[18] The story of Shays's Rebellion is told in fiction in Bellamy's _Duke of Stockbridge_. Read McMaster's _History of the People of the U. S._, Vol. I, pp. 313-326. [19] All the states except Rhode Island. [20] One had written the Albany Plan of Union; some had been members of the Stamp Act Congress; some had signed the Declaration of Independence, or the Articles of Confederation; two had been presidents and twenty-eight had been members of Congress; seven had been or were then governors of states. In after times two (Washington and Madison) became Presidents, one (Elbridge Gerry) Vice President, four members of the Cabinet, two Chief Justices and two justices of the Supreme Court, five ministers at foreign courts, and many others senators and members of the House of Representatives. One, Franklin, has the distinction of having signed the Declaration of Independence, the treaty of alliance with France (1778), the treaty of peace with Great Britain (1783), and the Constitution of the United States, the four great documents in our early history. [21] Every student should read the Constitution, as printed near the end of this book or elsewhere, and should know about the three branches of government, legislative, executive, and judicial; the powers of Congress (Art. I, Sec. 8), of the President (Art. I, Sec. 7; Art. II, Secs. 2 and 3), and of the United States; courts (Art. III); the principal powers forbidden to Congress (Art. I, Sec. 9) and to the states (Art. I, Sec. 10); the methods of amending the Constitution (Art. V); the supremacy of the Constitution (Art. VI). [22] To remove the many objections made to the new plan, and enable the people the better to understand it, Hamilton, Madison, and Jay wrote a series of little essays for the press, in which they defended the Constitution, explained and discussed its provisions, and showed how closely it resembled the state constitutions. These essays were called _The Federalist_, and, gathered into book form (in 1788), have become famous as a treatise on the Constitution and on government. Those who opposed the Constitution were called Anti-Federalists, and they wrote pamphlets and elaborate series of letters in the newspapers, signed by such names as Cato, Agrippa, A Countryman. They declared that Congress would overpower the states, that the President would become a despot, that the Courts would destroy liberty; and they insisted that amendments should be made, guaranteeing liberty of speech, freedom of the press, trial by jury, no quartering of troops in time of peace, liberty of conscience. Read McMaster's _History of the People of the U. S._, Vol. I, pp. 490-491; 478-479. [23] Because the Constitution provided that it should go into force as soon as nine states ratified it. North Carolina and Rhode Island did not ratify till some months later, and, till they did, were not members of the new Union.