n, he was doubtless a good soldier, but what did he know about
politics? So said the more moderate of the malcontents, hesitating for
the moment to speak disrespectfully of such a man; but presently their
zeal got the better of them, and in a paper signed "Centinel" it was
boldly declared that Washington was a born fool!

[Sidenote: Delaware ratifies the Constitution, Dec. 6, 1787;
Pennsylvania, Dec. 12; New Jersey, Dec. 18.]

From the style and temper of these arguments one clearly sees that the
Antifederalists in Pennsylvania felt from the beginning that the day was
going against them. Sixteen of the men who had seceded from the
assembly, headed by Robert Whitehill of Carlisle, issued a manifesto
setting forth the ill-treatment they had received, and sounding an alarm
against the dangers of tyranny to which the new Constitution was already
exposing them. They were assisted by Richard Henry Lee, who published a
series of papers entitled "Letters from the Federal Farmer," and
scattered thousands of copies through the state of Pennsylvania. He did
not deny that the government needed reforming, but in the proposed plan
he saw the seeds of aristocracy and of centralization. The chief
objections to the Constitution were that it created a national
legislature in which the vote was to be by individuals, and not by
states; that it granted to this body an unlimited power of taxation;
that it gave too much power to the federal judiciary; that it provided
for paying the salaries of members of Congress out of the federal
treasury, and would thus make them independent of their own states; that
it required an oath of allegiance to the federal government; and
finally, that it did not include a bill of rights. These objections were
very elaborately set forth by the leading Antifederalists in the state
convention; but the logic and eloquence of James Wilson bore down all
opposition. The Antifederalists resorted to filibustering. Five days, it
is said, were used up in settling the meanings of the two words
"annihilation" and "consolidation." In this way the convention was kept
sitting for nearly three weeks, when news came from "the Delaware
state," as it used then to be called in Pennsylvania. The concession of
an equal representation in the federal Senate had removed the only
ground of opposition in Delaware, and the Federalists had everything
their own way there. In a convention assembled at Dover, on the 6th of
December, the Consti