Melancton Smith

On May 7, 1744, in Jamaica on Long Island, Province of New York, Melancton Smith was born into a modest family and made his way through trade rather than elite schooling. He became a successful merchant in Poughkeepsie and used local office to enter the politics of the Hudson Valley. Commercial experience and suspicion of concentrated power made him a natural critic of distant authority.

Smith served in the New York Provincial Congress during the Revolution and later became a leading Anti-Federalist at the New York ratifying convention in 1788. There he argued against the proposed Constitution's concentration of power and pressed for safeguards that would protect the states and popular representation. Although New York ratified, his arguments helped sharpen the demand for amendments that soon became the Bill of Rights.

Smith's speeches became part of the constitutional record consulted whenever Americans revisited the case against unchecked federal authority. His role in the New York convention also connected Anti-Federalist critique to the amendment process that produced the first ten amendments in 1791.