ght to the reluctant
attention of the House, and then proved the occasion of a debate which
lasted until the 24th of that month, when the House finished its work
on the subject, and sent up to the Senate seventeen articles of
amendment. Only twelve of these articles succeeded in passing the
Senate; and of these twelve, only ten received from the States that
approval which was necessary to their ratification. This was obtained
on the 15th of December, 1791.

The course thus taken by Congress, in itself proposing amendments, was
not at the time pleasing to the chiefs of that party which, in the
several States, had been clamorous for amendments.[414] These men,
desiring more radical changes in the Constitution than could be expected
from Congress, had set their hearts on a new convention,--which,
undoubtedly, had it been called, would have reconstructed, from top to
bottom, the work done by the convention of 1787. Yet it should be
noticed that the ten amendments, thus obtained under the initiative of
Congress, embodied "nearly every material change suggested by
Virginia;"[415] and that it was distinctly due, in no small degree, to
the bitter and implacable urgency of the popular feeling in Virginia,
under the stimulus of Patrick Henry's leadership, that Congress was
induced by Madison to pay any attention to the subject. In the matter of
amendments, therefore, Patrick Henry and his party did not get all that
they demanded, nor in the way that they demanded; but even so much as
they did get, they would not then have got at all, had they not demanded
more, and demanded more, also, through the channel of a new convention,
the dread of which, it is evident, drove Madison and his brethren in
Congress into the prompt concession of amendments which they themselves
did not care for. Those amendments were really a tub to the whale; but
then that tub would not have been thrown overboard at all, had not the
whale been there, and very angry, and altogether too troublesome with
his foam-compelling tail, and with that huge head of his which could
batter as well as spout.

FOOTNOTES:

[398] Leake, _Life of Gen. John Lamb_, 307-308.

[399] Madison, _Letters_, etc. i. 402.

[400] _Works of Hamilton_, i. 463.

[401] _Writings of Washington_, ix. 392.

[402] Elliot, _Debates_, ii. 414.

[403] Madison, _Letters_, etc. i. 418.

[404] _Writings of Washington_, ix. 433.

[405] Bancroft, _Hist. Const._ ii. 483.

[406] _Corr. Rev.