adherence to her rights as a free, sovereign, and independent republic, the unanimity of her well-tried popular leaders and of her inhabitants, in opposition to the proposed constitution, and the perfect organization of her citizens, in every county throughout the state, to prevent the official approval of that instrument, had indicated that the task of securing that approval of the Constitution, in the form which it then possessed, would be difficult, if not impossible.
It need not be a matter of surprise, therefore, that while the best friends of the new Constitution, throughout the Union, had desired the organization of measures for securing the assent and approval of the State of New York to that instrument, there were but few among her citizens who were inclined, and a still smaller number who were qualified, from their associations and their acquirements, to come before the people, and to undertake that delicate but arduous duty.
Robert R. Livingston—firm and patriotic, and possessed of abundant abilities—had evinced, in public, but little interest in the subject.