The New York application, signed, as Speaker, by John Lansing, Jr., who had left the Federal Convention in consequence of his dissatisfaction with its proceedings and never returned to it, though not going as much into details, employed language equally bold and uncompromising in demanding from Congress another convention, which might propose such amendments "as it might find best calculated to promote our common interests, and secure to ourselves and our latest posterity the great and inalienable rights of mankind." This memorial asserted not only that the New York Convention had ratified "in the fullest confidence of obtaining a revision of the Constitution by a general convention, as appeared on the face of its ratification," but that that body (of which Hamilton was a member) were unanimous in the opinion that such a revision was necessary to recommend that instrument to the approbation and support of a numerous body of its constituents. These documents, and especially that of Virginia, pointed very emphatically to the source of that discontent with the Constitution which so extensively prevailed in the old Anti-Federal ranks. Even they felt that the Constitution was much better than they had expected, and the most considerate among them, those who were most capable of suspending their suspicions as to the designs of their opponents long enough to give the instrument a dispassionate consideration, were soon satisfied--and Samuel Adams, who stood at the head of the Anti-Federal party, admitted--that its general structure was free from any insuperable objection. The life-tenure given to the Federal Judges was, as it indeed might well be, regarded as inconsistent with republican principles; but it was to be remembered that those officers were expected to be, as they ought always to be, non-combatants in partisan politics by reason of their appointment to act as arbiters of the fates and fortunes of their countrymen. Upon the great point to which the attention of such men was first directed, that of the ability of the State governments to maintain their sovereignty and independence under the new system, there was no real ground for apprehension. But the Constitution was principally confined to what were more strictly public concerns, the powers and duties of the Federal and State Governments in regard to National and State affairs, with only a slight sprinkling of provisions looking particularly to the protection of the citizen against the exercise of arbitrary power; and it was accompanied by no Bill of Rights, such as those to which the people had been accustomed in respect to their State governments. In the latter cases they might more readily have been reconciled to the absence of such provisions, as those governments were carried on under their immediate observation, and they formed a part of them in much larger portions than they could expect to do of the Federal Government. The latter they were too much in the habit