It is the result of four months’ deliberation.  It is now a child of fortune, to be fostered by some and buffeted by others.  What will be the general opinion, or the reception of it, is not for me to decide; nor shall I say anything for or against it.  If it be good, I suppose it will work its way; if bad, it will recoil on the framers.

A month later, in the seclusion of Mount Vernon, he spread the same news before his friend General Knox: 

...  The Constitution is now before the judgment-seat.  It has, as was expected, its adversaries and supporters.  Which will preponderate is yet to be decided.  The former more than probably will be most active, as the major part of them will, it is to be feared, be governed by sinister and self-important motives, to which everything in their breasts must yield....

The other class, he said, would probably ask itself whether the Constitution now submitted was not better than the inadequate and precarious government under which they had been living.  If there were defects, as doubtless there were, did it not provide means for amending them?  Then he concludes with a gleam of optimism: 

...  Is it not likely that real defects will be as readily discovered after as before trial? and will not our successors be as ready to apply the remedy as ourselves, if occasion should require it?  To think otherwise will, in my judgment, be ascribing more of the amor patriae, more wisdom and more virtue to ourselves, than I think we deserve.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Ford, XI, 173.]

Nearly five months later, February 7, 1788, he wrote Lafayette what we may consider a more deliberate opinion: 

As to my sentiments with respect to the merits of the new constitution, I will disclose them without reserve, (although by passing through the post-office they should become known to all the world,) for in truth I have nothing to conceal on that subject.  It appears to me, then, little short of a miracle, that the delegates from so many different States (which States you know are also different from each other), in their manners, circumstances, and prejudices, should unite in forming a system of national government, so little liable to well-founded objections.  Nor am I yet such an enthusiastic, partial, or indiscriminating admirer of it, as not to perceive it is tinctured with some real (though not radical) defects.  The limits of a letter would not suffer me to go fully into an examination of them; nor would the discussion be entertaining or profitable.  I therefore forbear to touch upon it.  With regard to the two great points (the pivots upon which the whole machine must move), my creed is simply,

1st.  That the general government is not invested with more powers, than are indispensably necessary to perform the functions of a good government; and consequently, that no objection ought to be made