The responsibility, therefore, as well as the greater portion of the labor, which attended the organization of the friends of the new Constitution—scattered throughout the state, the direction of their feeble efforts, and the general conduct of the struggle in this, the principal battlefield for “the new system,” necessarily devolved on Alexander Hamilton—a gentleman whose record was one of honorable and patriotic service; whose voice had never been raised in behalf of political oppression, or in extenuation of official dishonor; in whom the people of New York had often placed confidence, and by whom it had never been betrayed; whose great abilities, indomitable energy, and never-failing tact had seldom been questioned and never surpassed. Deeply read in that portion of the literature of ancient and modern times which pertained to his studies as one of the rising statesmen of America, and personally acquainted, in all their minutiae, with the politics and politicians of New York—then as complicated as they ever have been since that period; a close observer of current events, and fertile in resources for the instantaneous seizure and improvement of passing opportunities, which promised advantage to his cause or to his party; well versed in all the intricacies of the law, and skilled beyond the greater number of his contemporaries in all the graces of elocution; distinguished in arms, in civil life without reproach—he was, above all others of his party, the best qualified for a popular leader, and a champion, before the people of his adopted state, of the new, and widely abused, Constitution.
It is evident that among the subjects antagonistic to “the new system,” which had arrested the attention of Colonel Hamilton at an early day, had been the two series of essays, over the signatures of “Cato” and “Brutus” respectively, to which reference has been made; and that he had promptly determined on measures which, he supposed, would counteract the bad effects which those essays were so well calculated to produce, among the people of the State of New York, to whom they had been specifically addressed.
Without any unnecessary waste of time, he appears to have taken a rapid survey of the general subject, and of the peculiar plan of operations—developed in the earlier numbers of their essays—which the able leaders of the States’-Rights, or anti-constitutional party in New York had adopted, in their well-digested opposition to “the new system,” and he resolved to employ the same potential agency which they had employed—the newspaper press—and, if possible, the same sheets, for the dissemination of sentiments which, he hoped, would counteract the arguments of his opponents, and lead the people of the State of New York to accede to the proposed Constitution. It is evident, also, that, with that tact which formed so prominent a trait of his character, Colonel Hamilton resolved, in view of the sturdy attachment of the inhabitants of New York to the Confederated Union of the Thirteen United States which then existed, to avoid the charge which had been brought against the friends of the proposed Constitution, of a latent desire to dissolve that Union and to consolidate the thirteen peoples of which it was constituted into one nation, under a single government, by a bold and unequivocal defence of that Union, per se, and by a countercharge on his opponents, of the existence among them of a secret purpose to dissolve that Union, and to establish in its stead two or more “petty confederacies.” It is evident, also, that he resolved to appeal to the cupidity of the commercial classes—with whose well-known tendency to conservatism, at all times, he was well acquainted—by assuming that the immediate adoption of the proposed Constitution, without amendment, by the State of New York, was necessary in order to preserve the Union from disruption, and the State from anarchy, if not from dismemberment and annihilation; that a peremptory rejection of it by the State of New York, or a prolonged delay in ratifying it, which would be necessary if a previous revision of the instrument should be demanded by that state, would be productive of the most serious evils, both to the State and to the Union; and that the derangement of the Federal finances was the legitimate result of a radical defect in the Articles of Confederation; while the apparent stagnation of trade—the necessary consequence of an oversupply of goods and of an undue proportion of vendors when compared with the aggregate of the population—by being magnified to such an extent, and presented in such a manner, as to make them appear as the necessary results of a defective form of Government, he hoped, might also afford him great assistance as an introduction both to his projected condemnation of the existing Federal system, and to his proposed appeal in behalf of “the new Constitution.”
A plan of operations which was so well adapted to produce confusion in the ranks of those who opposed “the new system,” and to shake the confidence which the people of the State of New York had reposed in the arguments of its leaders, needed only a careful elaboration of its details, and a prompt and energetic execution of its different parts, to insure some degree of success. To secure these, Colonel Hamilton appears to have sought the assistance of those whose peculiar qualifications adapted them to the discharge of peculiar lines of duty, reserving to himself, however, not only the general control of the discussion, but the execution of those portions of it which appear to have been attended with the greatest difficulties. The Secretary of the United States for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Jay), notwithstanding the lukewarmness of his sympathy, was induced to undertake those portions of the discussion which related to the importance of the Union in connection with the foreign relations of the States, and to the treaty-making authority of the Senate—both of them being subjects which his official position enabled him to discuss with unusual ability, without compromising in
