POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA

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POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA

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First Party System

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The First Party System is a model of American politics used in history and political science to periodize the political party system existing in the United States between roughly 1792 and 1824.

It featured two national parties competing for control of the presidency, Congress, and the states: the Federalist Party, created largely by Alexander Hamilton, and the rival Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican Party formed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and usually called at the time the "Republican Party."


The Federalists were dominant until 1800, while the Republicans were dominant after 1800.

In an analysis of the contemporary party system, Jefferson wrote on February 12, 1798:

Two political Sects have arisen within the U. S. the one believing that the executive is the branch of our government which the most needs support; the other that like the analogous branch in the English Government, it is already too strong for the republican parts of the Constitution; and therefore in equivocal cases they incline to the legislative powers: the former of these are called federalists, sometimes aristocrats or monocrats, and sometimes Tories, after the corresponding sect in the English Government of exactly the same definition: the latter are stiled republicans, Whigs, jacobins, anarchists, dis-organizers, etc. these terms are in familiar use with most persons.

Both parties originated in national politics, but soon expanded their efforts to gain supporters and voters in every state.

The Federalists appealed to the business community, the Republicans to the planters and farmers.

By 1796 politics in every state was nearly monopolized by the two parties, with party newspapers and caucuses becoming especially effective tools to mobilize voters.


The Federalists promoted the financial system of Treasury Secretary Hamilton, which emphasized federal assumption of state debts, a tariff to pay off those debts, a national bank to facilitate financing, and encouragement of banking and manufacturing.

The Republicans, based in the plantation South, opposed a strong executive power, were hostile to a standing army and navy, demanded a strict reading of the Constitutional powers of the federal government, and strongly opposed the Hamilton financial program.

Perhaps even more important was foreign policy, where the Federalists favored Britain because of its political stability and its close ties to American trade, while the Republicans admired the French and the French Revolution.

Jefferson was especially fearful that British aristocratic influences would undermine republicanism.

Britain and France were at war from 1793-–1815, with only one brief interruption.

American policy was neutrality, with the federalists hostile to France, and the Republicans hostile to Britain.

The Jay Treaty of 1794 marked the decisive mobilization of the two parties and their supporters in every state.

President George Washington, while officially nonpartisan, generally supported the Federalists and that party made Washington their iconic hero.

The First Party System ended during the Era of Good Feelings (1816–-1824), as the Federalists shrank to a few isolated strongholds and the Republicans lost unity.

In 1824-28–, as the Second Party System emerged, the Republican Party split into the Jacksonian faction, which became the modern Democratic Party in the 1830s, and the Henry Clay faction, which was absorbed by Clay's Whig Party.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

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Re: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA

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First Party System, continued ...

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Federalists versus Anti-Federalists in 1787–

Leading nationalists, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin (see Annapolis Convention), called the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

It drew up a new constitution that was submitted to state ratification conventions for approval.


(The old Congress of the Confederation approved the process.)

James Madison was the most prominent figure; he is often referred to as "the father of the Constitution."

An intense debate on ratification pitted the "Federalists" (who supported the Constitution, and were led by Madison and Hamilton) against the "Anti-Federalists," (who opposed the new Constitution).

The Federalists won and the Constitution was ratified.

The Anti-Federalists were deeply concerned about the theoretical danger of a strong central government (like that of Britain) that some day could usurp the rights of the states.

The framers of the Constitution did not want or expect political parties would emerge, because they appeared to be divisive.


The term "Federalist Party" originated around 1792-93 and refers to a somewhat different coalition of supporters of the Constitution in 1787-88– as well as entirely new elements, and even a few former opponents of the Constitution (such as Patrick Henry).

Madison largely wrote the Constitution and was thus a Federalist in 1787-88–, but he opposed the program of the Hamiltonians and their new "Federalist Party."

Washington administration (1789-–1797)

At first, there were no parties in the nation.

Factions soon formed around dominant personalities such as Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury, and Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State, who opposed Hamilton's broad vision of a powerful federal government.


Jefferson especially objected to Hamilton's flexible view of the Constitution, which stretched to include a national bank.

Washington was re-elected without opposition in 1792.

Hamilton built a national network of supporters that emerged about 1792-–93 as the Federalist Party.

In response, Jefferson and James Madison built a network of supporters of the republic in Congress and in the states that emerged in 1792–-93 as the Democratic-Republican Party.

The elections of 1792 were the first to be contested on anything resembling a partisan basis.

In most states, the congressional elections were recognized in some sense, as Jefferson strategist John Beckley put it, as a "struggle between the Treasury department and the republican interest."

In New York, the race for governor was organized along these lines.

The candidates were John Jay, who was a Hamiltonian, and incumbent George Clinton, who was allied with Jefferson and the Republicans.

In 1793, the first Democratic-Republican Societies were formed.

They supported the French Revolution, which had just seen the execution of King Louis XVI, and generally supported the Jeffersonian cause.

The word "democrat" was proposed by Citizen Genet for the societies, and the Federalists ridiculed Jefferson's friends as "democrats."

After Washington denounced the societies as unrepublican, they mostly faded away.

In 1793, war broke out between England, France, and their European allies.

The Jeffersonians favored France and pointed to the 1778 treaty that was still in effect.

Washington and his unanimous cabinet (including Jefferson) decided the treaty did not bind the U.S. to enter the war; instead Washington proclaimed neutrality.

When war threatened with Britain in 1794, Washington sent John Jay to negotiate the Jay treaty with Britain; it was signed in late 1794, and ratified in 1795.

It averted a possible war and settled many (but not all) of the outstanding issues between the U.S. and Britain.

The Jeffersonians vehemently denounced the treaty, saying it threatened to undermine republicanism by giving the aristocratic British and their Federalist allies too much influence.

The fierce debates over the Jay Treaty in 1794–-96, according to William Nisbet Chanbers, nationalized politics and turned a faction in Congress into a nationwide party.

To fight the treaty the Jeffersonians "established coordination in activity between leaders at the capital, and leaders, actives and popular followings in the states, counties and towns."

In 1796 Jefferson challenged John Adams for the presidency and lost.

The Electoral College made the decision, and it was largely chosen by the state legislatures, many of which were not chosen on a national party basis.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

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Re: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA

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First Party System, continued ...

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Newspapers as party weapons

By 1796, both parties had a national network of newspapers, which attacked each other vehemently.

The Federalist and Republican newspapers of the 1790s traded vicious barbs against their enemies.

An example is this acrostic from a Republican paper (note the sequence of first letters):

A SK—who lies here beneath this monument?
L o—'tis a self created MONSTER, who
E mbraced all vice. His arrogance was like
X erxes, who flogg'd the disobedient sea,
A dultery his smallest crime; when he
N obility affected. This privilege
D ecreed by Monarchs, was to that annext.
E nticing and entic'd to ev'ry fraud,
R enounced virtue, liberty and God.
H aunted by whores—he haunted them in turn
A ristocratic was this noble Goat
M onster of monsters, in pollution skill'd
I mmers'd in mischief, brothels, funds & banks
L ewd slave to lust,—afforded consolation;
T o mourning whores, and tory-lamentation.
O utdid all fools, tainted with royal name;
N one but fools, their wickedness proclaim.

The most heated rhetoric came in debates over the French Revolution, especially the Jacobin Terror of 1793–94 when the guillotine was used daily.

Nationalism was a high priority, and the editors fostered an intellectual nationalism typified by the Federalist effort to stimulate a national literary culture through their clubs and publications in New York and Philadelphia, and through Federalist Noah Webster's efforts to simplify and Americanize the language.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

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Re: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN AMERICA

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First Party System, continued ...

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Inventing campaign techniques

Given the power of the Federalists, the Democratic Republicans had to work harder to win.

In Connecticut in 1806 the state leadership sent town leaders instructions for the forthcoming elections; every town manager was told by state leaders "to appoint a district manager in each district or section of his town, obtaining from each an assurance that he will faithfully do his duty."

Then the town manager was instructed to compile lists and total up the number of taxpayers, the number of eligible voters, how many were "decided democratic republicans," "decided federalists," or "doubtful," and finally to count the number of supporters who were not currently eligible to vote but who might qualify (by age or taxes) at the next election.

The returns eventually went to the state manager, who issued directions to laggard towns to get all the eligibles to town meetings, help the young men qualify to vote, to nominate a full ticket for local elections, and to print and distribute the party ticket.

(The secret ballot did not appear for a century. )

This highly coordinated "get-out-the-vote" drive would be familiar to modern political campaigners, but was the first of its kind in world history.

The Jeffersonians invented many campaign techniques that the Federalists later adopted and that became standard American practice.

They were especially effective at building a network of newspapers in major cities to broadcast their statements and editorialize in their favor.


But the Federalists, with a strong base among merchants, controlled more newspapers: in 1796 the Federalist papers outnumbered the Democratic Republicans by 4 to 1.

Every year more papers began publishing; in 1800 the Federalists still had a 2 to 1 numerical advantage.

Most papers, on each side, were weeklies with a circulation of 300 to 1000.

Jefferson systematically subsidized the editors.

Fisher Ames, a leading Federalist, who used the term "Jacobin" to link Jefferson's followers to the terrorists of the French Revolution, blamed the newspapers for electing Jefferson, seeing them as "an overmatch for any Government …"

"The Jacobins owe their triumph to the unceasing use of this engine; not so much to skill in use of it as by repetition."


Historians echo Ames' assessment.

As one explains:

It was the good fortune of the Republicans to have within their ranks a number of highly gifted political manipulators and propagandists.

Some of them had the ability ... to not only see and analyze the problem at hand but to present it in a succinct fashion; in short, to fabricate the apt phrase, to coin the compelling slogan and appeal to the electorate on any given issue in language it could understand.


Outstanding phrasemakers included editor William Duane, party leaders Albert Gallatin and Thomas Cooper, and Jefferson himself.

Meanwhile, John J. Beckley of Pennsylvania, an ardent partisan, invented new campaign techniques (such as mass distribution of pamphlets and of handwritten ballots) that generated the grass-roots support and unprecedented levels of voter turnout for the Jeffersonians.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

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First Party System, continued ...

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War threats with Britain and France

With the world thrown into global warfare after 1793, the small nation on the fringe of the European system could barely remain neutral.

The Jeffersonians called for strong measures against Britain, and even for another war.

The Federalists tried to avert war by the Jay Treaty (1795) with England.

The treaty became highly controversial when the Jeffersonians denounced it as a sell-out to Britain, even as the Federalists said it avoided war, reduced the Indian threat, created good trade relations with the world's foremost economic power, and ended lingering disputes from the Revolutionary War.

When Jefferson came to power in 1801 he honored the treaty, but new disputes with Britain led to the War of 1812.

In 1798 disputes with France led to the Quasi-War (1798-1800), an undeclared naval war involving the navies and merchant ships of both countries.

Democratic-Republicans said France really wanted peace, but the XYZ Affair undercut their position.

Warning that full-scale war with France was imminent, Hamilton and his "High Federalist" allies forced the issue by getting Congressional approval to raise a large new army (which Hamilton controlled), replete with officers' commissions (which he bestowed on his partisans).

The Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) clamped down on dissenters, including pro-Jefferson editors, and Vermont Congressman Matthew Lyon, who won re-election while in jail in 1798.

In the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (1798), secretly drafted by Madison and Jefferson, the legislatures of the two states challenged the power of the federal government.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

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First Party System, continued ...

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National debt

Jefferson and Albert Gallatin focused on the danger that the public debt, unless it was paid off, would be a threat to republican values.

They were appalled that Hamilton was increasing the national debt and using it to solidify his Federalist base.


Gallatin was the Republican Party's chief expert on fiscal issues and as Treasury Secretary under Jefferson and Madison worked hard to lower taxes and lower the debt, while at the same time paying cash for the Louisiana Purchase and funding the War of 1812.

Burrows says of Gallatin:

His own fears of personal dependency and his small-shopkeeper's sense of integrity, both reinforced by a strain of radical republican thought that originated in England a century earlier, convinced him that public debts were a nursery of multiple public evils--corruption, legislative impotence, executive tyranny, social inequality, financial speculation, and personal indolence.

Not only was it necessary to extinguish the existing debt as rapidly as possible, he argued, but Congress would have to ensure against the accumulation of future debts by more diligently supervising government expenditures.


Andrew Jackson saw the national debt as a "national curse" and he took special pride in paying off the entire national debt in 1835.

Jefferson and the revolution of 1800

Madison worked diligently to form party lines inside the Congress and build coalitions with sympathetic political factions in each state.

In 1800, a critical election galvanized the electorate, sweeping the Federalists out of power, and electing Jefferson and his Democratic-Republican Party.

Adams made a few last minute, "midnight appointments", notably Federalist John Marshall as Chief Justice.

Marshall held the post for three decades and used it to federalize the Constitution, much to Jefferson's dismay.

As president, Jefferson worked to cleanse the government of Adams's "midnight appointments", withholding the commissions of 25 of 42 appointed judges and removing army officers.

The sense that the nation needed two rival parties to balance each other had not been fully accepted by either party; Hamilton had viewed Jefferson's election as the failure of the Federalist experiment.

The rhetoric of the day was cataclysmic — election of the opposition meant the enemy would ruin the nation.


Jefferson's foreign policy was not exactly pro-Napoleon, but it applied pressure on Britain to stop impressment of American sailors and other hostile acts.

By engineering an embargo of trade against Britain, Jefferson and Madison plunged the nation into economic depression, ruined much of the business of Federalist New England, and finally precipitated the War of 1812 with a much larger and more powerful foe.

The Federalists vigorously criticized the government, and gained strength in the industrial Northeast.

However, they committed a major blunder in 1814.

That year the semi-secret "Hartford Convention" passed resolutions that verged on secession; their publication ruined the Federalist party.

It had been limping along for years, with strength in New England and scattered eastern states but practically no strength in the West.

While Federalists helped invent or develop numerous campaign techniques (such as the first national nominating conventions in 1808), their elitist bias alienated the middle class, thus allowing the Jeffersonians to claim they represented the true spirit of "republicanism."

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First Party System, continued ...

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State parties

Because of the importance of foreign policy (decided by the national government), of the sale of national lands, and the patronage controlled by the President, the factions in each state realigned themselves in parallel with the Federalists and Republicans.

Some newspaper editors became powerful politicians, such as Thomas Ritchie, whose "Richmond Junto" controlled Virginia state politics from 1808 into the 1840s.


New England was always the stronghold of the Federalist party.

One historian explains how well organized it was in Connecticut:

It was only necessary to perfect the working methods of the organized body of office-holders who made up the nucleus of the party.

There were the state officers, the assistants, and a large majority of the Assembly.

In every county there was a sheriff with his deputies.

All of the state, county, and town judges were potential and generally active workers.

Every town had several justices of the peace, school directors and, in Federalist towns, all the town officers who were ready to carry on the party's work...

Militia officers, state's attorneys, lawyers, professors and schoolteachers were in the van of this "conscript army."

In all, about a thousand or eleven hundred dependent officer-holders were described as the inner ring which could always be depended upon for their own and enough more votes within their control to decide an election.

This was the Federalist machine."


Religious tensions polarized Connecticut, as the established Congregational Church, in alliance with the Federalists, tried to maintain its grip on power.

Dissenting groups moved toward the Jeffersonians.

The failure of the Hartford Convention in 1814 wounded the Federalists, who were finally upended by the Democratic-Republicans in 1817.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

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First Party System, concluded ...

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Era of Good Feelings

The First Party System was primarily built around foreign policy issues that vanished with the defeat of Napoleon and the compromise settlement of the War of 1812.

Furthermore, the fears that Federalists were plotting to reintroduce aristocracy dissipated.

Thus an "Era of Good Feelings" under James Monroe replaced the high-tension politics of the First Party System about 1816.


Personal politics and factional disputes were occasionally still hotly debated, but Americans no longer thought of themselves in terms of political parties.

Historians have debated the exact ending of the system.

Most concluded it petered out by 1820.

The little state of Delaware, largely isolated from the larger political forces controlling the nation, saw the First Party System continue well into the 1820s, with the Federalists occasionally winning some offices.

Legitimacy of a party system

Alexander Hamilton felt that only by mobilizing its supporters on a daily basis in every state on many issues could support for the government be sustained through thick and thin.

Newspapers were needed to communicate inside the party; patronage helped the party's leaders and made new friends.


Hamilton, and especially Washington, distrusted the idea of an opposition party, as shown in George Washington's Farewell Address of 1796.

They thought opposition parties would only weaken the nation.

By contrast Jefferson was the main force behind the creation and continuity of an opposition party.

He deeply felt the Federalists represented aristocratic forces hostile to true republicanism and the true will of the people, as he explained in a letter to Henry Lee in 1824:

Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties:

1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes.

2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests.

In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.

Call them, therefore, liberals and serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, whigs and tories, republicans and federalists, aristocrats and democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still and pursue the same object.

The last appellation of aristocrats and democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all."


Hofstadter (1970) shows it took many years for the idea to take hold that having two parties is better than having one, or none.

That transition was made possible by the successful passing of power in 1801 from one party to the other.

Although Jefferson systematically identified Federalist army officers and officeholders, he was blocked from removing all of them by protests from republicans.

The Quids complained he did not go far enough.

Historical legacy

While historians are not unanimous, Princeton scholar Sean Wilentz in 2010 identified a scholarly trend very much in Hamilton's favor:

In recent years, Hamilton and his reputation have decidedly gained the initiative among scholars who portray him as the visionary architect of the modern liberal capitalist economy and of a dynamic federal government headed by an energetic executive.

Jefferson and his allies, by contrast, have come across as naïve, dreamy idealists.

At best according to many historians, the Jeffersonians were reactionary utopians who resisted the onrush of capitalist modernity in hopes of turning America into a yeoman farmers' arcadia.

At worst, they were proslavery racists who wish to rid the West of Indians, expand the empire of slavery, and keep political power in local hands – all the better to expand the institution of slavery and protect slaveholders' rights to own human property.


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THE FEDERALIST PAPERS

By Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison

FEDERALIST. No. 1

General Introduction


For the Independent Journal.

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:

AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America.

The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world.


It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.

If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.

This idea will add the inducements of philanthropy to those of patriotism, to heighten the solicitude which all considerate and good men must feel for the event.

Happy will it be if our choice should be directed by a judicious estimate of our true interests, unperplexed and unbiased by considerations not connected with the public good.

But this is a thing more ardently to be wished than seriously to be expected.

The plan offered to our deliberations affects too many particular interests, innovates upon too many local institutions, not to involve in its discussion a variety of objects foreign to its merits, and of views, passions and prejudices little favorable to the discovery of truth.

Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government.

It is not, however, my design to dwell upon observations of this nature.

I am well aware that it would be disingenuous to resolve indiscriminately the opposition of any set of men (merely because their situations might subject them to suspicion) into interested or ambitious views.

Candor will oblige us to admit that even such men may be actuated by upright intentions; and it cannot be doubted that much of the opposition which has made its appearance, or may hereafter make its appearance, will spring from sources, blameless at least, if not respectable - —the honest errors of minds led astray by preconceived jealousies and fears.

So numerous indeed and so powerful are the causes which serve to give a false bias to the judgment, that we, upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude to society.

This circumstance, if duly attended to, would furnish a lesson of moderation to those who are ever so much persuaded of their being in the right in any controversy.

And a further reason for caution, in this respect, might be drawn from the reflection that we are not always sure that those who advocate the truth are influenced by purer principles than their antagonists.

Ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition, and many other motives not more laudable than these, are apt to operate as well upon those who support as those who oppose the right side of a question.


Were there not even these inducements to moderation, nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all times, characterized political parties.

For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword.

Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

And yet, however just these sentiments will be allowed to be, we have already sufficient indications that it will happen in this as in all former cases of great national discussion.

A torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose.

To judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives.

An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized as the offspring of a temper fond of despotic power and hostile to the principles of liberty.

An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good.

It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust.

On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten that the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.

History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.


In the course of the preceding observations, I have had an eye, my fellow citizens, to putting you upon your guard against all attempts, from whatever quarter, to influence your decision in a matter of the utmost moment to your welfare, by any impressions other than those which may result from the evidence of truth.

You will, no doubt, at the same time, have collected from the general scope of them, that they proceed from a source not unfriendly to the new Constitution.

Yes, my countrymen, I own to you that, after having given it an attentive consideration, I am clearly of opinion it is your interest to adopt it.

I am convinced that this is the safest course for your liberty, your dignity, and your happiness.

I affect not reserves which I do not feel.

I will not amuse you with an appearance of deliberation when I have decided.

I frankly acknowledge to you my convictions, and I will freely lay before you the reasons on which they are founded.

The consciousness of good intentions disdains ambiguity.

I shall not, however, multiply professions on this head.

My motives must remain in the depository of my own breast.

My arguments will be open to all, and may be judged of by all.

They shall at least be offered in a spirit which will not disgrace the cause of truth.

I propose, in a series of papers, to discuss the following interesting particulars:

THE UTILITY OF THE UNION TO YOUR POLITICAL PROSPERITY

THE INSUFFICIENCY OF THE PRESENT CONFEDERATION TO PRESERVE THAT UNION

THE NECESSITY OF A GOVERNMENT AT LEAST EQUALLY ENERGETIC WITH THE ONE PROPOSED, TO THE ATTAINMENT OF THIS OBJECT

THE CONFORMITY OF THE PROPOSED CONSTITUTION TO THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT

ITS ANALOGY TO YOUR OWN STATE CONSTITUTION and lastly, THE ADDITIONAL SECURITY WHICH ITS ADOPTION WILL AFFORD TO THE PRESERVATION OF THAT SPECIES OF GOVERNMENT, TO LIBERTY, AND TO PROPERTY.


In the progress of this discussion I shall endeavor to give a satisfactory answer to all the objections which shall have made their appearance, that may seem to have any claim to your attention.

It may perhaps be thought superfluous to offer arguments to prove the utility of the UNION, a point, no doubt, deeply engraved on the hearts of the great body of the people in every State, and one, which it may be imagined, has no adversaries.

But the fact is, that we already hear it whispered in the private circles of those who oppose the new Constitution, that the thirteen States are of too great extent for any general system, and that we must of necessity resort to separate confederacies of distinct portions of the whole. 1

This doctrine will, in all probability, be gradually propagated, till it has votaries enough to countenance an open avowal of it.

For nothing can be more evident, to those who are able to take an enlarged view of the subject, than the alternative of an adoption of the new Constitution or a dismemberment of the Union.

It will therefore be of use to begin by examining the advantages of that Union, the certain evils, and the probable dangers, to which every State will be exposed from its dissolution.

This shall accordingly constitute the subject of my next address.

PUBLIUS.

1. The same idea, tracing the arguments to their consequences, is held out in several of the late publications against the new Constitution.
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FEDERALIST No. 2

Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence


For the Independent Journal.

JAY

To the People of the State of New York:

WHEN the people of America reflect that they are now called upon to decide a question, which, in its consequences, must prove one of the most important that ever engaged their attention, the propriety of their taking a very comprehensive, as well as a very serious, view of it, will be evident.

Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of government, and it is equally undeniable, that whenever and however it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights in order to vest it with requisite powers.

It is well worthy of consideration therefore, whether it would conduce more to the interest of the people of America that they should, to all general purposes, be one nation, under one federal government, or that they should divide themselves into separate confederacies, and give to the head of each the same kind of powers which they are advised to place in one national government.


It has until lately been a received and uncontradicted opinion that the prosperity of the people of America depended on their continuing firmly united, and the wishes, prayers, and efforts of our best and wisest citizens have been constantly directed to that object.

But politicians now appear, who insist that this opinion is erroneous, and that instead of looking for safety and happiness in union, we ought to seek it in a division of the States into distinct confederacies or sovereignties.

However extraordinary this new doctrine may appear, it nevertheless has its advocates; and certain characters who were much opposed to it formerly, are at present of the number.

Whatever may be the arguments or inducements which have wrought this change in the sentiments and declarations of these gentlemen, it certainly would not be wise in the people at large to adopt these new political tenets without being fully convinced that they are founded in truth and sound policy.

It has often given me pleasure to observe that independent America was not composed of detached and distant territories, but that one connected, fertile, widespreading country was the portion of our western sons of liberty.

Providence has in a particular manner blessed it with a variety of soils and productions, and watered it with innumerable streams, for the delight and accommodation of its inhabitants.


A succession of navigable waters forms a kind of chain round its borders, as if to bind it together; while the most noble rivers in the world, running at convenient distances, present them with highways for the easy communication of friendly aids, and the mutual transportation and exchange of their various commodities.

With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people,— a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.

This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties.

Similar sentiments have hitherto prevailed among all orders and denominations of men among us.

To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people, each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection.

As a nation we have made peace and war; as a nation we have vanquished our common enemies; as a nation we have formed alliances, and made treaties, and entered into various compacts and conventions with foreign states.

A strong sense of the value and blessings of union induced the people, at a very early period, to institute a federal government to preserve and perpetuate it.

They formed it almost as soon as they had a political existence; nay, at a time when their habitations were in flames, when many of their citizens were bleeding, and when the progress of hostility and desolation left little room for those calm and mature inquiries and reflections which must ever precede the formation of a wise and well balanced government for a free people.

It is not to be wondered at, that a government instituted in times so inauspicious, should on experiment be found greatly deficient and inadequate to the purpose it was intended to answer.

This intelligent people perceived and regretted these defects.

Still continuing no less attached to union than enamored of liberty, they observed the danger which immediately threatened the former and more remotely the latter; and being pursuaded that ample security for both could only be found in a national government more wisely framed, they as with one voice, convened the late convention at Philadelphia, to take that important subject under consideration.

This convention composed of men who possessed the confidence of the people, and many of whom had become highly distinguished by their patriotism, virtue and wisdom, in times which tried the minds and hearts of men, undertook the arduous task.

In the mild season of peace, with minds unoccupied by other subjects, they passed many months in cool, uninterrupted, and daily consultation; and finally, without having been awed by power, or influenced by any passions except love for their country, they presented and recommended to the people the plan produced by their joint and very unanimous councils.

Admit, for so is the fact, that this plan is only RECOMMENDED, not imposed, yet let it be remembered that it is neither recommended to BLIND approbation, nor to BLIND reprobation; but to that sedate and candid consideration which the magnitude and importance of the subject demand, and which it certainly ought to receive.

But this (as was remarked in the foregoing number of this paper) is more to be wished than expected, that it may be so considered and examined.

Experience on a former occasion teaches us not to be too sanguine in such hopes.

It is not yet forgotten that well-grounded apprehensions of imminent danger induced the people of America to form the memorable Congress of 1774.

That body recommended certain measures to their constituents, and the event proved their wisdom; yet it is fresh in our memories how soon the press began to teem with pamphlets and weekly papers against those very measures.


Not only many of the officers of government, who obeyed the dictates of personal interest, but others, from a mistaken estimate of consequences, or the undue influence of former attachments, or whose ambition aimed at objects which did not correspond with the public good, were indefatigable in their efforts to pursuade the people to reject the advice of that patriotic Congress.

Many, indeed, were deceived and deluded, but the great majority of the people reasoned and decided judiciously; and happy they are in reflecting that they did so.

They considered that the Congress was composed of many wise and experienced men.

That, being convened from different parts of the country, they brought with them and communicated to each other a variety of useful information.

That, in the course of the time they passed together in inquiring into and discussing the true interests of their country, they must have acquired very accurate knowledge on that head.

That they were individually interested in the public liberty and prosperity, and therefore that it was not less their inclination than their duty to recommend only such measures as, after the most mature deliberation, they really thought prudent and advisable.

These and similar considerations then induced the people to rely greatly on the judgment and integrity of the Congress; and they took their advice, notwithstanding the various arts and endeavors used to deter them from it.

But if the people at large had reason to confide in the men of that Congress, few of whom had been fully tried or generally known, still greater reason have they now to respect the judgment and advice of the convention, for it is well known that some of the most distinguished members of that Congress, who have been since tried and justly approved for patriotism and abilities, and who have grown old in acquiring political information, were also members of this convention, and carried into it their accumulated knowledge and experience.

It is worthy of remark that not only the first, but every succeeding Congress, as well as the late convention, have invariably joined with the people in thinking that the prosperity of America depended on its Union.

To preserve and perpetuate it was the great object of the people in forming that convention, and it is also the great object of the plan which the convention has advised them to adopt.

With what propriety, therefore, or for what good purposes, are attempts at this particular period made by some men to depreciate the importance of the Union?

Or why is it suggested that three or four confederacies would be better than one?

I am persuaded in my own mind that the people have always thought right on this subject, and that their universal and uniform attachment to the cause of the Union rests on great and weighty reasons, which I shall endeavor to develop and explain in some ensuing papers.

They who promote the idea of substituting a number of distinct confederacies in the room of the plan of the convention, seem clearly to foresee that the rejection of it would put the continuance of the Union in the utmost jeopardy.

That certainly would be the case, and I sincerely wish that it may be as clearly foreseen by every good citizen, that whenever the dissolution of the Union arrives, America will have reason to exclaim, in the words of the poet:

“FAREWELL!"

"A LONG FAREWELL TO ALL MY GREATNESS.''

PUBLIUS.
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