Speech to the Pennsylvania Conventions, morning, continued ...
James Wilson
December 04, 1787
I come now to consider the last set of objections that are offered against this Constitution.
It is urged that this is not such a system as was within the powers of the Convention; they assumed the power of proposing.
I believe they might have made proposals without going beyond their powers.
I never heard, before, that to make a proposal was an exercise of power.
But if it is an exercise of power, they certainly did assume it; yet they did not act as that body who framed the present Constitution of Pennsylvania acted; they did not, by an ordinance, attempt to rivet the Constitution on the people, before they could vote for members of Assembly under it.
Yet such was the effect of the ordinance that attended the Constitution of this commonwealth.
I think the late Convention has done nothing beyond their powers.
The fact is, they have exercised no power at all, and, in point of validity, this Constitution, proposed by them for the government of the United States, claims no more than a production of the same nature would claim, flowing from a private pen.
It is laid before the citizens of the United States, unfettered by restraint; it is laid before them to be judged by the natural, civil, and political rights of men.
By their fiat, it will become of value and authority, without it, it will never receive the character of authenticity and power.
The business, we are told, which was intrusted to the late Convention, was merely to amend the present Articles of Confederation.
This observation has been frequently made, and has often brought to my mind a story that is related of Mr. Pope, who, it is well known, was not a little deformed.
It was customary with him to use this phrase, “God mend me!” when any little accident happened.
One evening, a link-boy was lighting him along, and, coming to a gutter, the boy jumped nimbly over it.
Mr. Pope called to him to turn, adding, “God mend me!”
The arch rogue, turning to light him, looked at him, and repeated, “God mend you!"
"He would sooner make half-a-dozen new ones.”
This would apply to the present Confederation; for it would be easier to make another than to amend this.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA
Re: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA
Speech to the Pennsylvania Conventions, morning, concluded ...
James Wilson
December 04, 1787
The gentlemen urge that this is such a government as was not expected by the people, the legislatures, nor by the honorable gentlemen who mentioned it.
Perhaps it was not such as was expected, but it may be better; and is that a reason why it should not be adopted?
It is not worse, I trust, than the former.
So that the argument of its being a system not expected, is an argument more strong in its favor than against it.
The letter which accompanies this Constitution must strike every person with the utmost force.
“The friends of our country have long seen and desired that the power of war, peace, and treaties, that of levying money and regulating commerce, and the corresponding executive and judicial authorities, should be fully and effectually vested in the general government of the Union; but the impropriety of delegating such extensive trust to one body of men, is evident."
"Hence results the necessity of a different organization.”
I therefore do not think that it can be urged, as an objection against this system, that it was not expected by the people.
We are told, to add greater force to these objections, that they are not on local but on general principles, and that they are uniform throughout the United States.
I confess I am not altogether of that opinion; I think some of the objections are inconsistent with others, arising from a different quarter, and I think some are inconsistent even with those derived from the same source.
But, on this occasion, let us take the fact for granted, that they are all on general principles, and uniform throughout the United States.
Then we can judge of their full amount; and what are they, but trifles light as air?
We see the whole force of them; for, according to the sentiments of opposition, they can nowhere be stronger, or more fully stated, than here.
The conclusion, from all these objections, is reduced to a point, and the plan is declared to be inimical to our liberties.
I have said nothing, and mean to say nothing, concerning the dispositions or characters of those that framed the work now before you.
I agree that it ought to be judged by its own intrinsic qualities.
If it has not merit, weight of character ought not to carry it into effect.
On the other hand, if it has merit, and is calculated to secure the blessings of liberty, and to promote the general welfare, then such objections as have hitherto been made ought not to influence us to reject it.
I am now led to consider those qualities that this system of government possesses, which will entitle it to the attention of the United States.
But as I have somewhat fatigued myself, as well as the patience of the honorable members of this house, I shall defer what I have to add on this subject until the afternoon.
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/libr ... s-morning/
James Wilson
December 04, 1787
The gentlemen urge that this is such a government as was not expected by the people, the legislatures, nor by the honorable gentlemen who mentioned it.
Perhaps it was not such as was expected, but it may be better; and is that a reason why it should not be adopted?
It is not worse, I trust, than the former.
So that the argument of its being a system not expected, is an argument more strong in its favor than against it.
The letter which accompanies this Constitution must strike every person with the utmost force.
“The friends of our country have long seen and desired that the power of war, peace, and treaties, that of levying money and regulating commerce, and the corresponding executive and judicial authorities, should be fully and effectually vested in the general government of the Union; but the impropriety of delegating such extensive trust to one body of men, is evident."
"Hence results the necessity of a different organization.”
I therefore do not think that it can be urged, as an objection against this system, that it was not expected by the people.
We are told, to add greater force to these objections, that they are not on local but on general principles, and that they are uniform throughout the United States.
I confess I am not altogether of that opinion; I think some of the objections are inconsistent with others, arising from a different quarter, and I think some are inconsistent even with those derived from the same source.
But, on this occasion, let us take the fact for granted, that they are all on general principles, and uniform throughout the United States.
Then we can judge of their full amount; and what are they, but trifles light as air?
We see the whole force of them; for, according to the sentiments of opposition, they can nowhere be stronger, or more fully stated, than here.
The conclusion, from all these objections, is reduced to a point, and the plan is declared to be inimical to our liberties.
I have said nothing, and mean to say nothing, concerning the dispositions or characters of those that framed the work now before you.
I agree that it ought to be judged by its own intrinsic qualities.
If it has not merit, weight of character ought not to carry it into effect.
On the other hand, if it has merit, and is calculated to secure the blessings of liberty, and to promote the general welfare, then such objections as have hitherto been made ought not to influence us to reject it.
I am now led to consider those qualities that this system of government possesses, which will entitle it to the attention of the United States.
But as I have somewhat fatigued myself, as well as the patience of the honorable members of this house, I shall defer what I have to add on this subject until the afternoon.
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/libr ... s-morning/
Re: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA
Landholder VI
Oliver Ellsworth
Connecticut Courant
December 10, 1787
“He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbor cometh and searcheth him.”
To the Landholders and Farmers:
The publication of Col. Mason’s reasons for not signing the new Constitution, has extorted some truths that would otherwise in all probability have remained unknown to us all.
His reasons, like Mr. Gerry’s, are most of them ex post facto, have been revised in New York by R. H. L. and by him brought into their present artful and insidious form.
The factious spirit of R. H. L., his implacable hatred to General Washington, his well-known intrigues against him in the late war, his attempts to displace him and give the command of the American army to General Lee, is so recent in your minds it is not necessary to repeat them.
He is supposed to be the author of most of the scurrility poured out in the New-York papers against the new constitution.
Just at the close of the Convention, whose proceedings in general were zealously supported by Mr. Mason, he moved for a clause that no navigation act should ever be passed but with the consent of two-thirds of both branches; urging that a navigation act might otherwise be passed excluding foreign bottoms from carrying American produce to market, and throw a monopoly of the carrying business into the hands of the eastern states who attend to navigation, and that such an exclusion of foreigners would raise the freight of the produce of the southern states, and for these reasons Mr. Mason would have it in the power of the southern states to prevent any navigation act.
This clause, as unequal and partial in the extreme to the southern states, was rejected; because it ought to be left on the same footing with other national concerns, and because no state would have a right to complain of a navigation act which should leave the carrying business equally open to them all.
Those who preferred cultivating their lands would do so; those who chose to navigate and become carriers would do that.
The loss of this question determined Mr. Mason against the signing the doings of the convention, and is undoubtedly among his reasons as drawn for the southern states; but for the eastern states this reason would not do.
It would convince us that Mr. Mason preferred the subjects of every foreign power to the subjects of the United States who live in New-England; even the British who lately ravaged Virginia — that Virginia, my countrymen, where your relations lavished their blood — where your sons laid down their lives to secure to her and us the freedom and independence in which we now rejoice, and which can only be continued to us by a firm, equal and effective union.
But do not believe that the people of Virginia are all thus selfish: No, there is a Washington, a Blair, a Madison and a Lee, (not R. H. L.) and I am persuaded there is a majority of liberal, just and federal men in Virginia, who, whatever their sentiments may be of the new constitution, will despise the artful injustice contained in Col. Mason’s reasons as published in the Connecticut papers.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Oliver Ellsworth
Connecticut Courant
December 10, 1787
“He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbor cometh and searcheth him.”
To the Landholders and Farmers:
The publication of Col. Mason’s reasons for not signing the new Constitution, has extorted some truths that would otherwise in all probability have remained unknown to us all.
His reasons, like Mr. Gerry’s, are most of them ex post facto, have been revised in New York by R. H. L. and by him brought into their present artful and insidious form.
The factious spirit of R. H. L., his implacable hatred to General Washington, his well-known intrigues against him in the late war, his attempts to displace him and give the command of the American army to General Lee, is so recent in your minds it is not necessary to repeat them.
He is supposed to be the author of most of the scurrility poured out in the New-York papers against the new constitution.
Just at the close of the Convention, whose proceedings in general were zealously supported by Mr. Mason, he moved for a clause that no navigation act should ever be passed but with the consent of two-thirds of both branches; urging that a navigation act might otherwise be passed excluding foreign bottoms from carrying American produce to market, and throw a monopoly of the carrying business into the hands of the eastern states who attend to navigation, and that such an exclusion of foreigners would raise the freight of the produce of the southern states, and for these reasons Mr. Mason would have it in the power of the southern states to prevent any navigation act.
This clause, as unequal and partial in the extreme to the southern states, was rejected; because it ought to be left on the same footing with other national concerns, and because no state would have a right to complain of a navigation act which should leave the carrying business equally open to them all.
Those who preferred cultivating their lands would do so; those who chose to navigate and become carriers would do that.
The loss of this question determined Mr. Mason against the signing the doings of the convention, and is undoubtedly among his reasons as drawn for the southern states; but for the eastern states this reason would not do.
It would convince us that Mr. Mason preferred the subjects of every foreign power to the subjects of the United States who live in New-England; even the British who lately ravaged Virginia — that Virginia, my countrymen, where your relations lavished their blood — where your sons laid down their lives to secure to her and us the freedom and independence in which we now rejoice, and which can only be continued to us by a firm, equal and effective union.
But do not believe that the people of Virginia are all thus selfish: No, there is a Washington, a Blair, a Madison and a Lee, (not R. H. L.) and I am persuaded there is a majority of liberal, just and federal men in Virginia, who, whatever their sentiments may be of the new constitution, will despise the artful injustice contained in Col. Mason’s reasons as published in the Connecticut papers.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA
Landholder VI, continued ...
Oliver Ellsworth
Connecticut Courant
December 10, 1787
The President of the United States has no council, etc., says Col. Mason.
His proposed council would have been expensive — they must constantly attend the president, because the president constantly acts.
This council must have been composed of great characters, who could not be kept attending without great salaries, and if their opinions were binding on the president his responsibility would be destroyed — if divided, prevent vigor and dispatch — if not binding, they would be no security.
The states who have had such councils have found them useless, and complain of them as a dead weight.
In others, as in England, the supreme executive advises when and with whom he pleases; if any information is wanted, the heads of the departments who are always at hand can best give it, and from the manner of their appointment will be trustworthy.
Secrecy, vigor, dispatch and responsibility, require that the supreme executive should be one person, and unfettered otherwise than by the laws he is to execute.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Oliver Ellsworth
Connecticut Courant
December 10, 1787
The President of the United States has no council, etc., says Col. Mason.
His proposed council would have been expensive — they must constantly attend the president, because the president constantly acts.
This council must have been composed of great characters, who could not be kept attending without great salaries, and if their opinions were binding on the president his responsibility would be destroyed — if divided, prevent vigor and dispatch — if not binding, they would be no security.
The states who have had such councils have found them useless, and complain of them as a dead weight.
In others, as in England, the supreme executive advises when and with whom he pleases; if any information is wanted, the heads of the departments who are always at hand can best give it, and from the manner of their appointment will be trustworthy.
Secrecy, vigor, dispatch and responsibility, require that the supreme executive should be one person, and unfettered otherwise than by the laws he is to execute.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA
Landholder VI, continued ...
Oliver Ellsworth
Connecticut Courant
December 10, 1787
"There is no Declaration of Rights."
Bills of Rights were introduced in England when its kings claimed all power and jurisdiction, and were considered by them as grants to the people.
They are insignificant since government is considered as originating from the people, and all the power government now has is a grant from the people.
The constitution they establish with powers limited and defined, becomes now to the legislator and magistrate, what originally a bill of rights was to the people.
To have inserted in this constitution a bill of rights for the states would suppose them to derive and hold their rights from the federal government, when the reverse is the case.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Oliver Ellsworth
Connecticut Courant
December 10, 1787
"There is no Declaration of Rights."
Bills of Rights were introduced in England when its kings claimed all power and jurisdiction, and were considered by them as grants to the people.
They are insignificant since government is considered as originating from the people, and all the power government now has is a grant from the people.
The constitution they establish with powers limited and defined, becomes now to the legislator and magistrate, what originally a bill of rights was to the people.
To have inserted in this constitution a bill of rights for the states would suppose them to derive and hold their rights from the federal government, when the reverse is the case.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA
Landholder VI, continued ...
Oliver Ellsworth
Connecticut Courant
December 10, 1787
"There is to be no ex post facto laws."
This was moved by Mr Gerry and supported by Mr. Mason, and is exceptional only as being unnecessary; for it ought not to be presumed that government will be so tyranical, and opposed to the sense of all modern civilians, as to pass such laws: if they should, they would be void.
"The general Legislature is restrained from prohibiting the further importation of slaves for twenty odd years."
But every state legislature may restrain its own subjects; but if they should not, shall we refuse to confederate with them?
Their consciences are their own, tho’ their wealth and strength are blended with ours.
Mr. Mason has himself about three hundred slaves, and lives in Virginia, where it is found by prudent management they can breed and raise slaves faster than they want them for their own use, and could supply the deficiency in Georgia and South Carolina; and perhaps Col. Mason may suppose it more humane to breed than import slaves — those imported having been bred and born free, may not so tamely bear slavery as those born slaves, and from their infancy inured to it; but his objections are not on the side of freedom, nor in compassion to the human race who are slaves, but that such importations render the United States weaker, more vulnerable, and less capable of defence.
To this I readily agree, and all good men wish the entire abolition of slavery, as soon as it can take place with safety to the public, and for the lasting good of the present wretched race of slaves.
The only possible step that could be taken towards it by the convention was to fix a period after which they should not be imported.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Oliver Ellsworth
Connecticut Courant
December 10, 1787
"There is to be no ex post facto laws."
This was moved by Mr Gerry and supported by Mr. Mason, and is exceptional only as being unnecessary; for it ought not to be presumed that government will be so tyranical, and opposed to the sense of all modern civilians, as to pass such laws: if they should, they would be void.
"The general Legislature is restrained from prohibiting the further importation of slaves for twenty odd years."
But every state legislature may restrain its own subjects; but if they should not, shall we refuse to confederate with them?
Their consciences are their own, tho’ their wealth and strength are blended with ours.
Mr. Mason has himself about three hundred slaves, and lives in Virginia, where it is found by prudent management they can breed and raise slaves faster than they want them for their own use, and could supply the deficiency in Georgia and South Carolina; and perhaps Col. Mason may suppose it more humane to breed than import slaves — those imported having been bred and born free, may not so tamely bear slavery as those born slaves, and from their infancy inured to it; but his objections are not on the side of freedom, nor in compassion to the human race who are slaves, but that such importations render the United States weaker, more vulnerable, and less capable of defence.
To this I readily agree, and all good men wish the entire abolition of slavery, as soon as it can take place with safety to the public, and for the lasting good of the present wretched race of slaves.
The only possible step that could be taken towards it by the convention was to fix a period after which they should not be imported.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA
Landholder VI, continued ...
Oliver Ellsworth
Connecticut Courant
December 10, 1787
"There is no declaration of any kind to preserve the Liberty of the press, etc."
Nor is liberty of conscience, or of matrimony, or of burial of the dead; it is enough that congress have no power to prohibit either, and can have no temptation.
This objection is answered in that the states have all the power originally, and congress have only what the states grant them.
"The judiciary of the United States is so constructed and extended as to absorb and destroy the judiciaries of the several states; thereby rendering law as tedious, intricate and expensive, and justice as unattainable by a great part of the community, as in England; and enable the rich to oppress and ruin the poor."
It extends only to objects and cases specified, and wherein the national peace or rights, or the harmony of the states is concerned, and not to controversies between citizens of the same state (except where they claim under grants of different states); and nothing hinders but the supreme federal court may be held in different districts, or in all the states, and that all the cases, except the few in which it has original and not appellate jurisdiction, may in the first instance be had in the state courts and those trials be final except in cases of great magnitude; and the trials be by jury also in most or all the causes which were wont to be tried by them, as congress shall provide, whose appointment is security enough for their attention to the wishes and convenience of the people.
In chancery courts juries are never used, nor are they proper in admiralty courts, which proceed not by municipal laws, which they may be supposed to understand, but by the civil law and law of nations.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Oliver Ellsworth
Connecticut Courant
December 10, 1787
"There is no declaration of any kind to preserve the Liberty of the press, etc."
Nor is liberty of conscience, or of matrimony, or of burial of the dead; it is enough that congress have no power to prohibit either, and can have no temptation.
This objection is answered in that the states have all the power originally, and congress have only what the states grant them.
"The judiciary of the United States is so constructed and extended as to absorb and destroy the judiciaries of the several states; thereby rendering law as tedious, intricate and expensive, and justice as unattainable by a great part of the community, as in England; and enable the rich to oppress and ruin the poor."
It extends only to objects and cases specified, and wherein the national peace or rights, or the harmony of the states is concerned, and not to controversies between citizens of the same state (except where they claim under grants of different states); and nothing hinders but the supreme federal court may be held in different districts, or in all the states, and that all the cases, except the few in which it has original and not appellate jurisdiction, may in the first instance be had in the state courts and those trials be final except in cases of great magnitude; and the trials be by jury also in most or all the causes which were wont to be tried by them, as congress shall provide, whose appointment is security enough for their attention to the wishes and convenience of the people.
In chancery courts juries are never used, nor are they proper in admiralty courts, which proceed not by municipal laws, which they may be supposed to understand, but by the civil law and law of nations.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA
Landholder VI, concluded ...
Oliver Ellsworth
Connecticut Courant
December 10, 1787
Mr. Mason deems the president and senate’s power to make treaties dangerous, because they become laws of the land.
If the president and his proposed council had this power, or the president alone, as in England and other nations is the case, could the danger be less?
Or is the representative branch suited to the making of treaties, which are often intricate, and require much negotiation and secrecy?
The senate is objected to as having too much power, and bold unfounded assertions that they will destroy any balance in the government, and accomplish what usurpation they please upon the rights and liberties of the people; to which it may be answered, they are elective and rotative, to the mass of the people; the populace can as well balance the senatorial branch there as in the states, and much better than in England, where the lords are hereditary, and yet the commons preserve their weight; but the state governments on which the constitution is built will forever be security enough to the people against aristocratic usurpations:
The danger of the constitution is not aristocracy or monarchy, but anarchy.
I intreat you, my fellow citizens, to read and examine the new constitution with candor—examine it for yourselves: you are, most of you, as learned as the objector, and certainly as able to judge of its virtues or vices as he is.
To make the objections the more plausible, they are called The objections of the Hon. George Mason, etc.
They may possibly be his, but be assured they were not those made in convention, and being directly against what he there supported in one instance ought to caution you against giving any credit to the rest; his violent opposition to the powers given congress to regulate trade, was an open decided preference of all the world to you.
A man governed by such narrow views and local prejudices, can never be trusted; and his pompous declaration in the House of Delegates in Virginia that no man was more federal than himself, amounts to no more than this, “Make a federal government that will secure Virginia all her natural advantages, promote all her interests regardless of every disadvantage to the other states, and I will subscribe to it.”
It may be asked how I came by my information respecting Col. Mason’s conduct in convention, as the doors were shut?
To this I answer, no delegate of the late convention will contradict my assertions, as I have repeatedly heard them made by others in presence of several of them, who could not deny their truth.
Whether the constitution in question will be adopted by the United States in our day is uncertain; but it is neither aristocracy or monarchy can grow out of it, so long as the present descent of landed estates last, and the mass of the people have, as at present, a tolerable education; and were it ever so perfect a scheme of freedom, when we become ignorant, vicious, idle, and regardless of the education of our children, our liberties will be lost — we shall be fitted for slavery, and it will be an easy business to reduce us to obey one or more tyrants.
A Landholder.
Source:
Essays on the Constitution of the United States, pages 163-64 (Paul Leicester Ford, Ed., Brooklyn: Historical Printing Club, 1892).
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/libr ... holder-vi/
Oliver Ellsworth
Connecticut Courant
December 10, 1787
Mr. Mason deems the president and senate’s power to make treaties dangerous, because they become laws of the land.
If the president and his proposed council had this power, or the president alone, as in England and other nations is the case, could the danger be less?
Or is the representative branch suited to the making of treaties, which are often intricate, and require much negotiation and secrecy?
The senate is objected to as having too much power, and bold unfounded assertions that they will destroy any balance in the government, and accomplish what usurpation they please upon the rights and liberties of the people; to which it may be answered, they are elective and rotative, to the mass of the people; the populace can as well balance the senatorial branch there as in the states, and much better than in England, where the lords are hereditary, and yet the commons preserve their weight; but the state governments on which the constitution is built will forever be security enough to the people against aristocratic usurpations:
The danger of the constitution is not aristocracy or monarchy, but anarchy.
I intreat you, my fellow citizens, to read and examine the new constitution with candor—examine it for yourselves: you are, most of you, as learned as the objector, and certainly as able to judge of its virtues or vices as he is.
To make the objections the more plausible, they are called The objections of the Hon. George Mason, etc.
They may possibly be his, but be assured they were not those made in convention, and being directly against what he there supported in one instance ought to caution you against giving any credit to the rest; his violent opposition to the powers given congress to regulate trade, was an open decided preference of all the world to you.
A man governed by such narrow views and local prejudices, can never be trusted; and his pompous declaration in the House of Delegates in Virginia that no man was more federal than himself, amounts to no more than this, “Make a federal government that will secure Virginia all her natural advantages, promote all her interests regardless of every disadvantage to the other states, and I will subscribe to it.”
It may be asked how I came by my information respecting Col. Mason’s conduct in convention, as the doors were shut?
To this I answer, no delegate of the late convention will contradict my assertions, as I have repeatedly heard them made by others in presence of several of them, who could not deny their truth.
Whether the constitution in question will be adopted by the United States in our day is uncertain; but it is neither aristocracy or monarchy can grow out of it, so long as the present descent of landed estates last, and the mass of the people have, as at present, a tolerable education; and were it ever so perfect a scheme of freedom, when we become ignorant, vicious, idle, and regardless of the education of our children, our liberties will be lost — we shall be fitted for slavery, and it will be an easy business to reduce us to obey one or more tyrants.
A Landholder.
Source:
Essays on the Constitution of the United States, pages 163-64 (Paul Leicester Ford, Ed., Brooklyn: Historical Printing Club, 1892).
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/libr ... holder-vi/
Re: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA
“Cato” Essay
Country Journal and Advertiser, Poughkeepsie
December 12, 1787
In my address to you in the spring of 1766, on the subject of our political concerns, I promised at a future period to continue my observations; but was happy to find, that the general voice of the nation superseded the necessity of them.
The radical defects in the constitution of the confederate government, was too obvious to escape the notice of a sensible, enlightened people — they saw with concern the danger their former caution and jealousy had involved them in; and very wisely called a general Convention of the States to devise a plan to check the mischief of anarchy in its bud — happily for this country many of the wisest men and most distinguished characters, independent in their principles and circumstances, and disconnected with party influence, were appointed to the important trust; and their unanimity in the business affords a pleasing presage of the happiness that will result from their deliberation.
It is but a groveling business, and commonly ruinous policy, to repair by peace-meal a shattered defective fabric — it is better to raise the disjointed building to its formation, and begin a new.
The confederation was fraught with so many defects, and these so interwoven with its substantial parts, that to have attempted to revise it would have been doing business by the halves, and therefore the Convention with a boldness and decision becoming freemen, wisely carried the remedy to the root of the evil; and have offered a form of government to your consideration on an entire new system — much depends on your present deliberations.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Country Journal and Advertiser, Poughkeepsie
December 12, 1787
In my address to you in the spring of 1766, on the subject of our political concerns, I promised at a future period to continue my observations; but was happy to find, that the general voice of the nation superseded the necessity of them.
The radical defects in the constitution of the confederate government, was too obvious to escape the notice of a sensible, enlightened people — they saw with concern the danger their former caution and jealousy had involved them in; and very wisely called a general Convention of the States to devise a plan to check the mischief of anarchy in its bud — happily for this country many of the wisest men and most distinguished characters, independent in their principles and circumstances, and disconnected with party influence, were appointed to the important trust; and their unanimity in the business affords a pleasing presage of the happiness that will result from their deliberation.
It is but a groveling business, and commonly ruinous policy, to repair by peace-meal a shattered defective fabric — it is better to raise the disjointed building to its formation, and begin a new.
The confederation was fraught with so many defects, and these so interwoven with its substantial parts, that to have attempted to revise it would have been doing business by the halves, and therefore the Convention with a boldness and decision becoming freemen, wisely carried the remedy to the root of the evil; and have offered a form of government to your consideration on an entire new system — much depends on your present deliberations.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA
“Cato” Essay, concluded ...
Country Journal and Advertiser, Poughkeepsie
December 12, 1787
It is easy to foresee that the present crisis will form a principal epoch in the politics of America, from whence we may date our national consequence and dignity, or anarchy, discord and ruin; the arguments made use of by a certain class of political scribblers, I conceive calculated (instead of throwing light on the subject) to deceive the ignorant but perhaps honest part of the community; and to misguide the thoughtless and unwary — in our present enquiry it is of no consequence who are the authors of these inflammatory productions, whether they are the result of the vanity of a northern champion to become the head of a party; the expiring groans of a principal magistrate of a state; or the last effort of the patriotic bower of a Treasury to gain popularity; or all together, I trust will bare equal rights on the minds of the public.
It is natural enough to suppose that, when any general plan is proposed, that thwarts the private interests or views of a party, that, such party will draw the most unpleasing picture of the plan, and blacken it with all the false colouring that a gloomy imagination can invent: thus are we told by these evil prospects, that the system is impracticable; smallness of territory being essential to a republican government — in support of this doctrine, Montesquieu (who was born and educated under a monarchical government and knew nothing of any other but in theory) is quoted as an uncontrovertable authority, and after all, I presume they have mistaken the meaning of this author, for if I comprehend him right he is speaking of a pure democracy, such as Athens where the people all met in council; to be sure in such a government, extensive territory would be inconvenient, but a remedy to this evil has long since been found out: when the territory of any state became too large for the general assembling of the people, it was thought best to transact the business of the Commonwealth by representation: and thus large states may be governed as well by delegates from twenty districts, as small ones are from two or three; but this is what we are told by the politicians of the day constitutes a dangerous aristocracy, for say they in their learned definition, it is a government of the few; on this shameful quibble they attempt to ketch the attention of the rabble and frighten them into the measure of rejecting the proposed government.
If I understand any thing of the meaning of the term, aristocracy signifies a government by a body of Nobles, who derive their power either from hereditary succession or from self appointment; and are no way dependent on the people for their rank in the state.
By the plan offered to us, both the legislative and executive, derive their appointments either directly from the people: how this can be called aristocracy exceeds the limits of my comprehension.
It is true that we are told that the better sort of people will be appointed to govern; I pray God the prediction may not be a false one.
But should that be the case, say these political empirics, we shall not have an equal representation.
Why?
Because every class of people will not be represented.
God knows that fools and knaves have voice enough in government already; it is to be hoped these wise prophesiers of evil would not wish to give them a constitutional privilege to send members in proportion to their numbers.
If they mean by classes the different professions in the state, their plan is totally new, and it is to be feared the system once adopted, there would be no end to their democratical purity; to take in every profession from the Clergy to the Chimneysweep, will besides composing a motley assemblage of heterogeneous particles, enlarge the representation so that it will become burthensome to the Community; had the representation in Massachusetts been no larger than that in the proposed government of the Union, Shays would never have had a follower:
I think my judgment will not be impeached when I say that if our representation in this state was less, we should be better represented, and the public saved a very great expense — to judge of the future by the past, it is easy to perceive, that small states are as subject to aristocratic oppressions, as large ones; witness the small territory of Venice, at present the purest aristocracy in the world: Geneva, the circumference of which may be traversed in an hour’s march is now oppressed by a dangerous aristocracy; while the democratic branch of the legislature in England retains its primitive purity.
Who was it that enslaved the extensive empire of Rome, but an abandoned democracy?
Who defended the republic at the battle of Pharsallia, but the better sort of the people?
Caesar can be considered in no other light than a more fortunate Cattiline, and the latter in no other than that of an ambitious demagogue attempting to ruin the Commonwealth, at the head of licentious democracy.
In the present crisis of our public affairs I confess with the frankness of a free man and the concern of a patriot, that I apprehend more danger from a licentious democracy, than from aristocratic oppression.
I clearly perceive there will be no mid-way in the present business; we must either adopt the advice of these pretended democratical puritans, and then carry their doctrines to the point they evidently lead, viz.
To divide the present union into at least five hundred independent sovereign states, build a council-house in the centre of each, and by a general law declare all the servants and apprentices free, and then let the multitude meet and govern themselves — or on the other hand, fall to the plain road of common sense, and govern the union by representatives in one collective council; as pointed-out in the system offered to your consideration:
In the first you will possess popular liberty with a vengeance, and like a neighbor state, no man’s property will be secure, but each one defrauding his neighbor under the sanction of law, thus subverting every principle of morality and religion.
In the second you will enjoy the blessing of a well balanced government, capable of inspiring credit and respectability abroad, and virtue, confidence, good order and harmony at home.
Should the Author have leisure to attend to it, the dangerous consequences that will inevitably flow from dividing the union, will be the subject of another paper.
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/libr ... ato-essay/
Country Journal and Advertiser, Poughkeepsie
December 12, 1787
It is easy to foresee that the present crisis will form a principal epoch in the politics of America, from whence we may date our national consequence and dignity, or anarchy, discord and ruin; the arguments made use of by a certain class of political scribblers, I conceive calculated (instead of throwing light on the subject) to deceive the ignorant but perhaps honest part of the community; and to misguide the thoughtless and unwary — in our present enquiry it is of no consequence who are the authors of these inflammatory productions, whether they are the result of the vanity of a northern champion to become the head of a party; the expiring groans of a principal magistrate of a state; or the last effort of the patriotic bower of a Treasury to gain popularity; or all together, I trust will bare equal rights on the minds of the public.
It is natural enough to suppose that, when any general plan is proposed, that thwarts the private interests or views of a party, that, such party will draw the most unpleasing picture of the plan, and blacken it with all the false colouring that a gloomy imagination can invent: thus are we told by these evil prospects, that the system is impracticable; smallness of territory being essential to a republican government — in support of this doctrine, Montesquieu (who was born and educated under a monarchical government and knew nothing of any other but in theory) is quoted as an uncontrovertable authority, and after all, I presume they have mistaken the meaning of this author, for if I comprehend him right he is speaking of a pure democracy, such as Athens where the people all met in council; to be sure in such a government, extensive territory would be inconvenient, but a remedy to this evil has long since been found out: when the territory of any state became too large for the general assembling of the people, it was thought best to transact the business of the Commonwealth by representation: and thus large states may be governed as well by delegates from twenty districts, as small ones are from two or three; but this is what we are told by the politicians of the day constitutes a dangerous aristocracy, for say they in their learned definition, it is a government of the few; on this shameful quibble they attempt to ketch the attention of the rabble and frighten them into the measure of rejecting the proposed government.
If I understand any thing of the meaning of the term, aristocracy signifies a government by a body of Nobles, who derive their power either from hereditary succession or from self appointment; and are no way dependent on the people for their rank in the state.
By the plan offered to us, both the legislative and executive, derive their appointments either directly from the people: how this can be called aristocracy exceeds the limits of my comprehension.
It is true that we are told that the better sort of people will be appointed to govern; I pray God the prediction may not be a false one.
But should that be the case, say these political empirics, we shall not have an equal representation.
Why?
Because every class of people will not be represented.
God knows that fools and knaves have voice enough in government already; it is to be hoped these wise prophesiers of evil would not wish to give them a constitutional privilege to send members in proportion to their numbers.
If they mean by classes the different professions in the state, their plan is totally new, and it is to be feared the system once adopted, there would be no end to their democratical purity; to take in every profession from the Clergy to the Chimneysweep, will besides composing a motley assemblage of heterogeneous particles, enlarge the representation so that it will become burthensome to the Community; had the representation in Massachusetts been no larger than that in the proposed government of the Union, Shays would never have had a follower:
I think my judgment will not be impeached when I say that if our representation in this state was less, we should be better represented, and the public saved a very great expense — to judge of the future by the past, it is easy to perceive, that small states are as subject to aristocratic oppressions, as large ones; witness the small territory of Venice, at present the purest aristocracy in the world: Geneva, the circumference of which may be traversed in an hour’s march is now oppressed by a dangerous aristocracy; while the democratic branch of the legislature in England retains its primitive purity.
Who was it that enslaved the extensive empire of Rome, but an abandoned democracy?
Who defended the republic at the battle of Pharsallia, but the better sort of the people?
Caesar can be considered in no other light than a more fortunate Cattiline, and the latter in no other than that of an ambitious demagogue attempting to ruin the Commonwealth, at the head of licentious democracy.
In the present crisis of our public affairs I confess with the frankness of a free man and the concern of a patriot, that I apprehend more danger from a licentious democracy, than from aristocratic oppression.
I clearly perceive there will be no mid-way in the present business; we must either adopt the advice of these pretended democratical puritans, and then carry their doctrines to the point they evidently lead, viz.
To divide the present union into at least five hundred independent sovereign states, build a council-house in the centre of each, and by a general law declare all the servants and apprentices free, and then let the multitude meet and govern themselves — or on the other hand, fall to the plain road of common sense, and govern the union by representatives in one collective council; as pointed-out in the system offered to your consideration:
In the first you will possess popular liberty with a vengeance, and like a neighbor state, no man’s property will be secure, but each one defrauding his neighbor under the sanction of law, thus subverting every principle of morality and religion.
In the second you will enjoy the blessing of a well balanced government, capable of inspiring credit and respectability abroad, and virtue, confidence, good order and harmony at home.
Should the Author have leisure to attend to it, the dangerous consequences that will inevitably flow from dividing the union, will be the subject of another paper.
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/libr ... ato-essay/