Posted on 03/01/2010 7:43:46 AM PST by Publius
Earlier threads:
FReeper Book Club: The Debate over the Constitution
5 Oct 1787, Centinel #1
6 Oct 1787, James Wilson’s Speech at the State House
8 Oct 1787, Federal Farmer #1
9 Oct 1787, Federal Farmer #2
18 Oct 1787, Brutus #1
22 Oct 1787, John DeWitt #1
27 Oct 1787, John DeWitt #2
27 Oct 1787, Federalist #1
As long as we had a republic, it was true..
State rights(republic) have diminished greatly since then..
Urp is still rapacious and hostile to "us"..
A Constitutional Republic stands opposed to a pure democracy.. then and Now..
The O'bama administration would gleefully morph the U.S. into a democracy..
If that is not Sedition and even Espionage then its Treason..
Democracy is not LIKE Mob Rule.. it IS Mob Rule by mobsters..
Actually, it's State powers. The new Democracy has taken them from the States.
Printed for study as I head for Laughlin and Las Vegas.
Thanks for the hard work!
That morphing happened a long time ago with the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828. Because of the result of the disputed election of 1824, President John Quincy Adams was pretty much forced to sign into law a ban on applying state property qualifications in federal elections. That helped lead to a clear-cut victory for Jackson a few years later.
Jackson, it should be noted, was an avatar of states' rights. Yet in his first State of the Union letter to Congress in 1829 -- it was a letter then, not a speech -- Jackson asked Congress to pass three constitutional amendments to the states for ratification.
Jackson didn't get any of his amendments, but the last one became the 17th Amendment in 1913. For all practical purposes, we've been a democracy for a long time.
True... with little or NO discussion of what happened in the change.. Even to this day this discussion has not happened..
Could be.... THIS discussion is WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN...
Un-fortunately America has been dumbed down to the extent few would even know what was being talked about.. Which was the "plan" all along, I think..
bttt
After reminding the reader of our common ancestry, religion, language and principles of government he lamented the possibility of splitting into “unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties.” From 1607 onward, in fits and starts, the various colonial governments evolved in something of a Lochean state of nature. Most had colonial governor executives responsible to the British Crown; all had legislative and judicial bodies. Upon revolt from Britain, the states were well prepared for sovereign government.
From January 1776 to June 1777 the former colonies set up independent governments in the most prolific constitution writing period in history. The importance of this time cannot be overstated because hardly a clause in the Federal Constitution of 1787 did not appear first in a state Constitution.
The Revolutionary War pressured the newly independent states to at least appear united, and after over a year, the Articles of Confederation were submitted on November 15, 1777 to the states for ratification. Jealousy and fear precluded final ratification until Maryland did so in March 1781, just a few months prior to victory at Yorktown.
After only six years it was clear that the Articles of Confederation were insufficient in war, and worse in peace. As for the men who met in the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Jay says, “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.”
That they crafted a government of three branches should come as no surprise, for it was a culmination of the unique American experience spread over 180 years of self government.
Near the end of his column, Jay asked readers to remember how they respected the wise men sent to Congress in 1774 and to afford similar consideration of the judgment and advice given by the more experienced members they sent thirteen years later to the Constitutional Convention.
Jay’s introduction and historic overview of the proposed government were superb.
Oh? Do Tell what Henry said?
Jay’s townsmen pegged this youngest of all the congressional delegates as a conservative; and certainly, when an overwrought Patrick Henry exclaimed at the Congress’s start that “Government is at an End. All distinctions are thrown out. . . . We are in a State of Nature,” Jay mildly retorted, “I cant yet think all Government is at an End. The Measure of Arbitrary power is not full, and I think it must run over, before We undertake to frame a new Constitution.” Let’s not get carried away and think “We came to frame an American constitution, instead of indeavouring to correct the faults in an old one.” A reasonable remonstrance to Britain, Jay hoped, coupled with a determined trade boycott, ought to bring the ministry to its senses. Jay’s conservatism consisted only in this: that he would omit no effort—consistent with the rights of man and of Englishmen—to avoid an irreparable breach.
How interesting.
This ties together with a phrase in a book by Martin Gross National Suicide: In the circus created by Washington, no one is immune from its deleterious effects, to the point at which politics is replacing philosophy as a way of viewing life, all to the detriment of an intelligent, thoughtful society.
The "government" under the AC was so weak as to be not a government at all; was that Henry's point? Now we are waging a war between government and governors -- the difference being a matter of adherence to written law or the casual and self-serving manipulation of "law" by the authority.
Think about it.
•At 18 and 19, Jay acknowledges the stopgap nature of the Articles of Confederation and the fact that they were barely adequate to the times. He believes that they are now totally inadequate to the challenges of governance. His perspective is that of an experienced jurist, a colleague of Robert Yates, who, as “Brutus”, was caustic in his condemnation of the entire enterprise. To what extent was Jay correct versus Yates?
Both men recognized that the Articles of Confederation were the result of reactionary pressures resulting from the Revolution. The people, although widely dispersed by this time did not seek to break ties with each other or the rest of the world for that matter. Some form of order needed to be established and it happened to take the form of the Continental Congress.
Until the writing of the Constitution, necessity was the driving force that was responsible for the articles of confederation .
The Constitution, on the other hand was an instrument to proactively determine the nations future, not to be driven by reactive forces. The assertion by Jay is that the Constitution is the correct solution. Brutus acknowledges the need but isn't convinced of its supremacy to other forms of union.
•At 21, Jay states that the people demanded the Constitutional Convention with one voice, but it was the businessmen and propertied class who demanded it in the aftermath of Shays’ Rebellion. Why does Jay see the need to shade the truth here?
The answer is in the very first line - "To the People". What we now call class warfare was at a peak of volatility and in an effort to quell any further actions we see the fluent use of similar statements designed to unite the readers and also create perceived threats where there were none (42,43), not unlike today's tweaked soundbites.
•At 23, Jay writes of “cool, uninterrupted and daily consultation,” which would have made the men who had been present at the Convention hoot in derision. He glosses over the heat, humidity and rancor of the proceedings, in which that rancor had been suppressed by both an oath of secrecy and the code of gentlemanly conduct of the era. Jay was not even there. To what extent is Jay altering history, and why?
As above, images in the peoples minds were being constructed to the advantage of his argument. A calm cool reasoned debate resulted in the instrument before you, aren't you lucky?
The alteration was intended as a 'talking point' to those who could influence the outcome. The factual comparison you make is interesting in that hindsight reveals underlying intentions of the author.
That wasn’t Patrick Henry’s point because he made that statement in 1774, not after 1777 when the Articles were first proposed. Henry’s comment was about the conditions of 1774, when American patience with Britain was coming to an end, and the colonial governments with their royal governors were not really speaking for the people anymore.
Appealing to “higher authority” is a primary logic flaw.
Many a scoundrel is hidden by their public facade.
bttt
Setting up as you're for the Constitution or your for disunion seems a little disingenuous to me. The states empowered the delegates to amend the Articles of Confederation. Why would they bother if they intended to go their own way?
To be antifederalist( which is to say, to be an actual federalist) was not to be a disunionist. I find a lot more of this ad hominem and straw man stuff coming from the so-called Federalists (the nationalists). The great papers of Brutus attack the plan, not the planners.
PS-There is dispute about whether or not Robert Yates was in fact Brutus. Unless you know of some proof I am not aware of, I don't think it's accurate to represent him as undoubedtly Brutus.
see
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/ratification/digital/resource/0301.pdf
Is consistent with the Declaration of Independence-
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
Assuming that Jay is a conservative influence in the debate, are we to assume that Anti-Federalists are to be other than conservative?
It would be easy for someone just joining our discussion to assume that we are identifying heroes and villains but that would be erroneous. All authors are fighting for the best form of government as they perceive it, their individual experiences and associates influencing their perspective.
It's best to study that period of American history in itself, without trying to view it exclusively through the prism of today's politics. What can be done is to carry forward those lessons to today.
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