enfeebling its essential principles, were subjects
of the most interesting inquiry.

The agitation had been too great to be suddenly calmed; and for the
active opponents of the system to become suddenly its friends, or even
indifferent to its fate, would have been a victory of reason over
passion, or a surrender of individual judgment to the decision of a
majority, examples of which are rarely given in the progress of human
affairs.

In some of the states, a disposition to acquiesce in the decision
which had been made, and to await the issue of a fair experiment of
the constitution, was avowed by the minority. In others, the chagrin
of defeat seemed to increase the original hostility to the instrument;
and serious fears were entertained by its friends, that a second
general convention might pluck from it the most essential of its
powers, before their value, and the safety with which they might be
confided where they were placed, could be ascertained by experience.

From the same cause, exerting itself in a different direction, the
friends of the new system had been still more alarmed. In all those
states where the opposition was sufficiently formidable to inspire a
hope of success, the effort was made to fill the legislature with the
declared enemies of the government, and thus to commit it, in its
infancy, to the custody of its foes. Their fears were quieted for the
present. In both branches of the legislature, the federalists, an
appellation at that time distinguishing those who had supported the
constitution, formed the majority; and it soon appeared that a new
convention was too bold an experiment to be applied for by the
requisite number of states. The condition of individuals too, was
visibly becoming more generally eligible. Industry, notwithstanding
the causes which had diminished its profits, was gradually improving
their affairs; and the new course of thinking, inspired by the
adoption of a constitution prohibiting all laws impairing the
obligation of contracts, had, in a great measure, restored that
confidence which is essential to the internal prosperity of nations.
From these, or from other causes, the crisis of the pressure on
individuals seemed to be passing away, and brighter prospects to be
opening on them.

But, two states still remained out of the pale of the union; and a
mass of ill humour existed among those who were included within it,
which increased the necessity of circumspection in those