This New York convention for a long time was opposed to the ratification. Hamilton, who was exceedingly zealous for it, wrote almost in despair to Madison, asking if a State could adopt the Constitution conditionally and afterwards withdraw from the Union if its proposed amendments were not adopted. Madison replied, that “a conditional ratification did not make a State a member of the Union. The Constitution requires an adoption _in toto_ and _forever_. It has been so adopted by the other States. An adoption for a limited time would be as defective as of some articles only.” Hamilton did not question the correctness of this opinion; but New York was brought finally to giving her consent. Mr. Lansing’s two motions (which show that he thought the Union perpetual) of a conditional ratification with a bill of rights, and of a reservation of a right to withdraw from the Union after a certain number of years unless the amendments proposed should previously be submitted to a general convention, were negatived;[52] a similar conditional acceptance had been proposed in the Virginia convention and abandoned. [52] 2 Elliot, 412. The acceptance was passed in full confidence that the bill of rights proposed by New York would be passed. The proceedings in most of the conventions called by the several States are reported in Elliot’s _Debates_. In none of them was the theory advanced or suggested that a State had the power to secede from the government or decide as an independent sovereignty on the validity of the acts or laws of the new government. If the power to nullify was then supposed to exist, if the right of a State to leave at its will was thought of, why was it not then urged that nullification and secession were easy remedies if the Union should be or become oppressive? No one imagined that there was any such power remaining in the States. No one answered to the alleged fear of oppression and tyranny that the State could nullify or secede. Neither friend nor foe, as Webster said, claimed either. On all occasions, in all the speeches, it was assumed as granted, that the consolidation of the States, as it was termed, was national and perpetual. Even in South Carolina the proceedings are conclusive on this point. The Constitution first came before the legislature on the question of submitting it to the people of the State. Charles Pinckney, who had also been a very prominent member of the general convention that made the Constitution, said: “He repeated that the necessity of having a government which should at once operate upon the people, and not upon the States, was conceived to be indispensable by every delegation present.”[53] [53] 4 Elliot, 256.