Possessing a territory which extended from the Atlantic seaboard to the southernmost bounds of the British possessions in America, it was within the power of New York, entirely and absolutely, to separate New England from every other portion of the United States; and it remained for her alone to determine—even in opposition to the expressed wills of her twelve sister States—whether or not the territories of the United States should, thenceforth, be severed by the intervening territory of a foreign sovereign republic; whether or not the Union, thenceforth, should be maintained, if maintained at all, between twelve distinct Commonwealths, occupying not only distinct, but detached territories.
The peculiarity of her geographical position, therefore, the rising importance of her commerce, the acknowledged intelligence and enterprise of her inhabitants, the great ability and fearlessness of her statesmen and popular leaders, the widely spread influence of her political action in former days, not yet wholly forgotten, and her unflinching devotion to the then existing Union of the States, had rendered it important, in the highest degree, that New York should assent to the proposed "Constitution for the United States;" while, on the other hand, her undeviating opposition to any centralization of political powers within the Fœderal Government, which the constituent States, as such, could not entirely control, her uncompromising adherence to her rights as a free, sovereign, and independent republic, the unanimity of her well-tried popular leaders and of her inhabitants, in opposition to the proposed Constitution, and the perfect organization of her citizens, in every county throughout the State, to prevent the official approval of that instrument, had indicated that the task of securing that approval of the Constitution, in the form which it then possessed, would be difficult, if not impossible.
It need not be a matter of surprise, therefore, that
