III. DEBATE OVER CONSTITUTION

mittee for organizing the new Government;6 but Regard for the Dignity
of the Union will not let them wait very long; & if this State does not
soon determine as she ought to do, the Blank for the Place at which
the new Congress are to meet, will be filled with Philadelphia.)7-Lest
you should not meet with it otherwise, I send you some federal Poetry,
1. RC, Lea and Febiger Collection, PHi. Carey, a Philadelphia printer, published the
monthly American Museum.
2. The reference is to Francis Hopkinson's "The New Roof," a lengthy allegory that
first appeared in the Pennsylvania Packet, 29 December 1787, and which was reprinted in
fourteen newspapers, including two in New York, by 28 April 1788 (CC:395. The two New
York newspapers were the Daily Advertiser, 9 January, and the Lansingburgh Federal Herald,
28 April.). Carey, apparently influenced by Hazard's suggestion, reprinted "The New
Roof" in the August issue of the American Museum, which appeared in early September.
Thomas Allen, a New York City bookseller, also wrote Carey that "Some of the Subrs.
wants to know why the New Roof is not publish'd in the Museum" (28 July, Mfm:N.Y).
For two other recommendations made by Hazard that Carey apparently acted upon, see
notes 3 and 5 (below).
3. Carey printed the NewJersey Form of Ratification in the August issue of the American
Museum. In this issue, Carey also printed the forms of ratification of five other states,
including New York, and he gave his readers the volume and page numbers for five states
whose forms he had already printed. By early September, then, Carey had printed the
forms of ratification of all eleven states that had ratified the Constitution.
4. Latin: in so many words, or verbatim.
5. The reference is to an item that Francis Childs printed in his Daily Advertiser on 4
July and which was widely reprinted (CC:Vol. 6, pp. 390-91). Carey reprinted it in the
August issue of the American Museum.
6. See "Confederation Congress Makes Provision to Put the New Government Under
the Constitution into Operation," 2 July-13 September (above).
7. The text in angle brackets was printed in the Pennsylvania Mercury, 19 July, and
reprinted in the Baltimore Maryland Gazette, 25 July.
Richard Penn Hicks to John Dickinson
New York, 15 July 1788 (excerpt)'
... Our citizen [s] now seem    to wear a gloommy aspect, every man
seems to dread the event of our convention which must be concluded
in two or three day[s]. The antifoederals in the convention who are
still superior in number seem obstinately resolved to reject it, or what
answers the same end to pass it with amendments of thre [e] sorts ex-
planatory, Conditional, & recommendatory,2 a civil war in this seems
to appear to be the consequence of a rejection, & yesterday it was
reported the [i.e., that] Mrs Clinton was desired to leave the town;3
what the consiquences will be a fortunate at farthest will discover, but
at present the Citty & lower part of the state seem resolved to defend
the constitution by force....

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