affection for the English connection which the people of the State of
New York now feel for the Constitution of the United States.

Among the multitude of those who have taken part in the controversy on
one side or the other, no one has, so far as I have observed, pointed
out that the state of feeling in America toward the central government
with which the state of feeling in Ireland towards the British
Government is now compared, did not exist when the American Constitution
was set up; that the political tendencies in America at that time were
centrifugal, not centripetal, and that the extraordinary love and
admiration with which Americans now regard the Federal government are
the result of eighty years' experience of its working. The first
Confederation was as much as the people could bear in the way of
surrendering local powers when the War of Independence came to an end.
It was its hopeless failure to provide peace and security which led to
the framing of the present Constitution. But even with this experience
still fresh, the adoption of the Constitution was no easy matter. I
shall not burden this article with historical citations showing the very
great difficulty which the framers of the Constitution had in inducing
the various States to adopt it, or the magnitude and variety of the
fears and suspicions with which, many of the most influential men in all
parts of the country regarded it. Any one who wishes to know how
numerous and diversified these fears and suspicions were, cannot do
better than read the series of papers known as "The Federalist," written
mainly by Hamilton and Madison, to commend the new plan to the various
States. It was adopted almost as a matter of necessity, that is, as the
only way out of the Slough of Despond in which the Confederation had
plunged the union of the States; but the objections to it which were
felt at the beginning were only removed by actual trial. Hamilton's two
colleagues, as delegates from New York, Yates and Lansing, withdrew in