III. DEBATE OVER CONSTITUTION

recd. by last Post leave us in great uncertainty with respect to the event.
In Convention in this State there are at least two thirds Antifederal or
such as will insist upon previous Amendments should Virginia do the
same-We have no certain information from N Hampshire but the
general Opinion is that she will adopt it without previous amendments.
If it should not be adopted I fear the Consequences will prove ruinous
to the Union.....
PS. We this moment are informd that N Hampshire has adopted the
N. Con [s] titution
Good News
1. RC, Stuart Collection, Virginia Historical Society. Printed: RCS:Va., 1677-78. Brown
(1757-1837), a Danville, Ky., lawyer, was a Virginia state senator, 1784-87; a Virginia
delegate to Congress, 1787-88; a U.S. Representative from Virginia, 1789-92; and a U.S.
Senator from Kentucky, 1792-1805. Stuart (1757-1832), a Staunton, Va., lawyer, sat in
the Virginia House of Delegates, 1783-85, 1786-88, and voted to ratify the Constitution
in the Virginia Convention in June 1788. Brown's letter was addressed to Stuart at the
Virginia Convention in Richmond.
Alexander Hamilton to James Madison
Poughkeepsie, 25 June 1788 (excerpt)'
I am very sorry to find by your letter of the 13th that your prospects
are so critical.2 Our chance of success here is infinitely slender, and
none at all if you go wrong. The leaders of the Antifoederalists finding
their partisans somewhat squeamish about rejection, are obliged at pres-
ent to recur to the project of conditional amendments.-We are going
on very deliberately in the discussion and hitherto not without effect.
Communicate this to our friend G Morris, to whom I have not time
to write....
Yrs. Aff[ectionatel]y
1. RC, Frederick M. Dearborn Collection, Harvard University. Printed: Syrett, V, 80;
and Rutland, Madison, XI, 179-80. Hamilton dated this letter "New York, June 25, 1788."
He actually wrote it from Poughkeepsie. It was addressed to Madison in the Virginia
Convention in Richmond but did not reach him before the Convention adjourned on
27 June. Consequently, the letter was forwarded to Madison in Congress, which he began
attending on 17 July.
2. Madison's letter of 13 June has not been found, but it is possible to surmise what
he wrote to Hamilton by examining Madison's 13 June letters to Rufus King and George
Washington in which he stated that the ratification of the Constitution by Virginia was
"more doubtful" or "less favorable" than when he had written them earlier in June
(Rutland, Madison, XI, 133-34. For the earlier letters, see Madison to Washington and
to King, 4 and 9 June, respectively, ibid., 77, 102.).
3. Gouverneur Morris and Robert Morris, both Pennsylvania signers of the Constitu-
tion, went to Virginia in November 1787 to collect debts owed to Robert Morris. In June
1788 the Morrises attended the debates of the Virginia Convention.

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