seemed out of the question. The acceptance of the new form by eleven States had apparently not much influence on North Carolina. The convention wanted the amendments adopted first, and the ratification to take place later. The convention adjourned early in August, but met later and ratified the Constitution on the 21st of November, 1789.

One State now remained out of the new Union. Rhode Island was nothing if not individual. This State was usually a discordant note, and in this instance was consistent by being again out of tune. When the Constitution was submitted, it declined to call a convention, as had been suggested in the resolutions of the Philadelphia Convention. It was roundly abused in all quarters, and the Federalist press suggested that its malcontents be driven with shovels and pickaxes into the sea. The opposition to the Constitution in Rhode Island was due to a variety of local causes, the complete history of which has never been written. Some of these have been referred to in a previous chapter. The matter must still be considered an open question. The orthodox view of the case is utterly unfavorable to the good sense of the people of the State, but this view is combated by numerous local writers. It must be confessed, however, that the arguments set forth on this subject in the proceedings of the Rhode Island Historical Society are by no means conclusive. They fail to redeem the fair name of the State. However this may be, Rhode Island, after remaining in isolation for more than a year after the inauguration of Washington, accepted the new Constitution on the 29th of May, 1790. The Union was now complete, and the vexed question as to the constitutional status of States remaining out of the Union was settled forever. All that was left for political theorists to do was to quibble over what might have been.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ORIGINS OF THE CONSTITUTION

A KNOWLEDGE of the sources from which the Constitution was derived is essential to a thorough understanding of that document. Sir Henry Maine has remarked that there is not originality enough in the human race to invent a code of laws. Anyone who has traced the development of political institutions knows this to be literally true. Although Mr. Gladstone said that “the American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time, by the brain and purpose of man," no one knew better than he that it was the result of centuries of political development, and not the mere creature of spontaneous invention. The American Constitution did not originate in the memorable Philadelphia Convention of 1787, but was made up of Anglo-Saxon precedents, of governmental principles which had been tried and approved by English-speaking people on both sides of the Atlantic. In fact, all those great institutions which make modern civilization possible were developed by a slow evolutionary process whose genesis is to be sought in the remotest past. The law of evolution or growth is not confined to the science of biology, but obtains in the science of politics as well. It was in accordance with this inexorable law of political development that the members of the Constitutional Convention, recognizing the fact that reason and judgment are not infallible guides in constitution making, turned their attention to the pages of history and utilized the accumulated governmental experience

of the race. It is the object of this chapter to trace, in a general way, the immediate precedents for the Constitu-tion to be found in the Articles of Confederation, the early State constitutions, the colonial charters, and other American documents, as well as the more remote precedents which were found in the governments of the Old World and of Great Britain in particular.

A federal government was no new thing in 1787. Various forms of confederations had existed at intervals almost from the beginning of history. The Greek leagues were the most conspicuous of these early attempts at federal government, and frequent mention of them is found in the discussions of the constitutional period. The scholarly members of the Federal Convention, such as Madison, Hamilton, and Wilson, frequently made mention of the Achaian, Lykian, and Ætolian leagues, and also of the Amphictyonic Council. They sought guidance from these experiments. The Federalist, in speaking of the Achaian League remarks: "Could its interior structure and regular operation be ascertained, it is probable that more light would be thrown by it on the science of Federal government, than by any of the like experiments with which we are acquainted." However, it cannot be said with truth that the Greek leagues were of great positive value as guides to the framers of the Constitution. It is evident from an inspection of the debates of the Convention and the Federalist that the makers of the Constitution considered that many of the features of Greek federal government should be avoided rather than copied. The governments of the Greek leagues were cited as negative rather than as positive precedents. They were, however, none the less useful for this reason. They enabled the men of 1787 to avoid many political quagmires into which the acute and subtle Greek, not guided by historical experience, had fallen. A few citations will show the truth of the above statement. Madison, in discussing the New Jersey Plan, remarked that it would not "secure the Union against the

influence of foreign powers over its members," and that it left the door open for "pernicious machinations" such as took place in the Amphictyonic Council and the Achaian League. He also said that the history of confederations showed that the tendency was for the "parts to encroach upon the authority of the whole." He again cited the history of the Greek leagues to substantiate his statement. In the course of an able argument in favor of having a bicameral national legislature, James Wilson said that it was not strange that the legislatures of previous confederations had only one house. "The Amphictyonic and Achaian," he continued, "were formed in the infancy of political science, and appear, by their history and fate, to have contained radical defects." Alexander Hamilton also pointed to certain features of the Amphictyonic Council which, in his opinion, should be avoided in the new Constitution. When Oliver Ellsworth, of Connecticut, urged that each State should have an equal representation in the Senate, on the ground that "no instance of a confederacy has existed in which an equality of voices has not been exercised by the members of it," James Madison called his attention to the fact that the cities comprising the Lykian League had a representation "proportioned to their importance;" yet Mr. Madison further added that he would place no great stress on that fact, since the "history and fate of the several confederacies, modern as well as ancient," exhibited " some radical vice in their structure." Some few features of these Greek governments were commended, however, and their acceptance urged; but the experience of Greece was mainly useful in pointing out governmental principles which had been tried and found wanting.

In the debates of the Convention and in the Federalist, frequent reference is also made to the constitutions of the German Confederation, the Swiss Cantons, the Italian Republics, and the United Netherlands. In short, the governments of all important confederacies, ancient and modern, were scrutinized in search for historical guidance.