Within the upper room of the Court-house the very air vibrated.  Clinton, who always grunted at intervals, and blew his nose stentoriously when fervescent, was unusually aggressive.  Beyond the bar men and women stood; there was no room for chairs, nor for half that desired admittance.  In the very front stood the only woman whose superb physique carried her through that trying day without smelling-salts or a friendly shoulder.  She was a woman with the eyes of an angel, disdainful of men, the mouth of insatiety, the hair and skin of a Lorelei, and a patrician profile.  Her figure was long, slender, and voluptuous.  Every man within the bar offered her his chair, but she refused to sit while other women stood; and few were the regrets at the more ample display of her loveliness.

Hamilton and Lansing debated with a lively exchange of acrimonious wit.  Smith spoke in behalf of the Constitution.  Then Hamilton rose for what all felt was to be a grand final effort, and even his friends experienced an almost intolerable excitement.  On the other side men trembled visibly with apprehension, not so much in fear of the result as of the assault upon their nervous systems.  They hardly could have felt worse if on their way to execution, but not a man left his seat; the fascination was too strong to induce even a desire to avoid it.

Hamilton began dispassionately enough.  He went over the whole Constitution rapidly, yet in so emphatic a manner as to accomplish the intelligent subservience of his audience.  Then, with the unexaggerated eloquence of which he was so consummate a master, he pictured the beauty, the happiness, the wealth of the United States under the new Constitution; of the peace and prosperity of half a million homes; of the uninterrupted industry of her great cities, their ramifications to countless hamlets; of the good-will and honour of Europe; of a vast international trade; of a restored credit at home and abroad, which should lift the heavy clouds from the future of every ambitious man in the Republic; of a peace between the States which would tend to the elevation of the American character, as the bitter, petty, warring, and perpetual jealousies had incontestably lowered it; of, for the beginning of their experiment, at least eight years of harmony under George Washington.

He spoke for two hours in the glowing terms of a prophecy and an optimism so alluring, that load after load seemed to roll from the burdened minds opposite, although Clinton snorted as if about to thrust down his head and paw the earth.  When Hamilton had made his hearers thoroughly drunk with dreams of an ecstatic future, he advanced upon them suddenly, and, without a word of warning transition, poured upon them so terrible a picture of the consequences of their refusal to enter the Union, that for the first few moments they were ready to leap upon him and wrench him apart.  The assault was terrific, and he plunged on remorselessly.