Founding America (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Jack N. Rakove [11]
Had opinion polling existed in this period, it might well have revealed that a majority of Americans either opposed the Constitution outright or deeply distrusted the power it would place in the national government. In securing victory, Federalists capitalized on the strong support they enjoyed in the nation’s major port cities and on their control of the press. By contrast, Anti-Federalists found it dif ficult to get their ideas widely disseminated. Their opposition was poorly coordinated, and it suffered as well from a lack of concerted leadership. Perhaps most important, Anti-Federalists faced the dilemma of having to defend a failing Confederation and a Congress that could barely muster a quorum against a bold vision of the American future supported not only by the nation’s greatest men, notably George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, but also some of its most effective younger leaders, like Madison and Hamilton.
From the outset of this debate, moderate Anti-Federalists proposed various amendments to make the Constitution safer for both the states and their citizens. Many of these proposals required changes in the structure of the national government or the powers it exercised. Others supported the adoption of additional articles restating the fundamental rights of citizens. In conventions where the fate of the Constitution was uncertain—notably Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York—Federalists grudgingly agreed to recommend amendments for the first post-ratification Congress to consider. These concessions were necessary to secure the approval of these key states, but Federalists were careful to insist that ratification precede amendment, not the other way around. Similarly, some Anti-Federalists thought a second convention should be held to revise the Constitution in light of the criticisms leveled against it. But Madison, Hamilton, and other Federalist leaders thought that would lead to political chaos, because the delegations sent to such a convention would come armed with all kinds of instructions limiting the room for compromise.
In the winter of 1789, the eleven ratifying states held elections for the new government. Everyone knew that George Washington would be the first president. More dramatic was the success Federalists enjoyed in the elections to Congress. Solid Federalist majorities would control both houses, and this seemed to deflate the expectation that the Constitution would soon be amended. In Virginia, however, Madison had publicly committed himself to the cause of amendments, not because he believed they were necessary in themselves, but to reconcile moderate Anti-Federalists to the Constitution. Once the new Congress met, he took upon himself the task of convincing Congress that the promises of 1788 had to be honored (pp. 613-627). Many members remained skeptical, but with Madison’s prodding, twelve amendments were sent to the states for ratification in September 1789. Two years passed before the ten that we now call the Bill of Rights were ratified.
Twenty-five years had passed since the colonists first opposed the Stamp Act and invoked constitutional arguments rooted in Anglo-American history. Two revolutions had occurred since. One led to a war of national liberation that allowed the United States to assume its place among the other politically independent nations of the earth. The other took the form of a constitutional revolution that recast received ideas of government in a radically new form. For most Americans, these results have been so long accepted, and seem so familiar, that it is difficult to recall just how innovative they were at the time—and how much they depended on the contingencies of history. The colonists did not set out in 1765 or even