The Constitution that emerged from the Philadelphia Convention in September1787 has been called a "bundle of compromises," but at the time it struck many Americans as something more ominous. In its opponents’ eyes, the proposedConstitution was flawed at best and at worst downright sinister. George Mason, for example, the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights and one of the mostdistinguished delegates to the Federal Convention, refused to sign the document because of the unfortunate mistakes he detected in it. "This Government will commence in a moderate Aristocracy," he predicted, and though it was impossible to tell whether "in its Operation" it would produce "a Monarchy, or a corrupt oppressive Aristocracy," it would probably "vibrate some years between the two, and then terminate in the one or the other." Other critics were lesscharitable. They discerned in the document an "insidious design to deprive us ofour liberties." The Constitution, one wrote, was the "most daring attempt to establish a despotic aristocracy among freemen, that the world has ever witnessed."1 (For all notes in the Introduction, see Endnotes [pp. xxxiii–xxxv].)

1787年9月费城会议产生的宪法被称为“一揽子妥协”，但当时它给许多美国人带来了更为不祥的打击。在反对者眼中，拟议的宪法充其量是有缺陷的，最坏的情况是彻头彻尾的邪恶。例如，《弗吉尼亚权利宣言》的作者、联邦代表大会最受歧视的代表之一乔治·梅森（George Mason）拒绝签署该文件，因为他在文件中发现了不幸的错误。”他预测说，这个政府将从一个温和的贵族开始，虽然无法判断“在其运作中”它是否会产生“一个君主制，还是一个腐败的压迫性贵族”，但它很可能会“在两者之间震荡几年，然后在其中一个或另一个中终止”。其他批评者则不那么幸灾乐祸。他们在文件中发现了一个“旨在剥夺我们自由的阴险阴谋”。有人写道，宪法是“世界上有史以来最大胆的在自由人中建立专制贵族的企图。”