At New York he saw the first Congress under
the new Constitution assemble, and was one of the concourse that
witnessed the scene of General Washington's taking the oath on the
balcony of the old City Hall. It seemed to this Virginia boy natural
enough that a Virginian should be at the head of the government; not
so, that a Yankee should hold the second place and preside over the
Senate. Forty years after, he recalled with bitterness a trifling
incident, which, trifling as it was, appears to have been the origin
of his intense antipathy to all of the blood of John Adams. The
coachman of the Vice-President, it seems, told the brother of this
little republican tory to stand back; or, as the orator stated it,
forty years after, "I remember the manner in which my brother was
spurned by the coachman of the Vice-President for coming too near the
arms emblazoned on the vice-regal carriage."
Boy as he was, he had already taken sides with those who opposed the
Constitution. The real ground of his opposition to it was, that it
reduced the importance of Virginia,--great Virginia! Under the new
Constitution, there was a man on the Western Continent of more
consequence than the Governor of Virginia, there were legislative
bodies more powerful than the Legislature of Virginia.
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