m that highly virtuous and very ineffective class of
persons who will not support anything that is not perfect, and who
generally contrive to do more harm than all the avowed enemies of
sound government. Washington did not stop to worry over and argue
about details, but sought steadily to bring to pass the main object
at which he aimed. As he had labored for the convention, so he now
labored for the Constitution, and his letters to his friends not
only had great weight in forming a Federal party and directing its
movements, but extracts from them were quoted and published, thus
exerting a direct and powerful influence on public opinion.

He made himself deeply felt in this way everywhere, but of course more
in his own State than anywhere else. His confidence at first in regard
to Virginia changed gradually to an intense and well-grounded anxiety,
and he not only used every means, as the conflict extended, to
strengthen his friends and gain votes, but he received and circulated
personally copies of "The Federalist," in order to educate public
opinion. The contest in the Virginia convention was for a long time
doubtful, but finally the end was reached, and the decision was
favorable. Without Washington's influence, it is safe to say that the
Constitution would have been lost in Virginia, and without Virginia
the great experiment would probably have failed. In the same spirit he
worked on after the new scheme had secured enough States to insure
a trial. The Constitution had been ratified; it must now be made to
work, and Washington wrote earnestly to the leaders in the various
States, urging them to see to it that "Federalists," stanch friends
of the Constitution, were elected to Congress. There was no vagueness
about his notions on this point. A party had carried the Constitution
and secured its ratification, and to that party he wished the
administration and establishment of the new system to be intrusted.
He did not take the view that, because the fight was over, it was
henceforth to be considered that there had been no fight, and that all
men were politically alike. He was quite ready to do all in his power
to conciliate the opponents of union and the Constitution, but he did
not believe that the momentous task of converting the paper system
into a living organism should be confided to any hands other than
those of its tried and trusty friends.

But while he was looking so carefully after the choice of the right
men