The Federal Government then proceeded to threaten drastic measures by taking up a bill which authorized the President to suspend all commercial intercourse with Rhode Island and to demand of that State the payment of its share of the Federal debt.

The bill passed the Senate but stopped there, for the State gave in and ratified the Constitution on the 29th of May.

Two weeks later Ellsworth, who was now United States Senator from Connecticut, wrote that Rhode Island had been "brought into the Union, and by a pretty cold measure in Congress, which would have exposed me to some censure, had it not produced the effect which I expected it would and which in fact it has done.

But 'all is well that ends well.' The Constitution is now adopted by all the States and I have much satisfaction, and perhaps some vanity, in seeing, at length, a great work finished, for which I have long labored incessantly."* * "Connecticut's Ratification of the Federal Constitution," by B.
C.Steiner, in "Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society," April 1915, pp.

88-89.
Perhaps the most striking feature of these conventions is the trivial character of the objections that were raised.