A Bystander's Notes of Thomas Hartley's Speech at the Pennsylvania Ratification Convention (December 12, 1787)

THOMAS HARTLEY: In answer to Mr. Findley's declaration on the day of the ratification, of only one-sixth part of the State of Pennsylvania having voted for the late Convention, Colonel Hartley, or one of the Fœderalists, observed that this was a very unfair mode of determining the strength or number of the friends of the new government-that the whole of the state seldom voted upon any occasion, except in contested elections, and that the reason why so few voted was because, in the city of Philadelphia, and in all the large and populous counties, there was nearly a perfect unanimity upon. the subject of the new Constitution.1 The speaker added, that the Convention - that framed the constitution of Pennsylvania was chosen only by about 6,000 votes and that the members of the first legislature that sat under it were elected by a little more than 1,500 votes.