Federalist attack and got into heated debates with Alexander Hamilton. Smith was so successful in opposing even Hamilton that he had been characterized as "one of the ablest debaters in the country". Following the ratification of the Constitution by New Hampshire and Virginia, and a letter he received from Nathan Dane, Smith became convinced that New York had no choice but to accept the ratification of the Constitution and could not afford to wait until it had been amended because of external threats. His vote for the Constitution, albeit with the recommendation of amendments, broke Anti-Federalist ranks and brought down Governor George Clinton's wrath. He was one of the few important landowners and merchants among the Anti-Federalists, and Smith continued in the Clintonian party. He was elected to the Assembly in 1791 and canvassed the state for Clinton in 1792 against John Jay. He died during the yellow fever epidemic in New York City in 1798 and is buried in Jamaica Cemetery, Jamaica, Queens, New York. The homonymous Unionist naval officer Melancton Smith was his grandson. Anti-Federalist Papers Smith has been cited as the likely author of some of the more prominent Anti-Federalist essays written to encourage voters to reject ratification of the Constitution: the essays of Brutus and The Federal Farmer. While many believed Robert Yates to have been the author of the Brutus essays and Richard Henry Lee to have written the Federal Farmer, scholars have recently cast doubt on those attributions. In a computational analysis of the known writings of Smith, Yates, Lee, and other prominent Antifederalists, John Burrows concluded that Smith was the most likely author of both sets of essays. He found that "Brutus is consistently unlike... Yates's other writings." However, "the resemblance to Smith is strong and unfaltering." Furthermore, "[a]ll of the tests employed upheld Smith's authorship of Federal Farmer's papers, while the claim for Richard Henry Lee found no support at all." Michael Zuckert and Derek Webb, noting that it would be odd for one person to write two separate sets of essays covering similar topics and publishing at the same time, suggest that Smith instead collaborated closely with other Antifederalists. They find it more probable that he wrote one of the sets of essays, while another person or persons close to him wrote the other. References External links Debates in the Convention of the State of New York. Robert H. Webking. "Melancton