It was still within the power of the old Congress to expedite or block the ratification of the new Constitution. The document which the Philadelphia Convention presented was technically only a revision of the Articles of Confederation, which might be altered only with the consent of the legislatures of all thirteen States; but the last article of this new instrument provided that when ratified by conventions (not legislatures) in nine States, it should go into effect among the States so acting. In effect, Congress was asked to sanction a secession of nine States from the old Union which had been declared perpetual. Making a virtue of necessity, Congress finally yielded and passed the Constitution on to the States. [Map: Distribution of Votes in Ratification of the Constitution The Middle States (Based on the map of O. G. Libby)] Since the party struggles of Whigs and Tories no campaign of continental proportions had ever been seen like that which ensued between the friends and foes of the new Constitution. By their forehandedness and their clear perception of what they must do, the Federalists, as the proponents of better government styled themselves, had a slight tactical advantage. The Anti-Federalists resented the assumption of the name by their opponents. They were the true friends of federal government, while the friends of the new Constitution aimed to set up a consolidated government. The press teemed with letters and essays, allegories and satires, squibs and pasquinades, expostulating, warning, ridiculing. The public was invited to heed the admonitions of Cato, Cassius, and many another worthy Roman. Although much the same arguments, sober or satirical, were used everywhere, the campaign had to be fought out in the several States, each with its own peculiar social, economic, and political conditions. In Massachusetts the eastern counties, with their dominant commercial and mercantile interests, favored the Constitution, while the interior agricultural section, which had fought the battles of the Revolution and recruited the ranks of Shays' army, opposed it. The interior counties of New York containing the farming population were Anti-Federal, while the city and county of New York with its environs--the commercial section--were Federalist. In Pennsylvania, those who had opposed the domination of the Scotch-Irish and German radicals in the State Government now united in advocacy of the new Constitution. Here as elsewhere the Federal area corresponded closely to the counties where commercial and mercantile interests were most in evidence. In Virginia, the old-time social and economic antagonism between east and west, between the planters and merchants of the tidewater and the small farmers of the interior, reappeared. Much the same alignment is found in the Carolinas. Beyond the Alleghanies, the people were a unit in opposing the Constitution.