. The life and times of Thomas Smith, 1745-1809, a Pennsylvania member of the Continental congress . action was in vain, however. The Constitution of-fered us, wrote Jasper Yeates to his wife on the same day,has been ratified by a majority of 46 to 23 and tomorrowwe shall proceed to sign and seal & then publickly an-nounce it at the Court House, with Firing of cannon, & Whitehill of Cumberland county went back homewith only a hope that other States might not ratify it, andJudge Bryan at once took measures to aid in preventingsuch ratification. His party already had well-organizedcommit
. The life and times of Thomas Smith, 1745-1809, a Pennsylvania member of the Continental congress . action was in vain, however. The Constitution of-fered us, wrote Jasper Yeates to his wife on the same day,has been ratified by a majority of 46 to 23 and tomorrowwe shall proceed to sign and seal & then publickly an-nounce it at the Court House, with Firing of cannon, & Whitehill of Cumberland county went back homewith only a hope that other States might not ratify it, andJudge Bryan at once took measures to aid in preventingsuch ratification. His party already had well-organizedcommittees of correspondence. And yet this activity wasnot so much objection to the new Constitution as it wasdevotion to the old Constitution of 1776, which they con-ceived they were bound by oath not to change, except ^ Letters of Jasper Yeates to his wife, in the possession of Whelen, of Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Gazette, November 14, 1787. ^ Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution, 1787-1788, editedby John Bach McMaster and Frederick D. Stone, 1888, p. 19. * Whelen James Wilson Half-tone of engraving by Eilw in. in Wilsons Works edited bv bis son A JUDGE IN THE REORGANIZED JUDICIARY 195 through the septennial meeting of the Council of required two-thirds of this Council even to recommenda change, but that body was chosen in such a mannerthat seven counties (Luzerne, Huntingdon, Fayette, Frank-lin, Dauphin, Bedford and Northumberland), having 13members and 13,000 electors, can prevent any alterationfrom being even considered by a convention, though desiredby all the rest of the counties, who have 57 members and57,000 electors.! Our Supreme Executive Power, saysanother Federalist writer, on February 13, is by this veryconstitution [of 1776] created by the votes of 24,000electors, out of 69,000—24,000 outvoting 45,000. Theanti-Constitutionalists were making their last fight for theConstitution of 1776, which Thomas Smith had so vigor-ously oppo
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