On June 30, the weather having grown sweltering, Gunning Bedford of Delaware delivered a hot-tempered tirade, aimed at the larger states, demonstrating just how bruising the discourse had become. “I do not, gentlemen, trust you,” he told them. He even hinted at secession, saying apropos of the smaller states that “sooner than be ruined, there are foreign powers who will take us by the hand.”2 Washington and Madison gazed in dismay as their worst fears of disunion threatened to materialize before their eyes.
