Having already, in a spirit of devotion to duty and a hazardous disregard of responsibility which was made necessary by the occasion, set aside the instructions of Congress by making a new Constitution, the Convention pursued a similar course to the end. Instead of reporting the result of their labors to Congress for its approval and submission to the States for their unanimous sanction, according to the Articles of Confederation, as was proposed at Annapolis and provided by Congress in the act of sanction to the holding of the Convention, that body sent the instrument it had framed to Congress, not for its approval, but to be by it submitted to the States and people in the first instance, under a provision, prescribed by the Convention, that if it was ratified by nine of the thirteen States it should be binding upon all,--an heroic though perhaps a lawless act. The dangerous condition of the country, and the general opinion that some decided step was necessary to its safety, added to the imposing character of the instrument itself, which, though not satisfactory to Congress, was yet far less objectionable than had been anticipated, and a general expectation that important amendments rendering it still more acceptable to the people would follow its ratification, deterred the national legislature from refusing to comply with the request of the Convention, notwithstanding its flagrant disregard of congressional authority. The same considerations should have induced the Anti-Federal party to acquiesce in the ratification of the Constitution. They should have looked upon the marked effect of that instrument upon Congress as a prophetic warning of the danger to which they would expose themselves as a party by opposing it. But they did not see their duty, or, perhaps, their interests, in that light; honest in their intentions and obstinate in their opinions, they opposed the ratification, were defeated, and, as a party, finally overthrown.