Very soon Hamilton, with other _federalists_, as the supporters of the constitution were called, found it necessary to put forth all his intellectual energies in defence of that instrument. Conventions were speedily called in the several states to consider it, and the friends and opponents of the constitution marshalled their respective antagonistic forces with great skill and zeal.
In Virgina, Patrick Henry, George Mason, and Richard Henry Lee, opposed the constitution with all their power and influence, chiefly because it would, in a degree, annul state rights, and base the sovereignty too absolutely upon the popular will. Mason led in the opposition, and Henry gave him the support of his eloquence. His arguments were those of all other opponents; and with the leaders in his own and other states, he raised the cry, which soon became general, that the new constitution had no bill of rights and no sufficient guaranties for personal liberty.
They cited the experience of the past to show, that of all national governments a democratic one was the most unstable, fluctuating, and short-lived; and that despotism, arising from a centralization of power in the national government on one hand, and anarchy, incident to the instability of democracy--"the levelling spirit of democracy" denounced by Gerry as "the worst of political evils"--on the other, were the Scylla and Charybdis between which the republic would, in the opinion of their opponents, be placed, with almost a certainty of being destroyed.
These views were ably combated in a series of political essays written by Hamilton and Madison, with a few numbers by John Jay, which were published in a New York newspaper, the object being, as stated by Hamilton in the first number, "A discussion of the utility of the Union; the insufficiency of the confederation to preserve that Union;" and "the necessity of a government at least equally energetic with the one proposed, to the attainment of this object." These essays, under the general title of _The Federalist_, were written with uncommon ability, exerted a powerful influence, and present an admirable treatise on the philosophy of our federal constitution.[11]
Long and stormy debates occurred in the state conventions; and it was not until the twenty-first of June, 1788, that New Hampshire, the ninth state in order, ratified the constitution.[12] It then became the organic law of the republic. The Congress, when testimonials of ratification were received from a sufficient number of states, appointed the first Wednesday of January, 1789, for the people of the United States to choose electors of a president in accordance with the provisions of the constitution; the first Wednesday in February following for the electors to meet and make a choice; and the first Wednesday in March ensuing for the new government to meet for organization in the city of New York.