The geographical distribution of the vote of the thirteen states on the Federal constitution, 1787-8;
Libby, Orin Grant, 1864-1952
■ • (J ■*:' J ' .'V - ■■*■■.■■;' t ) ■ I «V : ' ' /' > ^ ■■ ' } k< '* ■'•'•''', • ~\- '" ' ".' " . '')"'"" ,.i I" ■ , : 'j ' ■ ■" f. fc ^ ' •'• '■ .)-, ''V'" : • ;'"i-' :< ' ' ' 'jL ;■ f fe' ; v * i? , •• r i * ^ ,- -i . '• y , ' \ •< * . . ''' General library $ysfeiTl ' V w •Universe/ of Wiscposiri - Madison ?2$ Stats' ■Stfee't-- .•'''■■ .-'. ,'V- ; W|adjson 1 WI53?06-1494 ,. BMflmEVF**-*'.?-* *»**-*■» *» iffrU? - 4 3****~: * A ¥ 3^V * \ \; ; _" N BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN Economics, Political Science, and History Series Vol 1. No. 1. pp. l-iie THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE VOTE OF THE THIRTEEN STATES ON THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION, 1787-8 ORIN GRANT LIBBY, M. L. Fellow in History PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY OF LAW AND WITH THE APPROVAL OF THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY MADISON, WIS. PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY June, 1894 Jt W,JC ^ ^«ia^ Genera! Librarv System Universe ;-jn - Madison 728 Si Madison, »«tow. wo-1494 U.SA A« 398487 % *in0^ 5 \W{} OCT -y 1933 • *"' EDITOR'S NOTE. The following paper is one of a series of studies carried on in my seminary in American history, with the design of contributing to an understanding of the> relations between the political history of the United. -States,- arid "the physio- graphic, social, and economic 'jibo^dijtipngf- -underlying this history. A preliminary pape^^itm^ediNtt;-^ indicating some aspects of the proposed work*,, Jiasjarkteady'be'en pub- lished under the title, " The Significance of the Frontier in American History." (Proceedings of t&e^State Historical Society of Wisconsin, December 14, 1893; and Annual Re- port of the American Historical Association for 1893, Sen- ate Misc. Doc. No. 104, 53d Cong., 2d Sess., in press). It is believed that many phases of our political history have been obscured by the attention paid to state bounda- ries, and to the sectional lines of North and South. At the same time the economic interpretation of our history has been neglected. In the study of the persistence of the strug- gle for state particularism in American constitutional his- tory, it was inevitable that writers should make prominent the state as a political factor. But, from the point of view of the rise and growth of sectionalism and of nationalism, it is much more important to note the existence of great social and economic areas, independent of state lines, which have acted as units in political history, and which have changed their political attitude as they changed their economic organization, and divided into new groups. American growth has exhibited not only the evolution of the Atlantic coast from sparse settlement to concen- iv BULLETIN OP THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN. trated city life, with all the changes in political sentiments involved in these economic and social transformations; it has also exhibited the spread of population steadily west- ward, with areas of sparse settlement on the borders of this advancing society, contemporaneous with the complex and concentrated settlements of the older regions. Thus the United States has been at once a developed country and a primitive one. The same political questions have been put to a society, advanced in some regions, and unde- veloped in others. More than this, each area of settlement has been undergoing continual modifications. Physio- graphic conditions have facilitated the rapid evolution of some areas and have retarded others, so that the com- plexity of this grouping has been increased. We have also the peculiar transformation of the South and the slave system — the changes involved in the substitution of cotton culture for rice and tobacco culture, the changes resulting from the Civil War, emancipation, and the gradual develop- ment of diversified industry in the South similar to that in the North. Within the United States there have been exhibited con- temporaneously all the stages of social progress, from the hunting to the manufacturing stage. Each of these social con- ditions has been exhibited on a determinable geographical area. Each of these areas has been evolving into a higher stage of social advance; the grain raising region becomes a region with diversified farming; the region with diversi- fied farming becomes the region of manufacture; the hunt- ing or pastoral region of the arid tracts, is turned by irrigation into a varied agricultural region, with corres- ponding social transformations. On specific political ques- tions each economic area has reflected its peculiar interests. At a subsequent period, when the geographical area occu- pied by this stage of economic developement has evolved into a higher economic stage, the change is made apparent in changed views on similar political questions. Thus editor's note. V Wisconsin, once a "Granger state," has now little sympa- thy with the western Populists. The effects of these differences in organic areas upon specific political questions has been noted with more or less insight into the real economic territorial divisions, by occasional writers. But no writer has as yet brought out the importance of these groups and their transformations as continuous factors in our history. Since the present paper was completed, I have noted, in Mr. Hildreth's History of the United States, an important example of the use of economic divisions to explain political action, in a limited period. It seen will be that the statement is dogmatic and from the point of view of a Federalist, but the opinion of Mr. Hildreth is of wreight, and as it goes to confirm the correctness of the results embodied in the present paper, I quote the passage. "The Federal party with Washington and Hamilton at its head, represented the experience, the prudence, the practical wisdom, the discipline, the conservative reason and instincts of the country. The opposition headed by Jefferson, expressed its hopes, wishes, theories, many of them enthusiastic and impracticable, more especially its passions, its sympathies and antipathies, its impatience of restraint. The Federalists had their strength in those narrow districts where a concentrated population had pro- duced and contributed to maintain that complexity of insti- tutions and that reverence for social order, which, in pro- portion as men are brought into contiguity, become more absolutely necessaries of existence. The ultra-democratical ideas of the opposition prevailed in all that more extensive region in which the dispersion of population, and the des- potic authority vested in individuals over families of slaves, kept society in a state of immaturity, and made legal re- restraints the more irksome in proportion as their necessity was the less felt. Massachusetts and Connecticut stood at the head of the one party, supported, though not always without some wavering by the rest of New England. The Vi BULLETIN OP THE UNIVERSITY OF WI800NSIN. other party was led by Virginia, by whose finger all the states south and west of the Potomac might be considered to be guided. The only exception was South Carolina, in the tide water district of which state a certain number of the wealthier and more intelligent planters, led by a few men of talents and probity, who had received their educa- tion in England, were inclined to support the Federal policy, so ably upheld in Congress by Smith, Harper, Pinckney and Rutledge. But even in South Carolina the mass of the voting population felt and thought otherwise; nor could the influence of a few individuals long resist a numerical preponderancy so decided. As for the states of Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky, and except for a brief moment, North Carolina, they followed without doubt or hesitation in the wake of Virginia; and the rapidly increas- ing backwoods settlements of all these states constantly added new strength to the opposition The de- cision between Federalism and the so-called Republican party, depended on the two great and growing states of Pennsylvania and New York; and from the very fact that they were growing, that both of them had an extensive backwoods frontier, and that both were constantly receiv- ing accessions of political enthusiasts from Europe, they both inclined more and more to the Republican side. 1 In addition to the light cast by the paper upon the antipathy felt by the interior agricultural settlements to strong government, it is iteresting to note the influence of frontier conditions and sparse settlement in permitting lax business honor, inflated paper currency and wild-cat bank- ing. Mr. Libby shows that the colonial and revolutionary interior was the region whence emanated many of the worst forms of an evil currency. The West in the War of 1812 re- peated the phenomenon oa the frontier of that day, while the speculation and wild-cat banking of the period of the crisis of 1837 occurred on the new frontier belt; and the i Hildreth, History of United States, v., 415. 416. EDITOR S NOTE. Vll present Populistic agitation finds its stronghold in those western and southern regions whose social and economic conditions are in many respects strikingly like those exist- ing in 1787 in the areas that opposed the ratification of the Constitution. A phase of social transformation has passed westward, and carried with it, in successive areas, similar agitations over questions of debt and taxation. Between paper money agitations in the colonial days, and the pres- ent Western unrest and remedial proposals, there is a histor- ical continuity. Like social conditions have wrought like effects. Thus each one of the periods of lax financial integ- . grity coincides with periods when a new set of frontier communities has arisen, and, for the most part, coincides in area with these successive frontiers. A primitive society can hardly be expected to show intelligent appreciation of the complexity of business interests in a developed society. The continual recurrence of these areas of paper-money agitation is another evidence that the similar social and economic areas can be isolated and studied as factors of the highest importance in American history. It is believed, therefore, that a series of studies upon natural economic groupings in American history will be of service to the investigator who desires to understand political history in the light of economic and social forces. To such a historical geography of organic social and economic areas, Mr. Libby's paper is designed to con- tribute. Frederick J. Turner. CONTENTS. Paoe. Map showing the Distribution of the Vote on the Fed- eral Constitution Map showing the Distribution of Population in 1790. Introduction 1-6 Chapter I. State Areas of Opposition and Support of the Federal Constitution 7-45 Chapter II. Interstate Groupings of the Opposition and Support of the Federal Constitution. . . 46-49 Chapter III. Relation of the Paper Money and Debt Factions to the Ratification of the Constitution. . 50-69 Chapter IV. Instructions to Delegates 70-94 Appendix A. Sources for the Mapping of the Local Units. 95-104 Appendix B. Corrections to the Vote of Massachu- setts, as given in Volume II. of Elliot's Debates. 105-109 Appendix C. Votes of the Delegates in the Respective State Conventions . . . 110-116 )L I. PL 2. ra i i i ! i UNIV. WIS., HIST. SEA VOL I. PL. 2. THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE VOTE OF THE THIRTEEN STATES ON THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION, 1787-8. Introduction. The history of the period of the ratification of the Con- stitution of the United States has been studied from vari- ous points of view. Some writers have discussed the purely legal aspects of the Constitution. Others have ap- proached it from the side of political science. The de- bates in the Federal and state conventions have long been text-books for the student of the Constitution, while a whole mass of pamphlet discussion bearing on the ques- tion has been carefully collected. The evolution of the Note. —The library of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin has been generously opened for my use by the secretary, Mr. Reuben Gold Thwaites. It has furnished me with most of the material necessary for this paper, but I have supplemented its resources by correspondence with historical investigators and collectors who were able to furnish me needed documents. In particular I am indebted to the following gentlemen, whose cour- tesy I desire to acknowledge: A. S. Batchellor, editor of the New Hampshire State Papers, Littleton, New Hampshire; .Henry P. Rolfe, J. B. Walker, and O. G. Hammond, of Con cord, New Hampshire; A. 8. Chapman, town clerk, Simsbury, Connecticut; Wm. E.Fos- ter, Librarian of Providence Public Library, Providence, Rhode Island; Sidney S. Rider, Providence, Rhode Island; J. L. Harrison, Assistant Librarian, New York State Library, Albany, New York; F. D. Stone, Librarian of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Wm. H. Egle, State Librarian of State Library of Pennsyl- vania, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Lyman P. Powell, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Austin Scott, Rutgers College, New Brunswick, New Jersey; Morris R. Hamilton, State Libra- rian, New Jersey State Library, Trenton, New Jersey; Bernard C. Steiner, Librarian of Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, Maryland; R. A. Brock, Secretary of the Southern Historical Society, Richmond, Virginia; Wm. M. Laughlin, Lexington, Virginia; Wm. Wirt Henry, Richmond, Virginia; Stephen B. Weeks, formerly of Trinity College, Dur- ham, North Carolina; Jos. Blount Cheshire, Jr., Charlotte, North Carolina; R. Means Davis, South Carolina College, Columbia, South Carolina; and especially to Professor Chas. H. Haskins, of the University of Wisconsin. 2 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN. various political institutions provided for in the Constitu- tion has been studiously worked out, and it may be safely assumed that recent writers have corrected the misconcep- tion that the instrument was a product of abstract reasoning. But there is another misconception as firmly rooted, perhaps, in popular opinion as the former; namely, that the fate of the Constitution was determined exclusively, or at least predominantly, by discussions in convention on the various provisions of that instrument, from the point of view of the political scientist, or of the statesman. Doubtless ques- tions of liberty, and of checks to power, had a prominent position in the thought of this generation of Americans. But every student of the antecedents of the movement for a Constitutional convention cannot but be impressed with the fact, that the debates in the conventions called to rat- ify the action of the Constitutional convention only inad- equately present the opinions and prejudices of the voters themselves, as revealed in the struggles of the Confedera- tion period. This period was one of paper money agita- tion, of efforts to evade the payment of debt, of resistance to taxation, and of counter efforts to give security to in- terstate commerce and strength to national credit. The state system under the Articles of Confederation served as a shield for the debtor classes. Many of the motives be- hind the arguments for state sovereignty were not of a character to be urged in the debates on the ratification of the Constitution. Thus questions of the sovereignty of the state, and questions of the dangers to liberty from the power over the purse given to the Federal government, were put prominently forward. Writers have interpreted these discussions rather as evidences of the continuity of the English struggle over the control of the purse, than in the light of the struggles of the debtor factions in the various states in the period which just preceded the con- vention. 1 The undertow of public opinion, deeper and > Simmer's chapter on ratification in his Alexander Hamilton gives the juster view. LIBBY — DISTRIBUTION OP VOTE ON FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 3 stronger then the surface indications, seen in the for- mal speeches, tracts, and convention arguments, has been neglected. Inaccurate and sweeping generalizations re- specting the location of the friends and the enemies of the Constitution have been made; but no detailed investigation has yet been published to show the distribution of the contending forces. For example, it has been asserted that a line drawn fifty miles from the coast would pretty accurately divide the Federalists from the Anti-Federal- ists. 1 The truth is that were this a correct statement of the matter, the Constitution would have been rejected in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Georgia ! The plan of this paper is briefly as follows : A map has been prepared to show the location of the Federal and the Anti-Federal areas. This has been done, as shown on the map, by indicating as Federal all those towns, counties, or parishes, whose delegates to the ratification convention of the state voted for the Constitution; and as Anti-Fed- eral, those towns, counties, or parishes, whose delegates voted against ratification. Those local units whose delegates divided have also been indicated, with symbols to show on which side the majority lay. To this method exceptions have been made as follows: When it has been found that the delegate did not correctly represent his constituents the map has been corrected to show the real sentiment of the voters; corrections have also been made where the town, county, or parish was not represented in the con vention, and the sentiment of its people could be ascer- tained from some other source. The full details of these corrections for each state are to be found in Appendix A. The map 2 showing the density of population in 1790 ena- bles the reader to see in what portion of the large western * Jameson's Essays in the Constitutional History of the United States, the chapter by Professor E. P. Smith, p. 67. 8 Published with the permission of Henry Holt' & Co., New York City. 4 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. counties tbe population was chiefly located, 1 and thus serves to correct misapprehensions arising from the size of these counties. 2 Having mapped the local distribution of the friends and the enemies of the Constitution, the sectional groupings revealed within each state are considered. The sig- nificance of the position of these areas of opposition and support within the separate states is taken up, and their correspondence to natural physiographic, social, and eco- nomic areas is pointed out. The historical foundation of these groups is also discussed, and the explanation of their attitude upon the Constitution is attempted in some detail. The inquiry next turns to the interstate groupings re- vealed by the map, which are treated in the same manner as those of each state. A general presentation of the re- lation of the anti-taxation, debt, and paper money agitation to ratification completes the view. At the outset of the investigation we are confronted with the question, how far may the votes of the delegates in the state conventions be accepted as representative of the sentiments of their constituents? It is believed that the reader can approach the detailed discussion of this ques- tion better after a consideration of the results revealed upon the presumption that the delegate did not misrepre- sent his constituents, in cases where no evidence to the contrary appears. The fuller treatment of the question is therefore postponed to a later chapter. The following are the general grounds for accepting the vote of the delegate in convention as, on the whole, a fair index of public senti- ment in his locality. First, in the period under discussion, especially in New 1 A comparison of these two maps will show that the area indicated on the population map as having less than two inhabitants to the square mile is shown on the other map by an irregular line extending from Maine to Georgia. 2 It is unfortunate that the local unit of the South and the Middle States was so large that a detailed view of their attitude, such as is furnished in the New England region, with its small town organization, was impossible. LIBBY — DISTRIBUTION OF VOTE ON FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 5 England, the representative was bound by a more intimate tie of responsibility to his constituents than obtained in later times. The common use of instructions to representa- tives in state legislatures, and later to congressmen, shows this very clearly.^ The fact that the country has now passed away from this attitude with respect to the respon- sibility of the representative, should not mislead us regard ing the practice^in the period under consideration. Second, the presumption is strong that on such a vital question as the ratification of the Constitution, the repre- sentative would not incur the odium of misrepresenting his friends and neighbors. Moreover, it is safe to say that, as a rule, the same interest that actuated the constituency would be likely to be shared by the delegate, even in the absence of instructions. Third, an examination of the map reveals the fact that the sectional groupings do not harmonize with a theory of chance arrangement. The coherence of the various areas is explainable only on the ground of common economic and social interests. Delegations from towns or counties were rarely divided in their vote, except where the town or county itself lay in the transitional belt between Federal and Anti-Federal areas. These facts can be satisfactorily explained only on the hypothesis that, as a rule, delegates acted on the Constitution with the prejudices and interests of their locality, and with the sentiments of their constitu- ents keenly before their minds. To this rule exceptions might be expected, and did actually occur. Fourth, in a later chapter, it will be shown that very many delegates went instructed to the conventions, and voted according to their instructions; and that in many other cases there was a correspondence between the vote of the delegate and the ascertained attitude of the con- stituency; only three exceptions have been discovered. When the difficulty of recovering such instructions from 6 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVEKSITY OF WISCONSIN. scattered town records, newspapers, etc., is considered, the number of them existing is quite remarkable. The map represents the town and county divisions as they existed at the time of ratification. I cannot hope to have accomplished entirely without error the task of recon- structing the local geography of the period from the scattered sources in which it must be studied. But I have diligently endeavored to make the map correct. In Appen- dix A are given the sources which I have used for the va- rious states, together with such explanations of the map- ping as will enable the work to be checked by local anti- quarians having more adequate resources for the task. It is confidently believed that such errors in mapping towns, counties, etc., as may be found, will not modify the con- clusions with respect to the map as a whole. A short criticism of the vote of Massachusetts, as given in Elliot's Debates, ii., and a detailed statement of the vote of the delegates in the state conventions by towns, coun- ties, parishes, etc., are given in appendices B and C. LIBBT — DISTRIBUTION OF VOTE ON FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 7 CHAPTER I. STATE AREAS OP OPPOSITION AND SUPPORT. Proceeding to take up each state in detail, I shall next point out the Federal and An ti -Federal areas in each, discuss the significance of the vote, and offer evidence to show the natural coherence, and the economic and social basis, of the distribution revealed in the map. New Hampshire. The opposition area in New Hampshire may be roughly described as an irregular quadrilateral with its north-east corner resting at the middle of the west side of Lake Winnipiseogee, its north-west corner touching the Connect- icut river, the south east corner lying a trifle east of the Merrimac river where it enters the state, and the south- west corner resting on the southern boundary line, about half way between the Merrimac and the Connecticut rivers. The Federal area of the state lay in the south-east along the coast, in a broad belt through Grafton County north of the above mentioned opposition area, and along the Connecticut river to the farthest limit of settlement. From the foregoing statement of the boundaries of the Federal and Anti-Federal areas, it will be seen that they very naturally fall into three divisions, — the sea-coast, the in- terior or middle, and the Connecticut valley and border districts. The first two of these are so familiar as to re- quire no more than a passing notice. The former, 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 ex- cept to exchange for the few things that could not be produced at home. The former class, progressive and 8 BULLETIN OP THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. liberal, and familiar with the practical details of govern- ment, as a rule voted for the Constitution. The latter, con- servative by environment and having little knowledge of what went on outside the narrow bounds of the home vil- lage or township, quite as generally voted against the Con- stitution. 1 One factor in the New Hampshire opposition is worth especial mention. There was a large Scotch-Irish element in the region west of the Merrimac river, lying within the opposition area. The towns settled by this nationality, or those which had large accessions after settlement, are: Bedford, Merrimac, Peterborough, Antrim, Deering, Hen- nicker, Ackworth, Windham, New Boston, Litchfield, Hud- son, Amherst, Dunstable, Chester, and Londonderry. 2 Of these fifteen towns only three voted in favor of the Consti- tution. !£But there was a third district in New Hampshire, the votes of which were cast for the Constitution and were de- cisive factors in the contest. This was the Connecticut valley or border district — a section as distinct in its eco- nomic and social features as if it had been a separate state. Its communication with the outside world was chiefly by the Connecticut river, which united it with Massachusetts and Connecticut. In interests and settlement it belonged rather to Vermont or Massachusetts than to New Hamp- shire. Its inhabitants, therefore, in so important an event as the adoption of the Federal Constitution would be likely to act as a unit, distinct from the rest of the state and moved by motives peculiarly their own. As early as 1776, sixteen of the border towns sent a delegate to a con- vention held at Dracut, Massachusetts, to petition the states i It is worth adding here that of the towns with abandoned farms in New Hampshire (excluding Qrafton county as exceptional from its leadership and history), 51 Anti -Federal towns show an acreage of 11,203, as against 86 Federal towns with an acreage of 0,923 in abandoned farms. See, Secure a Home in New Hampshire (Concord, 1892). 9 Parker, History of Londonderry, pp. 97 and 99; History of Bedford, p. 112; Life of Zachariah Chandler, pp. 23-4. LIBBY — DISTRIBUTION OF VOTE ON FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 9 of New Hampshire and Massachusetts to relieve the finan- cial distress of the period. The particular grievance of these towns, however, was unfair representation. 1 At the same time, town meetings were held in Hanover, Lyme, Lebanon, Plainfield, Acworth, Marlow, Alstead, and Ches- terfield in which the people voted not to elect representa- tives to the legislature. 2 Among the reasons were the lack of a fair system of legislative representation, and the property qualification required of those elected as coun- selors. In 1778 the "sixteen towns" joined Vermont, a union which came to an end in a year. 8 In 1781 a new union was formed between Vermont and thirty-seven New Hamp- shire towns, east of the Connecticut river. This union like the other continued only one year. 4 The condition of these towns is well expressed in the following: "Prom the time of the dissolution of the union between Vermont and the sixteen towns to the east of the Connecticut river, notwithstanding the exciting circumstances under which that union was dissolved, a large number of the inhabitants of the western part of New Hampshire had continued to be solicitous for annexation to that state. Others had a pro- ject in their minds for a new state formed out of the eastern part of Vermont and the western part of New Hampshire; others, still, were desirous that New Hampshire should ex- ercise jurisdiction over the whole of the grants. While thus there was no well-considered plan on which all the inhabitants had settled down, there still seemed to be a general desire for change. " 5 Charlestown was a fair type of the lower river towns, not connected with this early bor- der discontent but strongly in favor of union with Vermont in 1781. The following presents the case of this town: "Charlestown undoubtedly exerted its share of influence in 1 New Hampshire Historical Collections, ii., pp. 61 ff. 9 New Hampshire Provincial and State Papers, Boston, x., pp. 236 ff. 8 Saunderson, History of Charlestown, p. 122. * Ibid., pp. 154-9. •Ibid., p. 140. 10 BULLETIN OP THE UNIVEKSITY OP WISCONSIN. bringing about the union of the New Hampshire towns with Vermont. If we review the early history of the town, from its settlement to 1760, we shall find little in the course pursued by New Hampshire which would be adapted to attach the inhabitants to her jurisdiction. The township was not originally chartered by New Hampshire, and its settlers were disappointed on ascertaining that they were within its limits ; and petitioned the King to be set back again to Massachusets, to which state they had always supposed they belonged. The Old Bay State had been their main source of reliance. It was from thence that had come their defence in every time of trouble. Every important mili- tary detatchment that had come to their aid, for sixteen years, was from that state. " 1 The leader in the movement for Vermont union was Col. Elisha Payne of Lebanon. Says Batchellor in the New Hampshire State Papers (App., p. 848.) "He was educated to the law in Connecticut and came into Grafton county thoroughly imbued with Connecti- cut ideas as to the rights of towns as independent units of government, and as to what should be the relations of towns to the state. The temporary New Hampshire con- stitution of 1776 was drawn in conformity to theories that were widely at variance with his conceptions of the methods and province of government. Notwithstanding he was named for important offices under the new state government he held aloof and became a chief mover in the enterprise of establishing a state to be con- stituted of towns on both sides of the Connecticut river, or failing in that, to join the disaffected towns on the east side of the river to the prospective state of Vermont or a suffi- cient number of Vermont towns to New Hampshire to carry the balance of power to the Connecticut river. " The Connecticut valley in New Hampshire, or more prop- erly the valley and the inland portion of Grafton county, was, therefore, a section having its own history, its own 1 History of Charlestown, p. 159. LIBBY — DISTRIBUTION OP VOTE ON FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 11 interests and its own leaders. When the question came up as to the adoption of the Federal Constitution, its vote was consistent throughout. Of those towns in union with Ver- mont in 1781, two-thirds voted for the Constitution. The "Letter of a Landholder** to the "Citizens of New Hamp- shire" is peculiarly applicable to these Connecticut river towns, and those of the interior of Grafton county. "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 col- lected, of which, as consumers, you pay a share without deriving any public benefit. You can not expect any alter- ation in the private systems of these states unless effected by the proposed government. " * But leadership in this section was an important element. Says Batchellor : "Judge Livermore was the acknowledged leader of the party which sought the acceptance of the pro- posed Constitution. The fact that the delegation from the Grafton county towns was practically unanimous in sup- port of Mr. Livermore, gives us the right to assume that he received timely and valuable assistance, not only from those with whom he exercised a large influence through his own personality, but also from those who had long re- garded Colonel Payne as their political mentor. " 2 The conjunction of these two elements at this critical period produced the section which I have called the Con- necticut river section. In it were united the town democ- racy of the valley, led by Payne, and the Grafton county following of Judge Livermore, — alike in being on the frontier and separated from eastern New Hampshire. Their united support proved decisive in carrying the Constitution. 1 Connecticut Courant, March 10, 1788, p. 2 (Letters of a Landholder, xi.). Also, Ford, Essays on the Constitution, p. 192 •New Hampshire State Papers, App., pp. 848-9 (Batchellor) ; The Granite Monthly {New Hampshire Magazine), ii., p. 97 (xtt., old series), 1889; Grafton and Coos Bar Association, 1888-9, i., p. 498; Magazine of American History, viii., pp. 1-23. 12 BULLETIN OP THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. Massachusetts. Turning to the map for the Massachusetts vote we can see that the state may be divided into three sections, the east- ern, the middle, and the western. The middle section has for its eastern boundary an irregular line extending from about the northeast corner of Rhode Island to the point in he northern boundary of Massachusetts where the Merri- mac river enters the state, and for its western boundary the tier of towns along the eastern side of the Connecticut river. The other sections lie respectively to the east and west of it. The vote of these sections on the ratification of the Constitution is as follows : Eastern section . Yeas, 73 per cent. . Nays, 27 per cent. Middle section . Yeas, 14 per cent. . Nays, 86 per cent. Western section . Yeas, 42 per cent. . Nays, 58 per cent. 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 com- mercial; there was the wealth, the influence, the urban population of the state. This section had been longest settled and was consequently the most thickly populated. Within this section lay two areas of opposition, the in- terior regions of the eastern section, one in Essex and Middlesex counties, south of the Merrimac river, the other in Bristol, Suffolk, and Plymouth counties, adjoining Rhode Island. The middle section of Massach\isetts represented the interior agricultural interests of the state — the small farmers. From this section came a large part of the* Shays faction in 1786. l 1 The report of the abandoned farms in Massachusetts shows that 56 Anti-Federal towns have had, or now have, such farms with an aggregate acreage of 30.818, and that 80 Federal towns have an aggregate acreage of 8,566. See, Descriptive Catalogue of Farms in Mas- sachusetts (Boston, 1893). LIBBT — DISTRIBUTION OF VOTE ON FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 13 The Connecticut valley or western district may be sub- divided into the northern, most interior and predominantly Anti-Federal section, and the southern section, nearest the coast and predominantly Federal, with the trading towns of the Connecticut river in its southeastern part. A few quotations from contemporary correspondence will show the drift of the parties in Massachusetts. Extract of a letter of Henry Knox to Washington, Feb. 10, 1788: "It is a singular circumstance that in Massachusetts the property, the ability, and the virtue of the state are almost solely in favor of the Constitution. Opposed to it are the late insurgents and all those who abetted their designs, constituting four- fifths of the opposition. " * Extract of a letter from Madison to Washington, Feb. 3, 1788, quoting a letter received from Boston from a mem- ber of the convention there: "Never was there an assembly in this state in possession of greater ability and information than the present con- vention, yet I am in doubt whether they will approve the constitution. There are, unhappily, three parties opposed to it. First: All men who are in favor of paper money and tender laws. Those are more or less in every part of the state. Second: All the late insurgents and their abettors. In the three great western counties they are very numerous. We have in the convention eighteen or twenty who were actually in Shays' army." 2 An extract of a letter of Henry Knox to Washington. Jan. 14, 1788, gives the following classification of parties in the state : "The first is the commercial part of the state to which are added all the men of considerable property, the clergy, the lawyers, including the judges of all the courts, and all the neighborhood of all the great towns. .... The third party are the insurgents, or their favorers, 1 Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1788 (Boston, 1856), p. 409. , "Ibid., p. 406. 14 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. the great majority of whom are for an annihilation of debts, public and private, and therefore they will not approve of the constitution. " * In the province of Maine the larger part of the Anti- Federal vote was inland, while the Federal towns were mostly along the coast. The vote of Maine was complicated by the new issue of separation from Massachusetts, which had begun to agitate the people of this province. Many votes were cast against the Federal Constitution on account of its being favored by the ruling classes of Massachusetts who were supposed to be opposed to separation from Maine. 2 Connecticut. In Connecticut the sentiment was overwhelming in favor of the Constitution. The opposition was scattered and un- important. Its two chief centers were in New Haven county on the coast and in five or six towns on each side of the Connecticut river at the northern boundary, connecting with a group of opposition towns in Massachusetts. The following statement of the opposition in Connecticut is from "Letters of a Landholder" (Oliver Ellsworth) : "The first to oppose a federal government will be the old friends of Great Britain, who in their hearts cursed the prosperity of your councils. Many of these men are still among us and for several years their hopes of a reunion with Great Britain have been high. They rightly judge that nothing will so soon effect their wishes as the deranged state we are now in, if it should continue. They see that the mer- chant is weary of the government which cannot protect his property and that the farmer, finding no benefit from the Revolution, begins to dread much evil ; and they hope the people will soon supplicate the protection of their old masters Debtors in desperate circumstances 1 Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1788, p. 399. * Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, p. 406 (Letter of Madison to Washington, Feb. 8, 1788). LIBBY — DISTRIBUTION OP VOTE ON FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 15 who have not resolution to be either honest or industrious, will be the next men to take the alarm Paper money and tender acts is the only atmosphere in which they can breathe and live There is another kind of people will be found in the opposition. Men of much self-importance and supposed skill in politics who are not of sufficient consequence to obtain public employment, but can spread jealousies in the little districts of country where they are placed But in the present case, men who have lucrative and influential state offices, if they act from principles of self interest, will be tempted to oppose an alteration. ni . . . . The same writer in a later num- ber says: "In Connecticut our wrongheads are few in num- ber and feeble in their influence. The opposition here is not one half so great to the federal government as it was three years ago to the federal impost, and the faction, such as it is, is from the same blindfold party. " 2 The following account of the opposition is taken from the New Haven Gazette: "Extract of a letter from a gentleman in Hartford to his friend in this city, dated January 6th * The opposition, headed by General Wadsworth, supported by Colonel W. Williams, Messrs. 