Next to Washington, Franklin was perhaps the most prominent person in the country. His motions and suggestions did not generally meet with the approval of the convention, excepting perhaps in reference to the equality of representation in the Senate, where the committee appointed under his resolutions brought in a plan for a settlement. His witty remark, when the last members were signing, has taken its place in history. Looking towards the President’s chair, at the back of which a rising or setting sun had been painted, he observed to those around him that painters had found it difficult to distinguish a rising from a setting sun, that during the session, between his hopes and fears as to the issue, he would look at the sun behind the President and could not tell whether it was rising or setting, but now he knew that it was a rising one. Hamilton did not conceal his dislike to the plan adopted, but promised his ardent support. His strenuous labors to that end in the New York convention against the most persistent and determined opposition were finally crowned with success. Gerry of Massachusetts refused to sign; Gorham and Rufus King--who with Gerry had taken active parts in the discussion,--together with their colleague, Caleb Strong, signed. Madison and Blair alone signed for Virginia. Mason, though he had said he would bury his bones in the city rather than the convention should dissolve without doing anything,[46] and had been from the beginning in favor of a national government, declined to sign what he had been so instrumental in making; because he thought the great power given to the Senate of trying impeachment, of making treaties, of appointing ambassadors, judicial and other officers, would make an aristocracy of its members. He and Randolph, the one who brought the plan forward, thought the Constitution agreed on needed amendment and wished another convention. One cannot help thinking their decision might have been different, if Virginia had been allowed her proposed representation in the Senate in proportion to population. [46] 5 Elliot, 278. We have already stated that the Constitution was sent to the Congress of the Confederacy and by them submitted to the State Legislatures, who all sanctioned it so far as to submit it to conventions chosen by the people. In each and every State the coming into the new government was ultimately decided by the people, and not by the State government. In many of the States the adoption of the Constitution was pertinaciously and vehemently opposed on the ground of the great and excessive powers given to the new government, that might be destructive of the liberty of the people. The appointment of officers, and the power of the President with his command of an army and navy in peace as well as in war, the legislative rights of Congress with an unlimited right of taxation, were so great that eminent and prominent men expressed their belief that the government would end in a despotism.