As in natural science no organism is pretended to be understood as long as its merely superficial aspects are described, so in history no movement by a mass of people can be correctly comprehended until that mass is resolved into its component parts. To apply this concept to the problem before us: no mathematically exact conclusion can be reached concerning the material interests reflected in the Constitution until “the people” who favored its adoption and “the people” who opposed it are individualized and studied as economic beings dependent upon definite modes and processes of gaining a livelihood. A really fine analytical treatment of this problem would, therefore, require a study of the natural history of the (approximately) 160,000 men involved in the formation and adoption of the Constitution; but for the present we must rely on rougher generalizations, drawn from incomplete sources.

It would be fortunate if we had a description of each of the state conventions similar to that made of the Philadelphia Convention;^[622] but such a description would require a study of the private economy of several hundred men, with considerable scrutiny. And the results of such a search would be on the whole less fruitful than those secured by the study of the Philadelphia Convention, because so many members of the state ratifying bodies were obscure persons of whom biography records nothing and whose property holdings do not appear in any of the documents that have come down to us. In a few instances, as in the case of Pennsylvania, a portion of this work has been done in a fragmentary way—as regards economic matters; and it may be hoped that a penetrating analysis of the public security holdings and other property interests of the members of all state conventions may sometime be made—as far as the sources will allow. Nevertheless, for the purposes of this study, certain general truths concerning the conflict over the ratification of the Constitution in the several states have already been established by scholars like Libby, Harding, Ambler.

The first of these authors, Dr. Libby, has made a painstaking study of the Geographical Distribution of the Vote on the Constitution, in which he sets forth the economic characteristics of the areas for and against the adoption of the Constitution. These conclusions are all utilized in this chapter; but they are supplemented by reference to the later researches of Harding^[623] and Ambler,^[624] and by a large amount of new illustrative materials here presented for the first time. The method followed is to exhibit, in general, the conflict of economic interests in each of the several states over the adoption of the Constitution.

New Hampshire.—There were three rather sharply marked economic districts in New Hampshire which found political expression in the convention that ratified the Constitution. Two of the three were the sea-coast area and the interior or middle region. “The former,” says Libby, “the coast area, represented the commercial and urban interests; here were to be found most of the professional men, leaders of thought, men of wealth and influence. The second section, the interior, was composed of those representing the small farmers; a population cut off from the outside world by lack of good roads, and which raised little for market except to exchange for the few things that could not be produced at home. The former class, progressive and liberal and familiar with the practical details of government, as a rule voted for the Constitution. The latter, conservative by environment and having little knowledge of what went on outside the narrow bounds of the home village or township, quite as generally voted against the Constitution.”^[625]

The third region in New Hampshire (whose representatives favored ratification) was “the Connecticut valley or border district” whose interests were akin to those of the sea towns because it had commercial connection with the outside world through the Connecticut River. It was to this region particularly that Oliver Ellsworth must have appealed in his open letter to the citizens of New Hampshire in which he said: “New York, the trading towns on the Connecticut River, and Boston are the sources from which a great part of your foreign supplies will be obtained, and where your produce will be exposed for market. In all these places an import is collected, of which, as consumers, you pay a share without deriving any public benefit. You cannot expect any alteration in the private systems of these states unless effected by the proposed government.”^[626]

Several economic facts of prime significance in the ratification of the Constitution in New Hampshire are afforded by the tax returns of 1793. These show that of the £61,711:9:5 “total value of stock in trade” in the state in that year (Vermont being then cut off) no less than £42,512:0:5 or over two-thirds was in Rockingham county, the seat of the commercial town of Portsmouth, whose citizens were the leading agitators for the new system, and whose delegates in the state convention were overwhelmingly in favor of ratification. Moreover, of the total amount of the “money on hand or at interest” in the state, £35,985:5:6, about two-thirds, £22,770:9:4 was in Rockingham county. It is of further significance that of the £893,327:16:10 worth of real estate and buildings in the state, less than one-half, £317,970:7:2, was in that county.^[627] Thus the stronghold of Federalism possessed about two-thirds of all the personalty and only about one-half of the realty values in the commonwealth.

All personalty was not equally interested in ratifying the Constitution, as pointed out above; holders of public paper multiplied their values from six to twenty times in securing the establishment of the new system. Further interesting data would be revealed, therefore, if we could discover the proportion of public securities to other personalty and their geographic distribution.^[628] The weight of the securities in New Hampshire is shown by the fact that the tax list for 1793 gives only £35,985 as the total amount of money on hand or at interest (including public securities)^[629] in the state, while the accounts of the Treasury department show that $20,000 in interest on the public debt went to the loan office of that state to discharge that annual federal obligation.^[630] It is highly probable that the tax list is very low, but even at that the public securities constituted a considerable mass of the capital of the commonwealth. The leading supporters of the Constitution in New Hampshire were large holders of public paper,^[631] and there is no doubt that as personalty was the dynamic element in the movement for the Constitution, so securities were the dynamic element in the personalty.

Massachusetts.—The vote in Massachusetts on the Constitution was clearly along class or group lines: those sections in which were to be found the commerce, money, securities—in a word, personalty—were in favor of the ratification of the new instrument of government; and those sections which were predominantly rural and possessed little personalty were against it. Libby classifies the sections on the basis of the vote as follows:—

Speaking of this table he says: “Such striking differences as these indicate clearly that there is something fundamental lying back of the vote. Each of these sections is an economic and social unit, the first representing the coast region, the second the interior, and the third the Connecticut valley and border districts of the state. In the eastern section the interests were commercial; there was the wealth, the influence, the urban population of the state.... The middle section of Massachusetts represented the interior agricultural interests of the state—the small farmers. From this section came a large part of the Shays faction in 1786. The Connecticut valley or western district may be subdivided into the northern, most interior, and predominantly Antifederal section, and the southern section, nearest the coast and predominantly Federal, with the trading towns of the Connecticut River in its southeastern part.”^[632]

Harding, after an independent study of the opposition to the Constitution in Massachusetts, comes to substantially the same conclusion. Among the weighty elements in the struggle he places “the conflict of interest, partly real and partly fancied, between the agricultural and the commercial sections of the state.” Underlying the whole opposition, he continues, “was the pronounced antagonism between the aristocratic and the democratic elements of society in Massachusetts.... Massachusetts was not alone in this experience; in most, if not all, of the states a similar contest had arisen since the war. The men who at Philadelphia had put their names to the new Constitution were, it seems quite safe to affirm, at that time identified with the aristocratic interest.... There can be no question that this feeling [of antagonism between democracy and aristocracy] underlay most of the opposition in the Massachusetts convention.”^[633]

Of course this second element of opposition—aristocracy versus democracy—introduced by Harding is really nothing but the first under another guise; for the aristocratic party was the party of wealth with its professional dependents; and the democratic party was the agrarian element which, by the nature of economic circumstances, could have no large body of professional adherents. This economic foundation of the class division was fully understood by Adams and set forth with unmistakable clearness in his Defence of the American Constitutions. Hamilton, Madison, and all thinkers among the Federalists understood it also. To speak of a democratic interest apart from its economic sources is therefore a work of supererogation; and it does not add, in fact, to an exposition of the real forces at work. Harding himself recognizes this and explains it in a luminous fashion in his introductory chapter.

And what were the economic and social antecedents of the opponents of the Constitution in the Massachusetts convention? Harding, with his customary directness, meets the inquiry: “A half-dozen obscure men, it must be answered, whose names are utterly unknown, even to most students of this period.” He continues: “William Widgery (or Wedgery) of New Gloucester, Maine, was one of these.^[634] A poor, friendless, uneducated boy, he had emigrated from England before the Revolution, had served as a lieutenant on board a privateer in that contest, had then settled in Maine, had acquired some property, and by 1788 had served one term in the Massachusetts legislature.... Samuel Thompson, of Topsham, Maine, was another of the anti-federalist leaders. A self-made man, he had the obstinacy of opinion which such men often show.... He was wealthy for the times, but inclined to be niggardly.... Another determined opponent of the proposed Constitution was Samuel Nasson (or Nason) of Sanford, Maine. Born in New Hampshire and a saddler by trade, he became a store keeper in Maine, served awhile in the War ... and finally settled down as a trader at Sanford.... In 1787 he served a term in the General Court, but declined a reelection because he felt ‘the want of a proper education.’... From Massachusetts proper, Dr. John Taylor, of Douglas, Worcester County, was the most prominent opponent of the new Constitution.... But the slightest information, it seems, can now be gathered as to his history and personality. He had been one of the popular majority in the legislature of 1787 where he had taken an active part in procuring the extension of the Tender Law.... Another delegate from this part of the state who was prominent in the opposition was Captain Phanuel Bishop, of Rehoboth, Bristol County. In him the Rhode Island virus may be seen at work.... He was a native of Massachusetts and had received a public school education. When or why he had been dubbed Captain is not now apparent. Belknap styles him ‘a noted insurgent’; and he had evidently ridden into office on the crest of the Shaysite wave. His first legislative experience had been in the Senate of 1787 where he had championed the debtor’s cause.”^[635]

This completes the list of leaders who fought bitterly against the Constitution to the end in Massachusetts, according to a careful student of the ratification in that state: three self-made men from the Maine regions and two representatives of the debtor’s cause. Nothing could be more eloquent than this description of the alignment.

Neither Harding nor Libby has, however, made analysis of the facts disclosed by the tax lists of Massachusetts or the records in the Treasury Department at Washington, which show unquestionably that the live and persistent economic force which organized and carried through the ratification was the personalty interests and particularly the public security interests. As has been pointed out, these had the most to gain immediately from the Constitution. Continental paper bought at two and three shillings in the pound was bound to rise rapidly with the establishment of the federal government. No one knew this better than the members of the federal Convention from Massachusetts and their immediate friends and adherents in Boston.

Of the total amount of funded 6 per cents in the state, £113,821, more than one-half, £65,730, was concentrated in the two counties, Essex and Suffolk, of which Boston was the urban centre—the two counties whose delegates in the state convention were almost unanimous in supporting the Constitution. Of the total amount of 3 per cents, £73,100, more than one-half, £43,857, was in these two counties. Of the deferred stock, amounting to £59,872, more than one-half, £32,973, was in these two counties. Of the total amount of all other securities of the state or the United States in the commonwealth, £94,893, less than one-third or £30,329, was in these counties. Of the total amount of money at interest in the state, £196,698, only about one-third, £63,056, was in these two counties, which supports the above conjecture that public securities were the active element.^[636]

Further confirmation for this conjecture seems to be afforded by the following tables, showing the distribution of the vote and of public securities.^[637] The first group shows the votes of the delegates from Essex and Suffolk counties—the Federalist strongholds—on the ratification, and also the amount of public securities in each as revealed by the tax lists of 1792:

Table of public securities listed for taxation in each of these counties:

Now let us take the vote in the convention, and the property in two counties which were heavily against the Constitution.^[638] The vote is as follows:

The tables of public securities and money in these counties follow:

Now if we take the securities in these two counties which went heavily against the Constitution several economic facts are worthy of notice. Of the total amount of 6 per cents in the state, only £13,905, or about one-eighth is to be found in them. Of the 3 per cents, we find £8,849, or about one-eighth of the total amount in the commonwealth. But if we take money at interest, we find £31,892, or about one-sixth of the total amount in the state. This is not surprising, for Worcester was the centre of the Shays rebellion in behalf of debtors, and a large portion of their creditors were presumably in the neighborhood.^[639]

“The courts were burdened with suits for ordinary debts by means of which creditors sought to put in more lasting form the obligations which their debtors could not at that time meet. In Worcester county alone, with a population of less than 50,000, more than 2000 actions were entered in 1784, and during the next year 1700 more were put on the list.”^[640]

These figures, like all other statistics, should be used with care, and it would require a far closer analysis than can be made here to work out all of their political implications. We should have a thorough examination of such details as the distribution of the public securities among towns and individual holders; and such a work is altogether worthy of a Quetelet.

Meanwhile, it may be said with safety that the communities in which personalty was relatively more powerful favored the ratification of the Constitution, and that in these communities large quantities of public securities were held. Moreover, there was undoubtedly a vital connection between the movement in support of the Constitution and public security holding, or to speak concretely, among the leading men in Massachusetts who labored to bring about the ratification was a large number of public creditors.

For example, Boston had twelve representatives in the state ratifying convention, all of whom voted in favor of the Constitution. Of these twelve men the following were holders of public securities:^[641]

In other words, at least eight out of the twelve men representing the chief financial centre of the state were personally interested in the fate of the new Constitution. How deeply, it is impossible to say, for the Ledgers seem to have disappeared from the Treasury Department and only the Index to the funded debt remains. Supplementary records, however, show some of them to have been extensively engaged in dealing in paper. The four men who, apparently, were not security holders were John Hancock, Caleb Davis, Charles Jarvis, and Rev. Samuel Stillman.^[642]

The towns surrounding Boston in Suffolk county also returned a number of men who were holders of securities:^[643]

In other words, twenty-two of the thirty-four men from Boston and Suffolk county who voted in favor of the ratification of the Constitution in the Massachusetts convention were holders of public securities, and all of the twenty-two except two (Wales and Warren) probably benefited from the appreciation of the funds which resulted from the ratification.^[644]

To recapitulate. There were thirty-nine members of the Massachusetts convention from Suffolk county, which includes Boston. Of these, thirty-four voted for the ratification of the Constitution, and of the thirty-four who so voted, two-thirds, or twenty-two to be exact, were holders of public paper.

That other supporters of the Constitution from other Massachusetts counties held paper so extensively is not to be expected, and a casual glance through the records shows that this surmise is probably true. Boston was the centre of the Federalist agitation, and it supplied the sinews of war for the campaign which finally secured the adoption of the new system of government.

Connecticut.—The vote on the Constitution in Connecticut was so largely in favor of ratification that no very clear lines of cleavage are apparent on the surface.^[645] The opposition, as measured by the vote of the delegates in the Convention, was “scattered and unimportant. Its two chief centres were in New Haven county on the coast, and in five or six towns on the Connecticut river at the northern boundary, connecting with a group of opposition towns in Massachusetts.”^[646] It is worthy of note that the considerable towns for the time, Windsor, Norwalk, Stamford, Litchfield, Hartford, and New Haven were for the Constitution, while much of the opposition came from small inland towns like Cornwall, Norfolk, and Sharon.^[647]

The map facing this page shows that the Federalist towns were the financial centres of the time in Connecticut. The representatives of the “shaded” towns in the state convention voted against the Constitution; those from the partially “shaded” towns were divided; and those from the plain white towns voted for the Constitution.^[648] Each black dot represents a holder of one 6 per cent assumed debt bond.^[649] It is apparent at a glance that there must have been some relation between security holding and the “sentiments,” to use Madison’s term,^[650] of the respective proprietors. Hartford alone had almost as many security holders as all of the Anti-Federalist towns combined. It would be interesting to have a map showing the distribution of all other forms of wealth as well as the assumed debt.

What a more searching study would produce were we able to carry the contest back into the town meetings that chose the delegates cannot be conjectured. But the local evidence—even that which was recorded—has largely disappeared or would require years of search to unearth. Moreover, the tax system in Connecticut at the time was not such as to yield the data most needed for such an inquiry, for “loans to the state and the United States were exempt from assessment.”^[651] Whether this grew out of a public policy or the fact that the chief politicians of the day were large holders of securities—evidenced by the records in the Treasury Department at Washington—is also a matter for conjecture. No documents, no history.

Nevertheless, as in Massachusetts, the public securities formed a dynamic element in the movement for ratification. One hundred and twenty-eight members of the Connecticut convention voted in favor of the new system. Of these men at least sixty-five held public paper in some amount (ranging from a few dollars to tens of thousands) previous to or about the time of the adoption of the Constitution. They are given here in alphabetical order with the names of the towns which they represented.

It must not be thought that the ramifications of economic interest ends with these names.^[653] A large number of men who do not appear on the records as holding securities personally, belonged to families having such holdings. For example, John Chester, of Wethersfield, is apparently not on the books, but he was a colonel in the war and doubtless received the soldiers’ certificates or other paper at some period. Thomas Chester and Sarah Chester of Wethersfield appear on the records. Whether there were family connections might be ascertained by a study of local history. It is evident what infinite pains would be required to trace out all of these genealogical data.

New York.—There can be no question about the predominance of personalty in the contest over the ratification in New York. That state, says Libby, “presents the problem in its simplest form. The entire mass of interior counties ... were solidly Antifederal, comprising the agricultural portion of the state, the last settled and the most thinly populated. There were however in this region two Federal cities (not represented in the convention [as such]), Albany in Albany county and Hudson in Columbia county.... The Federal area centred about New York city and county: to the southwest lay Richmond county (Staten Island); to the southeast Kings county, and to the northeast Westchester county; while still further extending this area, at the northeast lay the divided county of Dutchess, with a vote in the convention of 4 to 2 in favor of the Constitution, and at the southeast were the divided counties of Queens and Suffolk.... These radiating strips of territory with New York city as a centre form a unit, in general favorable to the new Constitution; and it is significant of this unity that Dutchess, Queens, and Suffolk counties broke away from the anti-Federal phalanx and joined the Federalists, securing thereby the adoption of the Constitution.”^[654]

Unfortunately the exact distribution of personalty in New York and particularly in the wavering districts which went over to the Federalist party cannot be ascertained, for the system of taxation in vogue in New York at the period of the adoption of the Constitution did not require a state record of property.^[655] The data which proved so fruitful in Massachusetts are not forthcoming, therefore, in the case of New York; but it seems hardly necessary to demonstrate the fact that New York City was the centre of personalty for the state and stood next to Philadelphia as the great centre of operations in public stock.

This somewhat obvious conclusion is reinforced by the evidence relative to the vote on the legal tender bill which the paper money party pushed through in 1786. Libby’s analysis of this vote shows that “No vote was cast against the bill by members of counties north of the county of New York. In the city and county of New York and in Long Island and Staten Island, the combined vote was 9 to 5 against the measure. Comparing this vote with the vote on the ratification in 1788, it will be seen that of the Federal counties 3 voted against paper money and 1 for it; of the divided counties 1 (Suffolk) voted against paper money and 2 (Queens and Dutchess) voted for it. Of the anti-Federal counties none had members voting against paper money. The merchants as a body were opposed to the issue of paper money and the Chamber of Commerce adopted a memorial against the issue.”^[656]

Public security interests were identified with the sound money party. There were thirty members of the New York constitutional convention who voted in favor of the ratification of the Constitution and of these no less than sixteen were holders of public securities:^[657]

New Jersey.—New Jersey was among the states which pushed through the ratification of the Constitution without giving the agrarian party time to organize its forces; and, from the records, the vote in the state convention was unanimous. This unanimity is rather startling in view of the fact that the year before a paper money party had been able to force through an emission bill by a narrow margin. Either there was a violent reaction against inflation, or the Federalist campaign had been highly organized. What little opposition appears to have been raised in that state seems to have been by the debtor and paper money class.^[660]

It must be admitted, however, that no detailed study of the ratification in New Jersey has ever been made. Libby passes it over briefly; and the older writers like Bancroft and Curtis dismiss it with their usual lightness of touch. Unfortunately for such a study, the records of the convention in that state are no more than bare minutes; and the materials in the Treasury Department from the New Jersey loan office are extremely fragmentary. Until extended search in local and state history is made on the points here raised, New Jersey must be dismissed cursorily.

There were thirteen counties in the state represented in the Convention, and each of nine counties had one or more representatives who had learned the elementary lessons in public finance through holding at least some small amounts of public securities—often certificates of only trivial value. The meagre character of the records of that state do not permit of a satisfactory statement. There were three delegates from Bergen county; of these John Fell appears on the Register of Land Office Certificates; there is no record of Peter Zabriskie either as a subscriber to original funds or as owner of securities; but a Jacob Zabriskie appears on a later Ledger. From Essex county, John Chetwood and David Crane appear among the holders; from Middlesex, John Beatty, John Neilson, and Benjamin Manning—the entire delegation; from Somerset, Fred. Frelinghuysen; from Gloucester, Andw. Hunter; from Salem, Edmund Wetherby; from Hunterdon, David Brearley and Joshua Corshon; from Morris, John Jacob Faesch; and from Sussex, Robert Ogden and Thomas Anderson, and even the Secretary, Saml. W. Stockton, was a considerable holder. Thus every county except Cumberland, Cape-of-May, Burlington, and Monmouth had its spokesmen for public creditors.^[661]

Delaware.—Although there had been a strong paper money party in Delaware it does not seem to have manifested any considerable influence in the ratification of the Constitution, for that commonwealth was the first to set its seal on the new instrument, and it did so with apparent unanimity. No detailed scrutiny of the local contests over the election of delegates has ever been made; and the records of the loan office of that state preserved in the Treasury Department are defective. The records for taxation are also of little help. The absence of any contest of course contributes to obscuring the economic forces which may have been at work.^[662]

Pennsylvania.—In strong contrast to the uniformity in Delaware is the sharp division which existed in Pennsylvania. There, says Libby, “the opposition to the Constitution came from those counties belonging to the great interior highland of the state, extending from the head waters of the Schuylkill to the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers, with only Huntingdon county (one vote—Federal) interrupting the continuity from east to west.... The Federal area contained ... York, Lancaster, Chester, Montgomery, Philadelphia, Bucks, Luzerne, and Northampton, and the largest population, most of the men of wealth and influence and the commercial classes of the state. Pittsburg with 400 inhabitants was Federal in an Anti-Federal county.”^[663]

Each of the eastern counties of Pennsylvania was represented in the state convention by one or more members who held public securities.^[664] From Philadelphia city and county, five of the ten members, all of whom favored ratification, were interested in stocks, George Latimer, James Wilson, Thomas M’Kean, Samuel Ashmead, and Enoch Edwards. From Bucks came John Barclay, a large dealer, to whose credit $17,056.56 is set down in one entry. Two of the six members from Chester, John Hannum and Thomas Bull, were security holders. James Morris, of Montgomery county, John Black and David Grier, from York, Timothy Pickering, from Luzerne, Stephen Balliet, David Deshler, and Joseph Horsfield of Northampton (three of the four from that county) were interested. From Lancaster came Jasper Yeates, a large holder (one entry $11,986.65), Robert Coleman, Sebastian Graff, and John Hubley (four of the six delegates), who had a first-hand knowledge of the relation of a new and stable government to public paper.

In other words at least nineteen out of the forty-six men who voted for the Constitution in the Pennsylvania convention were interested in public paper at or about the time of the adoption of the Constitution. Their names follow with the references to each,^[665] but it is not to be supposed that this list is complete, for the records of Pennsylvania are not full, and a great many of the transactions in that state were not with the local loan office, but directly with the Treasury, a part of whose early records were probably burned in one of the fires at the Treasury Building: