NY Ratification Convention Debates (July 12, 1788) - New York Daily Advertiser (July 16, 1788)

On Saturday morning, Mr. Jay opened the business by representing the unfairness of the proceedings in the informal Committee. He complained that when met for mutual discussion, they had been insulted by a complete set of propositions presented in a dictatorial manner for their passive acquiescence. He was soon followed by Mr. Hamilton, who in a most argumentative and impassioned address, demonstrated that the propositions before the Committee, would be a total rejection of the Constitution. He opened with a beautiful exordium, in which he described in a delicate but most affecting manner the various ungenerous attempts to prejudice the minds of the Convention against him. He had been represented as an ambitious man, a man unattached to the interests and insensible to the feelings of the people; and even his supposed talents had been wrested to his dishonor, and produced as a charge against his integrity and virtue. He called on the world to point out an instance in which he had ever deviated from the line of public or private duty. The pathetic [i.e., moving] appeal fixed the silent sympathetic gaze of the spectators, and made them all his own.

This man, immediately after the adjournment, made a public declaration to this effect—I see the advocates of the Constitution are determined to force us to a rejection. We have gone great lengths, and have conceded enough—but nothing will satisfy them: —If convulsions and a civil war are the consequence, I will go with my party.