stitution. By their forehandedness and
their clear perception of what they must do, the Federalists, as the
proponents of better government styled themselves, had a slight tactical
advantage. The Anti-Federalists resented the assumption of the name by
their opponents. They were the true friends of federal government, while
the friends of the new Constitution aimed to set up a consolidated
government. The press teemed with letters and essays, allegories and
satires, squibs and pasquinades, expostulating, warning, ridiculing. The
public was invited to heed the admonitions of Cato, Cassius, and many
another worthy Roman.

Although much the same arguments, sober or satirical, were used
everywhere, the campaign had to be fought out in the several States,
each with its own peculiar social, economic, and political conditions.
In Massachusetts the eastern counties, with their dominant commercial
and mercantile interests, favored the Constitution, while the interior
agricultural section, which had fought the battles of the Revolution and
recruited the ranks of Shays' army, opposed it. The interior counties of
New York containing the farming population were Anti-Federal, while the
city and county of New York with its environs--the commercial
section--were Federalist. In Pennsylvania, those who had opposed the
domination of the Scotch-Irish and German radicals in the State
Government now united in advocacy of the new Constitution. Here as
elsewhere the Federal area corresponded closely to the counties where
commercial and mercantile interests were most in evidence. In Virginia,
the old-time social and economic antagonism between east and west,
between the planters and merchants of the tidewater and the small
farmers of the interior, reappeared. Much the same alignment is found in
the Carolinas. Beyond the Alleghanies, the people were a unit in
opposing the Constitution.

Detailed studies of the geographical distribution of votes in the state
conventions, and recent investigations in the archives of the Treasury
Department, sustain the conclusion to which the historian is driven by
the testimony of contemporaries, that the fundamental opposition between
the advocates and opponents of the Constitution was based on
distinctions of wealth. On his first view of the Constitution young John
Quincy Adams wrote in his diary: "It is calculated to increase the
influence, and power, and wealth of those who have any already." A
writer in the