After signing, the delegates adjourned to the City Tavern, which John Adams described as the "most genteel tavern in America," for a farewell dinner.103 Behind the conviviality lurked unspoken fears, and Washington, for one, doubted that the new federal government would survive twenty years. The delegates decided that the Constitution would take effect when nine state conventions approved it. For tactical and philosophical reasons, state legislatures were bypassed in favor of independent ratifying conventions. This would prevent state officials hostile to the new federal government from killing it off. Also, by having autonomous conventions approve the Constitution, the new republic would derive its legitimacy not from the statehouses but directly from the citizenry, enabling federal law to supersede state legislation.
( Ron Chernow )
[ Alexander Hamilton ]
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