Papers of John Adams, volume 20
r28. 1789
I Congratulate you on the accession of No. Carolina to the general Government. our Antis
are Thunderstruck at the News more especially as the Majority was so large.1 I have waited several Days to find out what they
intend to do wheather to agree to Call a Convention, or stand out longer; in hopes that
something would Turn up to 199 perplex the
New-Government. They are not well agreed among themselves. But the Heads of the party
lately proposed (at one of their Night meetings) that the Duties on all Goods Imported
should be put verry low (say one pr Cent.) and that our Ports should be opened to all
the World (or in other words that Rd Island should be the
St Estatia
2 of the North).3
The Consequences of such a proceedure can be better seen into by
you Sir than by me—and I have no Idea that Congress will suffer such a set of people to
remain impure in the verry middle of their Teritorys.
Our Genl: Assembly meets on the second
Monday of January— when we shall muster all our Forces to procure a Vote for a State
Convention. if we fail ’tis proposed by the most Respectable Inhabitants of the Towns of
Newport Providence Bristol &c to seperate from the State Government provided
Congress will protect us, and we wish to know thro some safe medium wheather This Idea
meets the approbation of Congress, or wheather some different mode will be adopted to
Oblige us to submit, when 49 parts out of 50, is for the adoption, and one half of the
50th part are of the same mind
I hope and Intreat that Congress will not think of Restricting our
Trade as that will but Distress the Federal Towns and will be well pleasing to our Antis. in a word we shall be happy to fall in with any
measures that will be adopted by Congress for the Compleating the Union. if Congress
would Answer the Letter Received from this State4 before your Adjornment and State in short the
necessity that there was of Their Committing the Consideration of the Federal Governmt to the People in the way prescribed by the Grand Convention
and by the old Congress and perhaps hint that it was necessary that something should be
done before the first of April it might, bring some of them to consider of the necessity
of Acting soon on the Business—
I fully intended to have seen you when at Boston but was prevented
by Indisposition, please to present Mrs Bowens & my Comps to Mrs Adams— I Remain with the highest Esteeme Your Excellency Most Obedt. & Verry Humle Servant
P.S. in a Letter to the president I lately asked the Question about our seperation. it may not be amis to let him know that I have wrote to you on the same subject &c—5
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Excellency John Adams—”; endorsed: “Jabez
Bowen / Decr. 28. 1789.”
As in Rhode Island, North Carolina’s delay in ratifying the Constitution was engineered by a powerful Antifederalist party in the state legislature that favored the emission of paper money. North Carolina citizens objected to dominant federal power, a standing army, congressional control of elections and commerce, and the lack of a bill of rights safeguarding individual liberties. Largely shaped by class divisions, public attitudes toward the Constitution in North Carolina were aggravated by a 1788 election season rife with fraud and street violence. Meeting in convention that summer, North Carolinians proposed 26 amendments and resolved to hold off on considering it any further for ratification until they were approved.
Economic interdependence, Federalist press campaigns, the need to
subsidize military defense, the prospect of paying foreign tonnage duties, and the
birth of a federal government with a formal Bill of Rights—all of these factors
combined to erode Antifederalist sentiment statewide by the early autumn of 1789.
North Carolina delegates reconvened on 16 Nov. to debate the Constitution, which they
adopted five days later in a vote of 194 to 77, becoming the penultimate state to join
the union (Albert Ray Newsome, “North Carolina’s Ratification of the Federal
Constitution,” The North Carolina Historical Review,
17:290, 291, 293–299 [Oct. 1940]).
Blocking attempts at ratifying the Constitution and hosting
secret night meetings, Rhode Island’s Antifederalist contingent made claims like this
in the press for several months. On 25 Feb. 1790, for example, the Newport Herald printed a letter that exhorted citizens:
“Let the Constitution be immediately rejected, we have dallied with it too long for
our interest,—the Revenue Act of the State be repealed,—and our ports thrown open to
all the world, commerce will then revive, and agriculture and manufactures flourish.
. . . We shall exceed St. Eustatius in its most flourishing state” (
Doc. Hist.
Ratif. Const.
, 26:734).
Closing parenthesis editorially supplied.
Acting at the General Assembly’s behest, Gov. John Collins wrote
a memorial to George Washington and Congress on 19 Sept. 1789, reiterating Rhode
Islanders’ “Attachment and Friendship to their Sister States, and of their Disposition
to cultivate mutual Harmony and friendly Intercourse.” Collins sought exemptions on
the costly foreign tonnage duties that his constituents now faced. He explained that
Rhode Islanders, while “strongly attached” to the principles of democracy, perceived
in the Constitution “an Approach . . . towards that Form of Government from
which we have lately dissolved our Connection, at so much Hazard and Expence of Life
and Treasure.” The president forwarded Collins’ letter on 26 Sept. to Congress, where
it was tabled. In the following weeks, Collins’ memorial was widely published in the
American press (
Doc. Hist. Ratif. Const.
, 25:599–600, 605–607).
Bowen made a similar report on the state of Rhode Island politics
in his 15 Dec. letter to Washington, indicating that news of North Carolina’s
ratification of the Constitution would “have some weight with the opposition” (Washington, Papers, Presidential Series
, 4:410–412).