d, we hope and believe; that it may promote the
lasting welfare of that country so dear to us all, and secure her
freedom and happiness, is our most ardent wish."

Congress resolved unanimously, that the report with the letter
accompanying it be transmitted to the several legislatures, in order
to be submitted to a convention of delegates chosen in each state by
the people thereof.

Neither the intrinsic merits of the constitution nor the imposing
weight of character by which it was supported, gave assurance to its
friends that it would be ultimately adopted. A comparison of the views
and interests by which a powerful party was actuated, with particular
provisions in the constitution which were especially designed to
counteract those views and interests, prepared them to expect a mass
of zealous and active opposition, against which the powers of reason
would be in vain directed, because the real motives in which it
originated would not be avowed. There were also many individuals,
possessing great influence and respectable talents, who, from
judgment, or from particular causes, seemed desirous of retaining the
sovereignty of the states unimpaired, and of reducing the union to an
alliance between independent nations. To these descriptions of
persons, joined by those who supposed that an opposition of interests
existed between different parts of the continent, was added a numerous
class of honest men, many of whom possessed no inconsiderable share of
intelligence, who could identify themselves perfectly with the state
government, but who considered the government of the United States as
in some respects foreign. The representation of their particular state
not composing a majority of the national legislature, they could not
consider that body as safely representing the people, and were
disposed to measure out power to it with the same sparing hand with
which they would confer it on persons not chosen by themselves, not
accountable to them for its exercise, nor having any common interest
with them. That power might be abused, was, to persons of this
opinion, a conclusive argument against its being bestowed; and they
seemed firmly persuaded that the cradle of the constitution would be
the grave of republican liberty. The friends and the enemies of that
instrument were stimulated to exertion by motives equally powerful;
and, during the interval between its publication and adoption, every
faculty of the mind was strained to