出版社：Westfield State College * Institute for Massachusetts Studies
摘要：This article examines the role of foreign policy in the heated debates that took place in Massachusetts newspapers and at its state ratification convention. In Massachusetts, the Constitution was endorsed by only a slight majority: 187-168 or 52.7 percent in favor. With 355 delegates, the convention was the largest in the nation and among the most impassioned. Tensions ran high. Conflicting interests and ideologies deeply divided the delegates. In contrast, the total count from all thirteen state conventions reveals that nationally 67 percent voted in favor of ratification (1,171 of the 1,748 delegates). Indeed, in three states the vote was unanimous: Delaware, New Jersey, and Georgia. Massachusetts had a unique set of foreign policy interests connected both to the sea and to its large frontier possession in Maine, which bordered the remaining British colonies in Canada. Federalists connected these local commercial and security concerns to foreign policy issues in order to argue in favor of the strong national government. In contrast, Antifederalists downplayed the alleged commercial and security dangers posed by foreign nations. Antifederalists argued instead that the powers that would be granted to a national government to conduct foreign policy, particularly the powers to raise an army and make treaties, created even greater potential threats to domestic liberty
