III. DEBATE OVER CONSTITUTION

the TWENTY-FOURTH instant, viz. Tuesday sen'night, the decisive ques-
tion was put, whether the convention would RATIFY the constitution,
when there appeared-YEAS, 88, and NAYS, 78, giving a MAJORITY
of TEN.- Thus have TEN STATES RATIFIED the CONSTITUTION pro-
posed by the GENERAL CONVENTION, who sat at Philadelphia in Septem-
ber last.
RATIFICATION of the NEW CONSTITUTION, by the VIRGINIA
CONVENTION, on Tuesday, the 24th instant.
[Text of Virginia Form of Ratification, with a notation at the end of
the Form that the Constitution followed.]22
Our readers will readily perceive that the preceding ratification is more pointed,
and differs in many instances, very materially from any one yet produced.23
We are further informed, from Virginia, that the CONVENTION are
still sitting; and that their business is to prepare such AMENDMENTS
to the general system as they, on mature deliberation, may judge
proper.
New York Daily Advertiser 3 July 178824
Extract of a letter from a Gentleman in Convention at Richmond, to his fiend
in New-York, dated 25 th June, 1788.
"DEAR SIR, I have now to congratulate you on the accession of Vir-
ginia to the New Government; the final vote in Convention was taken
this day, about three o'clock, P. M.-for the ratification 89-against it
79;-a motion for previous amendment was negatived by 88 to 80. The
form of ratification is prefaced by a declaration that all power, &c.25
(but I enclose you a copy). Our country's character never shone more
conspicuous than upon this great and interesting event; awful and sol-
emn was the pause which preceded the question; a discussion of 24
days, in which every clause of the plan had been weighed and debated,
and its merits and demerits fully exposed, terminated at a period when
decision was to involve the happiness or misery of present and future
generations; whilst the event of the question too was yet doubtful, on
the one hand a powerful, numerous and respectable body of advocates
for the system, on the other a decided, respectable and little less nu-
merous body in opposition-could the mind be otherwise than trem-
ulously anxious?-to describe my feelings exceeds my powers of de-
scription. But if I felt before, how can I convey to you those sensations
which filled my mind after the decision; in presence of upwards of a
thousand spectators, with minds agitated by contending and opposite

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