Clinton was infuriated.  Even he often leaned forward, forgetting his own selfish ambitions when Hamilton’s thrilling voice poured forth a rapid appeal to the passions of his hearers; but he quickly resumed the perpendicular, and set his lips to imprison a scarlet comment.  He saw that his men were weakening, and as much to the luminous expounding of the Constitution, to the logic of the orator, as to a truly satanic eloquence and charm.  He held long private sessions at his mansion on the turnpike, where he was assisted by much material argument.  But even Melancthon Smith, who distinguished himself in almost daily debate, acknowledged more than once that Hamilton had convinced him; and others asserted, with depression, that their minds, which they had supposed to be their own,—­or Clinton’s,—­seemed to be in a process of remaking.

After all, for the most part, they were sincere and earnest; and although it is difficult for us of the present day to comprehend that enlightened men ever could have been so mad as to believe that the country would prosper without union, that a mere State should have been thought to be of greater importance than a Nation, or that a democratic constitution, which permits us to coddle anarchists in our midst, and the lower orders to menace the liberties of the upper, was ever an object of terror to men of bitter republican ideals, yet the historic facts confront us, and we wonder, when reading the astonishing arguments of that long and hard-fought contest, if Hamilton’s constitution, had it passed the Great Convention, would not have ratified with a no more determined opposition.

Melancthon Smith was one of the brightest and most conspicuous men of his time, but his name is forgotten to-day.  He was sincere; he was, in his way, patriotic; he was a clever and eloquent orator.  Moreover, he was generous and manly enough to admit himself beaten, as the sequel will show.  To insure greatness, must the gift of long foreknowledge be added to brilliant parts and an honest character?  If this be the essential, no wonder Melancthon Smith is forgotten.  We have him asserting that in a country where a portion of the people live more than twelve hundred miles from the centre, one body cannot legislate for the whole.  He apprehends the abolition of the State constitutions by a species of under-mining, predicts their immediate dwindling into insignificance before the comprehensive and dangerous power vested in Congress.  He believes that all rich men are vicious and intemperate, and sees nothing but despotism and disaster in the Federal Constitution.