midday
In a day or two he was hard at work again fighting the last desperate battle . The oppositionists had brought forward a new form of conditional ratification , with a bill of rights prefixed , and amendments subjoined . This , it would seem , was their proudest achievement , and , in a long and adroit speech , Melancthon Smith announced it as their final decision . That was at midday . Hamilton rose at once , and in one of the most brilliant and comprehensive speeches he had yet made , demonstrated the absurdity of conditional ratification , or the power of Congress to indorse it . It was a close , legal , and constitutional argument , and with the retorts of the anti-Federalists occupied two days , during which Hamilton stood most of the time , alert , resourceful , master of every point of the vast subject , to which he gave an almost embarrassing simplicity . On the third day occurred his first signal triumph and the confounding of Clinton : Melancthon Smith stood up and admitted that Hamilton had convinced him of the impossibility of conditional ratification .