Hamilton at Poughkeepsie, How New York Ratified by Three Votes

Here is a fact that ought to embarrass every pundit who has ever called an election in June. When New York's ratifying convention opened in Poughkeepsie on June 17, 1788, the Anti-Federalists held about 46 of the 65 seats. That is not a lean. That is a landslide. By any reasonable forecast the Constitution was dead in New York before the first speech. Five and a half weeks later, New York ratified.

How a 46 to 19 convention produced a 30 to 27 vote to ratify is one of the great stories of the Founding. It involves the most brilliant young lawyer in America, the most honest opponent the Constitution ever had, two express riders carrying news from New Hampshire and Virginia, and a city that threatened, half seriously, to leave its own state. It also shows that minds can be changed by argument and by facts, which is the premise of a free republic and the reason we bother writing posts like this one.

The lay of the land in New York

New York in 1788 was a divided state. The city and its surrounding counties were commercial, Federalist and eager for a national government that could regulate trade and pay the public debt. The upstate counties along the Hudson and beyond were agricultural, suspicious and loyal to Governor George Clinton.

Clinton had led New York since 1777 and had good reasons, some principled and some practical, to distrust the Constitution. The principled reason was the Anti-Federalist fear of consolidated power. The practical reason was money. New York collected duties on goods passing through its port, and much of that revenue was paid in effect by consumers in New Jersey and Connecticut. Under the Constitution, import duties would belong to the national government. Clinton's New York would lose its best source of revenue.

New York had also been the main battleground of the paper war over ratification. The Federalist essays by Hamilton, Madison and Jay were written for New York newspapers, beginning in October 1787. On the other side, essays by "Brutus" and "Cato" and others pressed the Anti-Federalist case in the same papers. Brutus, in particular, made arguments about the judiciary and the Necessary and Proper Clause that still repay reading. See Brutus No. 1 Predicted the Necessary and Proper Clause Would Swallow the States.

When the delegates were elected in the spring of 1788, the upstate counties sent solid Anti-Federalist slates. The Federalists carried New York City and a few nearby counties. The convention would meet in the Dutchess County courthouse at Poughkeepsie, and Clinton was chosen to preside.

The two benches

The Federalists were outnumbered but formidable. Alexander Hamilton, barely in his thirties, co-author of the Federalist, and a delegate at Philadelphia, led the floor fight. John Jay, the Confederation's secretary for foreign affairs and the author of five Federalist essays, gave him weight and calm. Robert R. Livingston, the chancellor of the state, and James Duane, the mayor of New York City, added standing.

The Anti-Federalists were led in name by Clinton, who as president of the convention rarely spoke. John Lansing Jr. and Robert Yates, who had both walked out of the Philadelphia Convention in July 1787, were among them. Their real intellectual leader, though, was Melancton Smith, a New York City merchant who had made his early career in Dutchess County and had served in the Confederation Congress. Smith was the opposition's best debater, and he was also, crucially, a man who listened.

Melancton Smith's case

Smith's main arguments went to the heart of representative government.

1. The House was too small. The Constitution provided for 65 representatives at first. Smith argued that a body so small could not possibly know the circumstances of a people spread across thirteen states. Representatives, he said in substance, ought to resemble the people they represent and share their interests and feelings.
2. A small House would be captured by a natural aristocracy. In large districts, only men of wealth, family and reputation could win. The middling class, the farmers and tradesmen who were the backbone of the republic, would be shut out. Smith did not attack the wealthy as villains; he argued that every class, the wealthy included, tends to look after its own interests, and that a republic's safety lay in a legislature that contained a broad cross section of the people.
3. The taxing power and the elastic clause were unlimited. Congress could tax anything and pass any law it considered necessary and proper to execute its powers. Smith wanted amendments limiting direct taxes and clarifying the reserved powers of the states.
4. Amendments had to come before or with ratification. Once the Constitution was adopted, Smith argued, the people in power would have no reason to give up any of it.

This is not the argument of a crank. Smith's point about representation is still debated, and the size of the House, fixed at 435 since the early twentieth century, is a real question every conservative should think about. The Federal Farmer, an Anti-Federalist essayist whose identity remains uncertain, made similar points; see The Federal Farmer Wanted a Bill of Rights and a Bigger House.

Hamilton's answers

Hamilton spoke often and long. His answers to Smith ran along these lines.

1. Representation is about trust, not resemblance. Hamilton argued that the people should be free to choose whomever they wished to govern them. If the farmers preferred a lawyer or a merchant who would represent them well, that was their right. A rule meant to guarantee that representatives resembled the people would actually limit the people's choice.
2. The House would grow. The Constitution set a minimum ratio of representation, not a fixed number. As the population grew, so would the House, and the census every ten years would keep it current. See Actual Enumeration, What the Census Clause Requires Every Ten Years.
3. The Confederation had failed. Hamilton pressed the record: Congress could not pay its debts, could not enforce treaties and could not regulate commerce. Requisitions on the states had produced a fraction of what was asked. The question was not whether the new Constitution was perfect but whether the old system could survive at all.
4. The states would remain strong. Hamilton argued that state governments, closer to the people and controlling most of daily life, would enjoy more of the people's affection than the national government and would be powerful checks on it. Coming from Hamilton, the most nationalist of the Founders, that was a striking concession, and it is worth quoting back to anyone who claims that the Founders intended a national government of unlimited reach.

Hamilton's arguments did not change the arithmetic in June. But they worked on the one man whose vote mattered most.

The express riders

Then events intervened. On June 24, a rider arrived with the news that New Hampshire had ratified on June 21. New Hampshire was the ninth state. Under Article VII, the Constitution was now established among the ratifying states, with or without New York.

That changed the question. Until June 24, the Anti-Federalists could hope that New York's no would stop the Constitution. After June 24, a no meant New York would be outside a union that was going forward anyway.

On July 2, another rider brought word that Virginia had ratified on June 25. Now New York faced a union that included Virginia and Massachusetts on either side of it, with New York standing alone in the middle, out of the union whose Congress was then meeting in New York City itself. The irony is hard to miss: the national capital was sitting in a state that was about to vote itself out of the nation.

There was a further pressure. Federalists in New York City talked openly of the southern counties separating from the state and joining the union on their own if the convention voted no. Whether that was a real plan or a bargaining chip, the delegates from upstate took notice. A New York without its port was not a New York anyone wanted to govern.

From conditions to confidence

The Anti-Federalists, now facing reality, shifted their strategy. If they could not reject, they would ratify on conditions. John Lansing proposed ratifying with a reserved right to withdraw from the union if the amendments were not considered within a set period.

Hamilton thought such a ratification would not be valid and wrote to Madison for his opinion. Madison replied in July that a conditional ratification was no ratification at all, because the Constitution required an adoption "in toto, and for ever." Hamilton pressed the point on the floor.

That was the turning point for Melancton Smith. He had argued in good faith for weeks. Now he concluded that a conditional ratification would not be accepted, that New York could not stand alone, and that the best way to secure amendments was from inside the union. He said so openly, and he voted accordingly. The convention changed the language of its ratification from "upon condition" to "in full confidence" that the amendments it recommended would be considered.

It is worth pausing on what Smith did. A political leader, at the head of a large majority, changed his position in public because the facts had changed and the arguments had persuaded him. He did not pretend he had always believed it. He did not blame the voters. He explained himself and voted. If you know of a modern legislature where that happens often, please write in.

The vote and the letter

On July 26, 1788, the convention voted to ratify, 30 to 27. Several Anti-Federalists, Smith among them, voted yes; others stayed away from the final vote. The arithmetic: 30 of 57 votes cast is 52.6 percent. A switch of two votes would have made it 28 to 29.

The ratification came with a long declaration of rights and a list of recommended amendments. And the convention unanimously approved a circular letter, drafted by John Jay, addressed to the governors of the other states. It called for a second general convention to consider amendments.

That letter had consequences. In the months that followed, the legislatures of Virginia (in November 1788) and New York (in February 1789) sent Congress applications for a convention under Article V, the first such applications in American history. Madison, who feared that a second convention would unravel the whole Constitution, moved quickly in the First Congress to propose amendments himself. The circular letter, in other words, helped push the Bill of Rights through Congress. We take up the convention route in A Convention of States Is the Founders' Safety Valve, Weighed Honestly.

Three days before the vote, on July 23, New York City staged a grand Federal Procession, complete with a model ship named the Hamilton drawn through the streets. The city celebrated before the convention had decided, which tells you either how confident the Federalists were or how badly they wanted to send a message upstate.

The objection: was this ratification by pressure, not persuasion?

A fair critic will say that New York did not ratify because Smith was persuaded. It ratified because nine states had already made the choice for it, because the city threatened to leave, and because the alternative was isolation. That is coercion by circumstance, not consent.

There is truth in it, and here is the answer.

1. Circumstance is part of every real decision. Free people decide in the world as it is. Weighing the consequences of standing alone is not coercion; it is prudence, the first virtue of a statesman.
2. The argument was still decisive. Smith changed his vote because Hamilton and Madison persuaded him that a conditional ratification was invalid and that amendments were better pursued from within. That is persuasion on the merits.
3. The opposition won its main point. New York's recommended amendments and the circular letter pressed Congress to act, and the Bill of Rights followed within months. A process that delivers the losing side's central demand is not a process of mere pressure.
4. No one was compelled. Twenty-seven delegates voted no, and nothing happened to them. North Carolina and Rhode Island stayed out for more than a year. New York's choice was its own.

The case in brief

1. New York's convention opened on June 17, 1788 with Anti-Federalists holding about 46 of 65 seats, led by Governor George Clinton's allies and the able Melancton Smith.
2. Smith argued that a small House would be dominated by a natural aristocracy; Hamilton answered that the people should choose freely and that the states would remain strong.
3. News of New Hampshire's and Virginia's ratifications changed the question from whether there would be a union to whether New York would be in it.
4. Madison's advice that ratification must be "in toto, and for ever" moved Smith, and New York ratified "in full confidence" of amendments by 30 to 27 on July 26, 1788.
5. Jay's circular letter calling for a second convention helped push the First Congress to propose the Bill of Rights.

What you can do: read Article I, Section 2 on the site's Constitution page, then look up how many people your member of the House represents today and compare it with the one per 30,000 the Founders debated.