Excerpt from The Origin, Purpose and Result of the Harrisburg Convention of 1788: A Study in Popular Government

In spite of the universal acceptance of majority rule as the basis and inherent principle of all government in the United States, there have been few instances in our history when this power has been able to govern according to its inclination. From the earliest period, both our laws and their administration have been for the most part a series of compromises between the majority and the minority, and the few attempts actually made by the former to govern the latter with a high hand, have usually resulted either in a secession of the minority or in a reaction which reversed or moderated the policy of our plastic and changing ruler.

No better illustration of this forced concession of the dominant party, to the will of the minority, is to be found, than in the history of the ratifications by the states, of our national constitution. The necessity for union in Delaware, Georgia, New Jersey, and Connecticut, was so strong that practically there was unanimity in the conventions of those states. In the states of Massachusetts, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, and New York, the ratifications were only carried after mutual concessions.

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