ngs, the
feeling was more or less general that the whole movement was a
conspiracy against popular government.

"The charge of a conspiracy against the liberties of the people," said
Hamilton, "which has been indiscriminately brought against the advocates
of the plan [the Constitution], has something in it too wanton and too
malignant not to excite the indignation of every man who feels in his
own bosom a refutation of the calumny. The perpetual changes which have
been rung upon the wealthy, the well-born, and the great, have been such
as to inspire the disgust of all sensible men. And the unwarrantable
concealments and misrepresentations which have been in various ways
practiced to keep the truth from the public eye have been of a nature to
demand the reprobation of all honest men."[60]

The evidence now accessible to students of the American Constitution
proves that the charges of "concealments and misrepresentations" made
with this show of righteous indignation against the opponents of the
Constitution might have justly been made against Hamilton himself. But
knowing that the views expressed in the Federal Convention were not
public property, he could safely give to the press this "refutation of
the calumny."

The publication of the debates on the Constitution at that time would
have shown that the apprehensions of the people were not entirely
without justification. The advocates of the new form of government did
not propose to defeat their own plans by declaring their real
purpose--by explaining the Constitution to the people as they themselves
understood it. For it was not to be supposed that the people would
permit the adoption of a form of government the avowed object of which
was to limit their power. Therefore the conservatives who framed the
Constitution and urged its ratification posed as the friends of
democracy. Professing to act in the name of, and as the representatives
of the people, they urged them to accept the Constitution as a means of
restraining their agents and representatives and thereby making their
own will supreme. It was not the aim of these articles, written, as they
were, to influence public opinion, to explain the real purpose of the
Constitution, but rather to disguise its true character.

In this species of political sophistry Hamilton was a master. It is, to
say the least, strange that the misstatement of historical facts, false
analogies and juggling of popular catch-words which co