Posted on 07/28/2008 12:01:54 PM PDT by BGHater
Here are some historical facts, not opinions:
(1) Thomas Jefferson never publicly aligned himself with the Anti-Federalists, attended any of their meetings or signed any of their documents.
(2) Thomas Jefferson never spoke against the Constitution in any public forum.
(3) Thomas Jefferson, as former governor of Virginia, never instructed or appealed to the Virginia legislature or ratification convention to reject the Constitution and he quite publicly remained firm friends with the Constitution's author and sponsor, James Madison.
(4) Jefferson agreed to serve in the Cabinet under the new Constitutional government - something an opponent of the entire Constitutional system would surely have refused to do as a matter of personal honor.
(5) The Anti-Federalists preferred Burr over Jefferson as their candidate and attempted to put Burr in as President over Jefferson.
(6) As President, Jefferson governed as a consistent moderate federalist of the Madisonian persuasion.
(7) As President, Jefferson had very cold relations with his Vice President Burr, who was the champion of the Anti-Federalist faction. He barely spoke with him at all, never consulted him on any matter and expressed no displeasure at Burr's failure to be reelected for his second term.
2. TJ wasn't even in the US when the Constitution was being ratified.
3. He was firmly against it, as the quotes provided prove, if it didn't have protections for Individual Rights declared right in the text. This, in HIS opinion, was a major failing of the purposed Constitution and put him dead against it.
4. TJ's writings show that he was clearly unhappy with how the Constitution was being formulated and that he forsaw EXACTLY the issues we are dealing with today.
So yeah, you are still a moron...
I believe there is a difference between Anti-Federalists and those who have anti-federalist views. Certainly it can be said that Jefferson was anti-federalist in many aspects, while not necessarily being an Anti-Federalist.
States have powers, not rights. Citizens have rights.
And it isn't just terminology - it betrays a lack of coherent thinking and some very flawed assumptions.
"States' rights" became a buzzword in the late 1820s/early 1830s among supporters of nullification.
The champion of nullification, John C. Calhoun, preferred the term "state interpretation."
And his term lays bare the central assumption of the "states' rights" ideology: that individual states have the prerogative to interpret the Constitution as they see fit, and therefore stand above and outside the Constitution - despite the fact that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
On the subject of the 16th Amendment, do you think income tax was already permitted by the Constitution or that it required the 16th Amendment (I’ve heard once or twice that the income tax allowed under the original Constitution).
Income tax was allowed under the Constitution, but only as apportioned. The 16th Amendment was necessary to enact taxation of income without apportionment.
The federal government's power is just as much as the people choose to give it. The people send a Congressional delegation that imposes the taxes it does. Without the power of the purse exercised by the people's directly elected representatives, no government programs would be possible.
Do you think there is Constitutionality in SS and M
Insofar as they do not promote the general welfare and actually subtract from it, no.
So in your opinion states and local governments are more wasteful and corrupt (?). My reaction would be that the feds are far more wasteful than the state and local governments.
You have apparently never lived in New Jersey.
He rebelled against a monarchical government which did not permit its subjects their natural right of representation.
The government contemplated by the Constitution was not only far more limited in scope than the monarchical government of the UK, it was also qualitatively different in the structure of its institutions.
2. TJ wasn't even in the US when the Constitution was being ratified.
The Philadelphia Convention first met in May 1787. The ninth state ratified it in June 1788. If Jefferson had thought that the new Constitution was a national disaster that had to be prevented, he had more than a year in which to return from abroad and personally oppose it. He also had been able to send more than a hundred letters during the course of that time. Therefore he had ample opportunity to address Anti-Federalists, make common cause with them, remonstrate with the Virginia convention and conduct any manner of public opposition to the Constitution. But he abstained from all such activity.
3. He was firmly against it, as the quotes provided prove, if it didn't have protections for Individual Rights declared right in the text. This, in HIS opinion, was a major failing of the purposed Constitution and put him dead against it.
As I pointed out earlier, many of the Constitution's supporters wanted the Constitution amended in various ways. Jefferson was one such worthy.
Had he been truly "dead against" the Constitution, he would have contacted the Virginia legislature to plead against ratification. He would have written articles for publication against its adoption.
More to the point, he would never even have bothered to privately advocate the amendment of a document that he thought was wrong. Rather than calling for improvements to it, he would have called for its destruction.
4. TJ's writings show that he was clearly unhappy with how the Constitution was being formulated and that he forsaw EXACTLY the issues we are dealing with today.
His writings show that he wanted more language inserted into the Constitution to improve it.
And, in the heavily edited quotes you presented, he foresaw none of the issues we are dealing with today.
In the quotes presented he expresses fears that habeas corpus will be abolished. Habeas corpus is still alive and well and a key feature of our legal system. He expresses fears that juries will no longer be empaneled in civil cases. They routinely are. He expresses fears that standing armies will tyrannize Americans. They don't. He expresses fears for freedom of religion. America still enjoys freedom of religion. He expresses fears that monopolies will control US commerce. America has more small businesses now that it has ever had. He expresses the greatest fear for the press. The US press is free to the point of treason.
The one Constitutional right that really is threatened in large areas of the country is one that Jefferson does not mention in your proffered quotes: the right to bear arms. And the culprit behind that is much more state and local governments than it is the federal government.
I agree, it isn’t just terminology. My mistake. I get very annoyed when people refer to us as a democracy rather than a republic.
Well I disagree with the philosophy that states can interpret the Constitution however they please, but I do think that much of their power has been usurped by the Federal government via ignoring the 10th Amendment.
In reality, what you say about the government’s power (or any authorities’ power) is true. People give it as much power as they want. However that doesn’t it make it Constitutional or legal. Obviously if people elected representatives to kill person “x” (assuming he’s completely innocent just not well liked) and the representatives had him executed, it would be illegal and a violation of his rights. So I guess what I’m saying is that the government’s power (in theory or law) is not what Congress says it is, but rather what it is limited to by the Constitution.
So do you believe “promoting general welfare” is a power, or part of a preamble to the list of things Congress is allowed to do (i.e. something like ‘...in order to promote the general welfare Congress may [insert Congressional powers here])?
I live in California. I still think the feds are more wasteful. SOME state and local governments just seem to be filled with idiots (Most of California’s legislature, the cities of Oakland, San Fransisco, and LA, etc.). There are some pretty stupid people here, but I think that stems from the fact that many citizens themselves of this state are pretty stupid and apathetic.
***(4) Jefferson agreed to serve in the Cabinet under the new Constitutional government - something an opponent of the entire Constitutional system would surely have refused to do as a matter of personal honor.***
I’m not sure this is entirely true. It is likely that if he opposed it, he would have had nothing to do with the government, but often people try to work from within to change something they don’t like. I believe an opponent may indeed take a position to try and (in this case) limit the government’s power.
I believe those quotes were said before the Bill of Rights was adopted, and therefore his apprehensions would have been quite justified.
As for the press, it’s free, but it’s full of idiots.
Work from within to change? Yes. Work from within to abolish? No.
Jefferson's intention was not treachery or treason against the government, but to act as a counterbalance to Hamilton's favored policies.
I didn’t say he wanted to abolish it. I believe he was very fearful of the Constitution without the Bill of Rights. I don’t believe that means he necessarily opposed it.
I agree. I don't agree with the proposition that those freedoms he specifically named are endangered today - especially not the one he was most concerned about: freedom of the press.
Get rid of the New Deal "substantial effects doctrine" and most of that would stop. They've turned the Commerce Clause into and open-ended expansion of federal government authority into things it was never authorized to control.
Improve it? He was dead against it without it. A deadly defect like that is a lot more active than the passivity you suggest...
Were that the case, he would have publicly criticized the Virginia convention for ratifying the unamended Constitution in July 1788.
What was his response to the ratification? He wrote a private letter, which your source quoted, to James Madison saying: "I hope, therefore, a bill of rights will be formed to guard the people against the federal government" and he did not write a public "I am dead against this Constitution!" remonstrance.
He "hoped" that the amendments would be made. That's not a particularly aggressive stance, but it is a wisely considered one.
Since you don't like me doing the copy/paste thing... Copy the above link and read his letter to Madison from 1787. It wasn't just the failure to include a BoR, but lifetime Presidency and other matters as well.
Several of his letters after this contain further disapprobation.
Hardly supportive as you've suggested.
It's clear that he felt that the Constitution need amendments and he was pretty unhappy that certain aspects of the Virginia constitution were not applied to the federal Constitution.
But he did not, like the Anti-Federalists, oppose the basic structure of the government contemplated by the Constitution. He did not object to the existence of the Senate, or a Supreme Court or a unitary executive, and he was an advocate of national commerce.
And, as I said, every supporter of the Constitution (except for Madison) was dissatisfied with it in some particulars.
Initially, all he wanted was a revised articles of Confederation. Creation of a whole new National government gave him the yammering jim-jams as these quotes prove.
you can continue to try and put words in his mouth, but I'm not seeing you posting a lot of links to support your assertions.
I suppose it'd be too much to ask...
Allow me to quote from Jefferson's letter to William Carmichael on August 12, 1788 which was written in Paris upon receipt of the news of the ratification.
"DEAR SIR, Since my last to you, I have been honored with yours of the 18th and 29th of May, and Sth of June. My latest American intelligence is of the 24th of June, when nine certainly, and probably ten States, had accepted the new Constitution, and there was no doubt of the eleventh (North Carolina), because there was no opposition there.
"In New York, two-thirds of the State were against it, and certainly, if they had been called to the decision in any other stage of the business, they would have rejected it; but before they put it to the vote, they would certainly have heard that eleven States had joined in it, and they would find it safer to go with those eleven, than put themselves into opposition, with Rhode Island only.
" Though I am much pleased with this successful issue of the new Constitution, yet I am more so, to find that one of its principal defects (the want of a declaration of rights) will pretty certainly be remedied. I suppose this, because I see that both people and conventions, in almost every State, have concurred in demanding it.
"Another defect, the perpetual re-eligibility of the same President, will probably not be cured during the life of General Washington . His merit has blinded our countrymen to the danger of making so important an officer re-eligible. I presume there will not be a vote against him in the United States.
"It is more doubtful who will be Vice-President. The age of Dr. Franklin, and the doubt whether he would accept it, are the only circumstances that admit a question, but that he would be the man. After these two characters of first magnitude, there are so many which present themselves equally, on the second line, that we cannot see which of them will be singled out. John Adams, Hancock, Jay, Madison, Rutledge, will all be voted for."
Had Jefferson been "dead against" the Constitution, he would not have been much pleased that a Constitution without a Bill of Rights had been ratified. He would not be happy that it was likely that the lack of a Bill of Rights would be remedied at some time in the future - he would have been very upset that it had been ratified without one.
He also speaks of the reelectability of the President being a flaw, but says that it will also be remedied at some point after General Washington leaves office. He doesn't seem particularly exercised about this flaw either but trusts that it also will be amended.
He was, until there was certainty that individual Rights would be protected as "the Supreme Law of the Land" and that the Presidency wouldn't become a life long post, among others...
Without which, he thought the whole thing was a bad idea. As I've been saying all along and you've been trying to spin as outright support.
Allow me to quote another letter of Thomas Jefferson.
This time a letter to Francis Hopkinson on March 13, 1789.
"You say that I have been dished up to you as an Anti-Federalist, and ask me if it be just. My opinion was never worthy enough of notice to merit citing; but, since you ask it, I will tell it to you. I am not a Federalist, because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all. Therefore, I am not of the party of Federalists."
"But I am much farther from that of the Anti-Federalists.
" I approved, from the first moment, of the great mass of what is in the new Constitution: the consolidation of the government; the organization into executive, legislative, and judiciary; the subdivision of the legislative; the happy compromise of interests between the great and little states by the different manner of voting in the different houses; the voting by persons instead of states; the qualified negative on laws given to the executive, which, however, I should have like better if associated with the judiciary also, as in New York; and the power of taxation. I thought at first that the latter might have been limited. A little reflection soon convinced me it ought not to be.
"What I disapproved from the first moment, also, was the want of a bill of rights to guard liberty against the legislative as well as the executive branches of the government; that is to say, to secure freedom in religion, freedom of the press, freedom from monopolies, freedom from unlawful imprisonment, freedom from a permanent military, and a trial by jury, in all cases determinable by the laws of the land. I disapproved, also, the perpetual reeligibility of the President. To these points of disapprobation I adhere."
"My first wish was that the nine first conventions might accept the Constitution as the means of securing to us the great mass of good it contained, and that the four last might reject it as the means of obtaining amendments. But I was corrected in this wish the moment I saw the much better plan of Massachusetts, and which had never occurred to me. With the respect to the declaration of rights, I suppose the majority of the United States are of my opinion; for I apprehend all the Anti-Federalists and a very respectable proportion of the Federalists think that such a declaration should now be annexed. The enlightened part of Europe have given us the greatest credit for inventing the instrument of security for the rights of the people and have been not a little surprised to see us so soon give it up."
"With respect to the reeligibility of the President, I find myself differing from the majority of my countrymen; for I think there are but three states out of the eleven which have desired an alteration of this. And, indeed, since the thing is established, I would wish it not to be altered during the life of our great leader, whose executive talents are superior to those, I believe, of any man in the world, and who, alone, by the authority of his name and the confidence reposed in his perfect integrity, is fully qualified to put the new government so under way as to secure it against the efforts of opposition. But, having derived from our error all the good there was in it, I hope we shall correct it the moment we can no longer have the same name at the helm."
"These, my dear friend, are my sentiments, by which you will see I was right in saying I am neither Federalist nor Anti-Federalist; that I am of neither party, nor yet a trimmer between parties. These, my opinions, I wrote within a few hours after I had read the Constitution to one or two friends in America. I had not then read one single word printed on the subject. I never had an opinion in politics or religion which I was afraid to own. A costive reserve on these subjects might have procured me more esteem from some people, but less from myself. My great wish is to go on in a strict but silent performance of my duty; to avoid attracting notice and to keep my name out of newspapers, because I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise. The attaching circumstance of my present office is that I can do its duties unseen by those for whom they are done."
" You did not think, by so short a phrase in your letter, to have drawn on yourself such an egotistical dissertation. I beg your pardon for it, and will endeavor to merit that pardon by the constant sentiments of esteem and attachment with which I am, dear sir, your sincere friend and servant."
So, according to Thomas Jefferson's own words, he was not opposed to the Constitution and was not an anti-Federalist. Far from thinking that "the whole thing was a bad idea" as you claim, he says that he approved of most of it, that he had only two points of disapproval and that otherwise it was a "great mass of good" and that his "first wish" was that it be ratified as it was so it could be amended later.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.