith in the sound common sense of the mass of the people. This faith was one of the strongest attributes of both these great men. It has usually been supposed that it was this incident of the meeting at the Green Dragon that determined Adams's final attitude in the state convention. Unquestionably, such a demonstration must have had great weight with him. But at the same time the affair was taking such a turn as

would have decided him, even without the aid of this famous mass-meeting. The long delay in the decision of the Masachusetts convention had carried the excitement to fever heat throughout the country. Not only were people from New Hampshire and New York and naughty Rhode Island waiting anxiously about Boston to catch every crumb of news they could get, but intrigues were going on, as far south as Virginia, to influence the result. On the 21st of January the " Boston Gazette" came out with a warning, headed by enormous capitals with three exclamation-points: "Bribery and Corruption!!! The most diabolical plan is on foot to corrupt the members of the convention who oppose the adoption of the new Constitution. Large sums of money have been brought from a neighbouring state for that purpose, contributed by the wealthy. If so, is it not probable there may be collections for the same accursed purpose nearer home?" No adequate investigation ever determined. whether this charge was true or not. We may hope that it was ill-founded; but our general knowledge of human nature must compel us to admit that there may have been a grain of truth in it. But what was undeniable was that Richard Henry Lee wrote a letter to Gerry, urging that Massachusetts should not adopt the Constitution without insisting upon sundry amend

Washing

ton's fruitful

suggestion

ments; and in order to consider these amendments, it was suggested that there should be another Federal Convention. At this anxious crisis, Washington suddenly threw himself into the breach with that infallible judgment of his which always saw the way to victory. "If another Federal Convention is attempted," said Washington, "its members will be more discordant, and will agree upon no general plan. The Constitution is the best that can be obtained at this time. . . . The Constitution or disunion are before us to choose from. If the Constitution is our choice, a constitutional door is open for amendments, and they may be adopted in a peaceable manner, without tumult or disorder."

When this advice of Washington's reached Boston, it set in motion a train of events which soon solved the difficulty, both for Massachusetts and for the other states which had not yet made up their mind. Chief among the objections to the Constitution had been the fact that it did not contain a bill of rights. It did not guarantee religious liberty, freedom of speech and of the press, or the right of the people peacefully to assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances. It did not provide against the quartering of soldiers upon the people in time of peace. It did not provide against general search-warrants, nor did it

securely prescribe the methods by which individuals should be held to answer for criminal offences. It did not even provide that nobody should be burned at the stake or stretched on the rack, for holding peculiar opinions about the nature of God or the origin of evil. That such objections to the Constitution seem strange to us to-day is partly due to the determined attitude of the men who, amid all the troubles of the time, would not consent to any arrangement from which such safeguards to free thinking and free living should be omitted. The friends of the Constitution in Boston now proposed that the convention, while adopting it, should suggest sundry amendments containing the essential provisions of a bill of rights. It was not intended that the ratification should be conditional. Under the circumstances, a conditional ratification might prove as disastrous as rejection. It might lead to a second Federal Convention, in which the good work already accomplished might be undone. The ratification was to be absolute, and the amendments were offered in the hope that action would be taken upon them as soon as the new government should go into operation. There could be little doubt that the suggestion would be heeded, not only from the importance of Massachusetts in the Union, but also from the fact that Virginia and other states would be sure to follow her example in suggest.