BoldlyRide

Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and conseuence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government. (Hamilton begins his defense of the Constitution with an attack upon the motives of those who might oppose it. In the second paragraph Hamilton cast the hue of self-interest and local prejudice upon any opposition. In this third paragraph he brushes generously the opposition with the stain of grasping power for themselves at the expense of the union.)