t some sort of tyranny might
grow out of this, and such fears were entertained by men who were not in
the slightest degree infected with Shaysism, as the political disease of
the inland counties was then called. Such fears were entertained by one
of the greatest citizens that Massachusetts has ever produced, the man
who has been well described as preeminently "the man of the town
meeting,"--Samuel Adams. The limitations of this great man, as well as
his powers, were those which belonged to him as chief among the men of
English race who have swayed society through the medium of the ancient
folk mote. At this time he was believed by many to be hostile to the new
Constitution, and his influence in Massachusetts was still greater than
that of any other man. Besides this, it was thought that the governor,
John Hancock, was half-hearted in his support of the Constitution, and
it was in everybody's mouth that Elbridge Gerry had refused to set his
name to that document because he felt sure it would create a tyranny.

Such symptoms encouraged the Antifederalists in the hope that
Massachusetts would reject the Constitution and ruin the plans of the
"visionary young men"--as Richard Henry Lee called them--who had swayed
the Federal Convention. But there were strong forces at work in the
opposite direction. In Boston and all the large coast towns, even those
of the Maine district, the dominant feeling was Federalist. All
well-to-do people had been alarmed by the Shays insurrection, and
merchants, shipwrights, and artisans of every sort were convinced that
there was no prosperity in store for them until the federal government
should have control over commerce, and be enabled to make its strength
felt on the seas and in Europe. In these views Samuel Adams shared so
thoroughly that his attitude toward the Constitution at this moment was
really that of a waverer rather than an opponent. Amid balancing
considerations he found it for some time hard to make up his mind.

In the convention which met on the 9th of January there sat Gorham,
Strong, and King, who had taken part in the Federal Convention. There
were also Samuel Adams and James Bowdoin; the revolutionary generals,
Heath and Lincoln; and the rising statesmen, Sedgwick, Parsons, and
Fisher Ames, whose eloquence was soon to become so famous. There were
twenty-four clergymen, of various denominations,--men of sound
scholarship, and several of them eminent for worldly wisdom and
li