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During the period from the drafting and proposal of the federal Constitution in September, 1787, to its ratification in 1789 there was an intense debate on ratification.
The principal arguments in favor of it were stated in the series written by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay called the Federalist Papers, although they were not as widely read as numerous independent local speeches and articles.
The arguments against ratification appeared in various forms, by various authors, most of whom used a pseudonym. Collectively, these writings have become known as the Anti-Federalist Papers.
They contain warnings of dangers from tyranny that weaknesses in the proposed Constitution did not adequately provide against, and while some of those weaknesses were corrected by adoption of the Bill of Rights, others remained, and some of these dangers are now coming to pass.
“My countrymen, preserve your jealousy-reject suspicion, it is the fiend that destroys public and private happiness. I know some weak, but very few if any wicked men in public confidence.
“America is at present divided into three classes or descriptions of men, and in a few years there will be but two.
“Even then the advantages and disadvantages of national government operated so strongly, although silently, on each individual, that the conflict was nearly equal.
“The old Congress was a national government and an union of States, both brought into one political body, as these opposite powers-I do not mean parties were so exactly blended and very nearly balanced, like every artificial, operative machine where action is equal to reaction.
Our friends we find have been assiduous in representing our federal calamities, until at length the people at large—frightened by the gloomy picture on one side, and allured by the prophecies of some of our fanciful and visionary adherents on the other—are ready to accept and confirm our proposed government without the delay or forms of examination—which was the more to be wished, as they are wholly unfit to investigate the principles or pronounce on the merit of so exquisite a system.”
“We have for some time considered the freedom of the press as a great evil—it spreads information, and begets a licentiousness in the people which needs the rein more than the spur; besides, a daring printer may expose the plans of government and lessen the consequence of our president and senate—for these and many other reasons we have said nothing with respect to the “right of the people to speak and publish their sentiments” or about their ‘palladiums of liberty’ and such stuff.”
“[W]hat have we to fear armed with such powers, with a president at our head who is captain-general of the army, navy and militia of the United States, who can make and unmake treaties, appoint and commission ambassadors and other ministers, who can grant or refuse reprieves or pardons, who can make judges of the supreme and other continental courts—in short, who will be the source, the fountain of honor, profit and power, whose influence like the rays of the sun, will diffuse itself far and wide, will exhale all democratical vapors and break the clouds of popular insurrection?”
We have frequently endeavored to effect in our respective states, the happy discrimination which pervades this system; but finding we could not bring the states into it individually, we have determined and have taken pains to leave the legislature of each free and independent state, as they now call themselves, in such a situation that they will eventually be absorbed by our grand continental vortex, or dwindle into petty corporations, and have power over little else than yoaking hogs or determining the width of cart wheels.”
y, have not only deranged their finances, but subjected their persons to indecent treatment (as being arrested for debt, etc.) we have framed a privilege clause, by which they may laugh at the fools who trusted them.”
“Every man is eligible into our government from time to time for life. This will have a two-fold good effect. First, it prevents the representatives from mixing with the lower class, and imbibing their foolish sentiments, with which they would have come charged on re-election. … 2nd. They will from the perpetuality of office be under our eye, and in a short time will think and act like us, independently of popular whims and prejudices.” –
“Thus will you be necessarily compelled either to make a bold effort to extricate yourselves from these grievous and oppressive extortions, or you will be fatigued by fruitless attempts into the quiet and peaceable surrender of those rights, for which the blood of your fellow citizens has been shed in vain.”
“Thus shall we imprudently confer on so small a number the very important power of taking our money out of our pockets, and of levying taxes without control-a right which the wisdom of our state constitution will, in vain, have confided to the most numerous branch of the legislature.”