tution was ratified without a single dissenting
voice. Thus did this little state lead the way in the good work. The
news was received with exultation by the Federalists at Philadelphia,
and on the 12th Pennsylvania ratified the Constitution by a two thirds
vote of 46 to 23. The next day all business was quite at a standstill,
while the town gave itself up to processions and merry-making. The
convention of New Jersey had assembled at Trenton on the 11th, and one
week later, on the 18th, it ratified the Constitution unanimously.

A most auspicious beginning had thus been made. Three states, one third
of the whole number required, had ratified almost at the same moment.
Two of these, moreover, were small states, which at the beginning of the
Federal Convention had been obstinately opposed to any fundamental
change in the government. It was just here that the Federalists were now
strongest. The Connecticut compromise had wrought with telling effect,
not only in the convention, but upon the people of the states. When the
news from Trenton was received in Pennsylvania, there was great
rejoicing in the eastern counties, while beyond the Susquehanna there
were threats of armed rebellion. On the day after Christmas, as the
Federalists of Carlisle were about to light a bonfire on the common and
fire a salute, they were driven off the field by a mob armed with
bludgeons, their rickety old cannon was spiked, and an almanac for the
new year, containing a copy of the Constitution, was duly cursed, and
then burned. Next day the Federalists, armed with muskets, came back,
and went through their ceremonies. Their opponents did not venture to
molest them; but after they had dispersed, an Antifederalist
demonstration was made, and effigies of James Wilson and Thomas McKean,
another prominent Federalist, were dragged to the common, and there
burned at the stake.

[Sidenote: Georgia ratifies, Jan. 2, 1788; Connecticut, Jan. 9. The
outlook in Massachusetts.]

The action of Delaware and New Jersey had shown that the Antifederalists
could not build any hopes upon the antagonism between large and small
states. It was thought, however, that the southern states would unite in
opposing the Constitution from their dread of becoming commercially
subjected to New England. But the compromise on the slave-trade had
broken through this opposition. On the 2d of January, 1788, the
Constitution was ratified in Georgia without a word of dissent. One week