The orator's opposition

The Virginia ratifying convention is meeting in Richmond, and Henry has been speaking against the Constitution for days. He has invited Jefferson and Madison to his rooms, not to convert them but to make his case once more in private.

Henry objects that the document begins with the people rather than the states, that it creates a consolidated government, and that it contains no bill of rights. Madison, who wrote much of it, answers with the theory of the extended republic; Jefferson, sympathetic to Henry's fears, notes that he has himself argued for a bill of rights. The evening is cordial under the disagreement. They eat Brunswick stew and sweet potato pone, finish with chess pie and raspberry shrub, and part knowing that Virginia will ratify by a narrow margin.