al literature. Just how the Federalists succeeded in overcoming a
hostile majority and in securing a ratification of the Constitution by a
vote of thirty to twenty-seven, remains a mystery to this day.

Half a century later it became the habit of statesmen of the nationalist
school to speak of the Constitution as the work of the people of the
United States. John Marshall declared the Constitution to be "an
expression of the clear and deliberate will of the whole people." As a
matter of fact, no direct popular vote was taken at any stage in its
evolution. The delegates to the Philadelphia Convention were chosen by
the state legislatures; their work was ratified by conventions of
delegates in the several States; and these delegates were chosen in
every State but one on a carefully limited suffrage. New York alone
provided that delegates to the convention should be elected on the basis
of manhood suffrage. Elsewhere property qualifications were imposed
which disfranchised probably about one third of the adult male
population. In all the States a considerable proportion of the voters
abstained from voting. In Boston, where twenty-seven hundred were
qualified to vote, only seven hundred and sixty took the trouble to
vote for delegates to the state convention. A recent writer hazards the
guess that "not more than one fourth or one fifth of the adult white
males took part in the election of delegates to the state conventions."
If this be true, the Constitution expressed something less than the will
of the whole people and perhaps not even of a majority. The making of
the Constitution was clearly the work of a party rather than of the
whole people. In the ranks of the Federalist party were the wealth and
intelligence which made possible concerted and rapid action. The
leadership fell naturally to those who had been accustomed to public
life. From this point of view, the adoption of the Constitution was the
triumph of a "natural aristocracy."

Meantime, Congress nearing its end made testamentary provision for its
heir. After much wrangling and vacillation, it fixed upon New York as
the seat of the new Government and summoned the States to choose
presidential electors, Senators, and Representatives. The new national
legislature was to assemble on the first Wednesday in March, which fell
upon the 4th. To this summons, two States turned a deaf ear. Not having
ratified the new Constitution, North Carolina and Rhode Island were
stra