th in it. But what was undeniable was that
Richard Henry Lee wrote a letter to Gerry, urging that Massachusetts
should not adopt the Constitution without insisting upon sundry
amendments; and in order to consider these amendments, it was suggested
that there should be another Federal Convention. At this anxious crisis,
Washington suddenly threw himself into the breach with that infallible
judgment of his which always saw the way to victory. "If another Federal
Convention is attempted," said Washington, "its members will be more
discordant, and will agree upon no general plan. The Constitution is the
best that can be obtained at this time.... The Constitution or disunion
are before us to choose from. If the Constitution is our choice, a
constitutional door is open for amendments, and they may be adopted in a
peaceable manner, without tumult or disorder."

[Sidenote: Massachusetts ratifies, proposing amendments, Feb. 6, 1788.]

When this advice of Washington's reached Boston, it set in motion a
train of events which soon solved the difficulty, both for Massachusetts
and for the other states which had not yet made up their mind. Chief
among the objections to the Constitution had been the fact that it did
not contain a bill of rights. It did not guarantee religious liberty,
freedom of speech and of the press, or the right of the people
peacefully to assemble and petition the government for a redress of
grievances. It did not provide against the quartering of soldiers upon
the people in time of peace. It did not provide against general
search-warrants, nor did it securely prescribe the methods by which
individuals should be held to answer for criminal offences. It did not
even provide that nobody should be burned at the stake or stretched on
the rack, for holding peculiar opinions about the nature of God or the
origin of evil. That such objections to the Constitution seem strange to
us to-day is partly due to the determined attitude of the men who, amid
all the troubles of the time, would not consent to any arrangement from
which such safeguards to free thinking and free living should be
omitted. The friends of the Constitution in Boston now proposed that the
convention, while adopting it, should suggest sundry amendments
containing the essential provisions of a bill of rights. It was not
intended that the ratification should be conditional. Under the
circumstances, a conditional ratification might prove as disastrous as
re