Let it not, however, be supposed that a Constitution, which is now looked upon with such general favor and affection by the people, had no difficulties to encounter at its birth. The history of those times is full of melancholy instruction on this subject, at once to admonish us of past dangers, and to awaken us to a lively sense of the necessity of future vigilance. The Constitution was adopted unanimously by Georgia, New Jersey, and Delaware. It was supported by large majorities in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland, and South Carolina. It was carried in the other States by small majorities; and especially in Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia by little more than a preponderating vote. Indeed, it is believed that in each of these States, at the first assembling of the conventions, there was a decided majority opposed to the Constitution. The ability of the debates, the impending evils, and the absolute necessity of the case seem to have reconciled some persons to the adoption of it, whose opinions had been strenuously the other way. "In our endeavors," said Washington, "to establish a new general government, the contest, nationally considered, seems not to have been so much for glory as for existence. It was for a long time doubtful whether we were to survive, as an independent republic, or decline from our federal dignity into insignificant and withered fragments of empire." FOOTNOTES: [32] Called the "Constitutional Convention."--ED. INAUGURATION OF WASHINGTON HIS FAREWELL ADDRESS A.D. 1789-1797 JAMES K. PAULDING and GEORGE WASHINGTON In times when "logical candidates" for the Presidency of the United States are periodically exploited by rival parties, it is a salutary thing, which can never too often be repeated, to look back to the first filling of the chief magistracy of the country. No parallel is seen in history to the unanimity of Washington's election, a call which his modest reluctance could not refuse, for there was no other who could serve his country's need. The tribute of a nation was again paid in his unanimous reëlection to a second term, which nothing except his own will determined for the last. Familiar as is the fame of Washington and of his services to his country and mankind, there is no name in the records of the world which still commands a more universal veneration. Nor is this sentiment diminished, among intelligent people, now that his character and work have been divested of those elements of myth or tradition which formerly enveloped them; rather by the critical process of humanizing is his reputation more endeared to his countrymen and more firmly established in the eyes of the world.