Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/21

 seizure and improvement of passing opportunities, which promised advantage to his cause or to his party; well versed in all the intricacies of the law, and skilled beyond the greater number of his contemporaries in all the graces of elocution; distinguished in arms, in civil life without reproach,—he was, above all others of his party, the best qualified for a popular leader, and a champion, before the People of his adopted State, of the new, and widely abused, Constitution.

It is evident that among the subjects antagonistic to "the new system," which had arrested the attention of Colonel at an early day, had been the two series of essays, over the signatures of "" and "" respectively, to which reference has been made; and that he had promptly determined on measures which, he supposed, would counteract the bad effects which those essays were so well calculated to produce, among The People of the State of New York, to whom they had been specifically addressed.

Without any unnecessary waste of time, he appears to have taken a rapid survey of the general subject, and of the peculiar plan of operations—developed in the earlier numbers of their essays—which the able leaders of the States'-Rights, or anti-constitutional party in New York had adopted, in their well-digested opposition to "the new system," and he resolved to employ the same potential agency which they had employed,—the newspaper press,—and, if possible, the same sheets, for the dissemination of sentiments which, he hoped, would counteract the arguments of his opponents, and lead the People of the State of New York to accede to the proposed Constitution. It is evident, also, that, with that tact which formed so prominent a trait of his character, Colonel resolved, in view of the sturdy attachment of the inhabitants of New York to the Confederated Union of the Thirteen United States which