Posted on 02/01/2011 7:52:17 AM PST by Publius
Melancton Smith of New York had a resume in the Revolution that was beyond reproach. A Poughkeepsie businessman, he had served in the militia and organized his own unit in Dutchess County. As county sheriff he became the bane of the local Loyalists.
He moved to New York City, founded the local emancipationist society, served in the Confederation Congress, and was chosen to attend the New York ratifying convention at Poughkeepsie, where he argued against the Constitution along the lines of Federal Farmer, but then voted for it on the condition of the future attachment of a bill of rights. This move broke ranks with the state’s anti-Federalist core and hastened the move toward ratification.
In his first speech, the convention’s secretary noted Smith’s comments in the third person, something that was not repeated.
1 He most heartily concurred in sentiment with the honorable gentleman [Hamilton] who opened the debate yesterday that the discussion of the important question now before them ought to be entered on with a spirit of patriotism, with minds open to conviction, with a determination to form opinions only on the merits of the question from those evidences which should appear in the course of the investigation.
2 How far the general observations made by the honorable gentleman accorded with these principles he left to the house to determine.
3 It was not, he said, his intention to follow that gentleman through all his remarks.
4 He should only observe that what had been advanced did not appear to apply to the subject under consideration.
5 He was as strongly impressed with the necessity of a union as any one could be.
6 He would seek it with as much ardor.
7 In the discussion of this question, he was disposed to make every reasonable concession and indeed to sacrifice everything for a union except the liberties of his country, than which he could contemplate no greater misfortune.
8 But he hoped we were not reduced to the necessity of sacrificing, or even endangering, our liberties to preserve the Union.
9 If that was the case, the alternative was dreadful.
10 But he would not now say that the adoption of the Constitution would endanger our liberties because that was the point to be debated, and the premises should be laid down previously to the drawing of any conclusion.
11 He wished that all observations might be confined to this point, and that declamations and appeals to the passions might be omitted.
12 Why, said he, are we told of our weakness, of the defenseless condition of the southern parts of our state, of the exposed situation of our capital, of Long Island, surrounded by water and exposed to the incursions of our neighbors in Connecticut, of Vermont having separated from us and assumed the powers of a distinct government, and of the northwest parts of our state being in the hands of a foreign enemy?
13 Why are we to be alarmed with apprehensions that the Eastern states are inimical and disinclined to form alliances with us?
14 He was sorry to find that such suspicions were entertained.
15 He believed that no such disposition existed in the Eastern states.
16 Surely it could not be supposed that those states would make war upon us for exercising the rights of freemen, deliberating and judging for ourselves, on a subject the most interesting that ever came before any assembly.
17 If a war with our neighbors was to be the result of not acceding, there was no use in debating here; we had better receive their dictates if we were unable to resist them.
18 The defects of the old Confederation needed as little proof as the necessity of a union.
19 But there was no proof in all this that the proposed Constitution was a good one.
20 Defective as the old Confederation is, he said, no one could deny but it was possible we might have a worse government.
21 But the question was not whether the present Confederation be a bad one, but whether the proposed Constitution be a good one.
22 It had been observed that no example of federal republics had succeeded.
23 It was true that the ancient confederated republics were all destroyed; so were those which were not confederated; and all ancient governments of every form had shared the same fate.
24 Holland had, no doubt, experienced many evils from the defects in her government, but with all these defects she yet existed; she had under her confederacy made a principal figure among the nations of Europe, and he believed few countries had experienced a greater share of internal peace and prosperity.
25 The Germanic confederacy was not the most pertinent example to produce on this occasion.
26 Among a number of absolute princes who consider their subjects as their property, whose will is law, and to whose ambition there are no hounds, it was no difficult task to discover other causes from which the convulsions in that country rose than the defects of their confederation.
27 Whether a confederacy of states under any form be a practicable government was a question to be discussed in the course of investigating the Constitution.
28 He was pleased that, thus early in debate, the honorable gentleman had himself shown that the intent of the Constitution was not a confederacy, but a reduction of all the states into a consolidated government.
29 He hoped the gentleman would be complaisant enough to exchange names with those who disliked the Constitution, as it appeared from his own concessions that they were Federalists, and those who advocated it were anti-Federalists.
30 He begged leave, however, to remind the gentleman that Montesquieu, with all the examples of modern and ancient republics in view, gives it as his opinion that a confederated republic has all the internal advantages of a republic with the external force of a monarchical government.
31 He was happy to find an officer of such high rank recommending to the other officers of government, and to those who are members of the legislature, to be unbiased by any motives of interest or state importance.
32 Fortunately for himself, he was out of the verge of temptation of this kind, not having the honor to hold any office under the state.
33 But then he was exposed in common with other gentlemen of the convention to another temptation, against which he thought it necessary that we should be equally guarded.
34 If, said he, this Constitution is adopted, there will be a number of honorable and lucrative offices to be filled, and we ought to be cautious lest an expectancy of some of them should influence us to adopt without due consideration.
35 We may wander, said he, in the fields of fancy without end and gather flowers as we go.
36 It may be entertaining, but it is of little service to the discovery of truth.
37 We may, on one side, compare the scheme advocated by our opponents to golden images, with feet part of iron and part of clay, and on the other to a beast dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly, having great iron teeth, which devours, breaks in pieces and stamps the residue with his feet; and after all, said he, we shall find that both these allusions are taken from the same vision, and their true meaning must be discovered by sober reasoning.
38 He would agree with the honorable gentlemen that perfection in any system of government was not to be looked for.
39 If that was the object, the debates on the one before them might soon be closed.
40 But he would observe that this observation applied with equal force against changing any system, especially against material and radical changes.
41 Fickleness and inconstancy, he said, were characteristic of a free people, and in framing a constitution for them, it was perhaps the most difficult thing to correct this spirit and guard against the evil effects of it.
42 He was persuaded it could not be altogether prevented without destroying their freedom.
43 It would be like attempting to correct a small indisposition in the habit of the body, fixing the patient in a confirmed consumption.
44 This fickle and inconstant spirit was the more dangerous in bringing about changes in the government.
45 The instance that had been adduced by the gentleman from sacred history was an example in point to prove this.
46 The nation of Israel, having received a form of civil government from Heaven, enjoyed it for a considerable period, but at length, laboring under pressures which were brought upon them by their own misconduct and imprudence, instead of imputing their misfortunes to their true causes and making a proper improvement of their calamities by a correction of their errors, they imputed them to a defect in their constitution; they rejected their Divine Ruler and asked Samuel to make them a king to judge them, like other nations.
47 Samuel was grieved at their folly, but still, by the command of God, he hearkened to their voice though not until he had solemnly declared unto them the manner in which the king should reign over them.
48 "This,” says Samuel, “shall be the manner of the king that shall reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them for himself for his chariots and for his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots; and he will appoint him captains over thousands and captains over fifties and will set them to ear his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his instruments of war and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries and to be cooks and to be bakers. And he will take your fields and your vineyards and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed and of your vineyards, and give to his officers and to his servants, and he will take your men-servants and your maid-servants and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye have chosen you, and the Lord will not hear you in that day!”
49 How far this was applicable to the subject, he would not now say; it could be better judged of when they had gone through it.
50 On the whole, he wished to take up this matter with candor and deliberation.
51 He would now proceed to state his objections to the clause just read: Section 2 of Article 1, clause 3.
52 His objections were comprised under three heads:
53 In the first place, the rule of apportionment of the representatives is to be according to the whole number of the white inhabitants with three-fifths of all others; that is in plain English, each state is to send representatives in proportion to the number of freemen and three-fifths of the slaves it contains.
54 He could not see any rule by which slaves were to he included in the ratio of representation.
55 The principle of a representation being that every free agent should be concerned in governing himself; it was absurd in giving that power to a man who could not exercise it.
56 Slaves have no will of their own.
57 The very operation of it was to give certain privileges to those people who were so wicked as to keep slaves.
58 He knew it would be admitted that this rule of apportionment was founded on unjust principles, but that it was the result of accommodation, which, he supposed, we should be under the necessity of admitting if we meant to be in union with the Southern states, though utterly repugnant to his feelings.
59 In the second place, the number was not fixed by the Constitution, but left at the discretion of the Legislature; perhaps he was mistaken; it was his wish to be informed.
60 He understood from the Constitution that 65 members were to compose the House of Representatives for three years; that after that time, the census was to be taken and the numbers to be ascertained by the legislature on the following principles:
61 If this was the case, the first Congress that met might reduce the number below what it now is, a power inconsistent with every principle of a free government to leave it to the discretion of the rulers to determine the number of representatives of the people.
62 There was no kind of security except in the integrity of the men who were entrusted, and if you have no other security, it is idle to contend about constitutions.
63 In the third place, supposing Congress should declare that there should be one representative for every 30,000 of the people, in his opinion it would he incompetent to the great purposes of representation.
64 It was, he said, the fundamental principle of a free government that the people should make the laws by which they were to be governed.
65 He who is controlled by another is a slave, and that government which is directed by the will of any one, or a few, or any number less than is the will of the community, is a government for slaves.
66 The new point was: How was the will of the community to be expressed?
67 It was not possible for them to come together; the multitude would be too great; in order, therefore, to provide against this inconvenience, the scheme of representation had been adopted by which the people deputed others to represent them.
68 Individuals entering into society became one body, and that body ought to be animated by one mind, and he conceived that every form of government should have that complexion.
69 It was true, notwithstanding all the experience we had from others, it had appeared that the experiment of representation had been fairly tried; there was something like it in the ancient republics in which, being of small extent, the people could easily meet together, though instead of deliberating, they only considered of those things which were submitted to them by their magistrates.
70 In Great Britain, representation had been carried much further than in any government we knew of, except our own, but in that country it now had only a name.
71 America was the only country in which the first fair opportunity had been offered.
72 When we were colonies, our representation was better than any that was then known; since the Revolution, we had advanced still nearer to perfection.
73 He considered it as an object, of all others the most important, to have it fixed on its true principle, yet he was convinced that it was impracticable to have such a representation in a consolidated government.
74 However, said he, we may approach a great way towards perfection by increasing the representation and limiting the powers of Congress.
75 He considered that the great interests and liberties of the people could only be secured by the state governments.
76 He admitted that if the new government was only confined to great national objects, it would be less exceptionable, but it extended to everything dear to human nature.
77 That this was the case would be proved without any long chain of reasoning, for that power which had both the purse and the sword had the government of the whole country and might extend its powers to any and to every object.
78 He had already observed that, by the true doctrine of representation, this principle was established, that the representative must be chosen by the free will of the majority of his constituents.
79 It therefore followed that the representative should be chosen from small districts.
80 This being admitted, he would ask: Could 65 men for 3,000,000, or one for 30,000, be chosen in this manner?
81 Would they be possessed of the requisite information to make happy the great number of souls that were spread over this extensive country?
82 There was another objection to the clause: if great affairs of government were trusted to few men, they would be more liable to corruption.
83 Corruption, he knew, was unfashionable amongst us, but he supposed that Americans were like other men, and though they had hitherto displayed great virtues, still they were men, and therefore such steps should be taken as to prevent the possibility of corruption.
84 We were now in that stage of society in which we could deliberate with freedom; how long it might continue, God only knew!
85 Twenty years hence, perhaps, these maxims might become unfashionable.
86 We already hear, said he, in all parts of the country, gentlemen ridiculing that spirit of patriotism and love of liberty which carried us through all our difficulties in times of danger.
87 When patriotism was already nearly hooted out of society, ought we not to take some precautions against the progress of corruption?
Smith’s Critique
Melancton Smith’s arguments closely parallel those of the author writing under the pseudonym Federal Farmer, one of the more articulate and widely read anti-Federalists. The identity of Federal Farmer was theorized at the time to be Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, but recent scholarship has called this into question. Historian Gordon Wood has insisted that textual analysis shows more similarity between Smith’s published work than Lee’s, and the topic has been very much in controversy for the past third of a century.
The reader may wish to compare the body of this speech with those of Federal Farmer’s published works and note the basic similarities: a measured, unemotional approach uncolored by the hyperbole that typified works from authors such as Brutus and Hamilton, an attempt at an objective consideration of points rather than a trumpeting of one presumably correct interpretation, and the nature of the objections to the proposed Constitution.
Federal Farmer’s voice was sufficiently influential to be echoed later by such anti-Federalist luminaries as Brutus, so it is entirely possible that Smith’s might be similarly influenced. It is also likely that no firm conclusion will ever be possible. However, there is no doubt as to the origin of this speech inasmuch as it was publicly uttered and recorded. The third person style is unusual for the recording of political oratory but quite customary in the recording of formal debate, and this entry is far more one of debate than the occasionally bombastic speeches made by Patrick Henry at the same time in Virginia.
Hamilton has just made the case for union (5), a case that Smith does not contest, nor did Federal Farmer. The question to Smith was whether the Constitution as written represented too much of a threat to existing liberty to justify its beneficial effects in solidifying a union (10). As Henry did, he protests that the threat of internal instability is overstated (12) but allows that the serious defects in the Articles of Confederation were not (18). Nevertheless, to replace the latter with the Constitution put the government, in Smith’s opinion, in the role of consolidation, not confederation, and he goes on to observe that the real federalists were, under this definition, those who opposed the Constitution as doing away with the model of a confederated republic (29).
37 We may, on one side, compare the scheme advocated by our opponents to golden images, with feet part of iron and part of clay, and on the other to a beast dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly, having great iron teeth, which devours, breaks in pieces and stamps the residue with his feet…
The reference is to the Book of Daniel, 7:7, wherein Daniel, speaking to the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzer, foresees four monstrous governments to rise, the fourth of which, the most arrogant and monstrous of all, is to be laid low by the judgment of God. That was generally accepted as a reference to the rise of the Roman Empire, but Smith is warning that it might as easily apply to the new monster of a federal government whose plan was laid out in the Constitution.
Hamilton has made much of the ability of the branches of government not directly elected to guard against the tendency of the people to be overcome by the kind of transient political passions that would threaten the stability of the overall government. Smith counters that such a guard may be impossible without threatening the overall freedom of the people.
41 Fickleness and inconstancy, he [Smith] said, were characteristic of a free people, and in framing a constitution for them, it was perhaps the most difficult thing to correct this spirit and guard against the evil effects of it.
42 He [Smith] was persuaded it could not be altogether prevented without destroying their freedom.
There is a further Biblical reference, this time from the First Book of Samuel (1 Samuel: 8) wherein the people of Israel reject the form of civil government conferred by Heaven (46) in favor of a king who will become an oppressor. The analogy to a people rejecting the Confederation for the Constitution is obvious, although even Smith allows that this too might be a bit overstated (49).
Smith now turns to his objections to the structure of the House of Representatives. It is, he states, objectionable on three grounds.
52 His objections were comprised under three heads:
The first objection refers to slavery. Smith, a committed emancipationist, realizes that to confer political representation to those who are unable to exercise their free will is to confer it to their masters (55), not to act within their interests.
57 The very operation of it was to give certain privileges to those people who were so wicked as to keep slaves.
It is an accurate assessment of the actual working of the Three-Fifths Compromise, which will end up offering extra political representation to those who will vote for the continuation of the institution. Madison himself has said precisely that. Smith allows, however, that it is a compromise necessary to keep the Southern states in the Union (58).
Smith’s second objection is one that to modern readers seems an act of paranoia: that the wording within Article I, Section 2, might allow an opportunity to form an oligarchy by allowing a Congress so inclined to limit its membership to as few as one representative per state. Brutus has taken up this warning as well. The modern reader realizes that nothing of the sort actually happened. Is this then an indication that Smith was entirely mistaken about the nature of the House? Such a conclusion would be premature, for Smith’s third point is that one representative for every 30,000 voters will be insufficient to allow for the sort of intimacy between representative and voter for which the House is clearly intended. In fact, the prognostication by Madison in Federalist #56, that…
#56-37 The foresight of the Convention has accordingly taken care that the progress of population may be accompanied with a proper increase of the representative branch of the government.
…did, in fact, come to pass, increasing House membership to the level of 400 that both Madison and Hamilton had anticipated. The difficulty is that the population increase quickly brought this number to its natural ceiling and then proceeded to increase. Smith’s objection seems sadly valid in view of the current ratio of one representative for every 700,000 people, and his prediction that the intimacy between people and representative that the number 30,000 would deny must only seem more valid in these days when few American voters manage even to meet their representatives in person.
It was obvious to Smith that the proper repository of direct representation was much more likely to reside within the state governments (75) for this reason. Any threat to those governments, therefore, was a direct threat to the people’s liberty, and a consolidated government that threatened to do away with the state governments must therefore be insupportable.
Lastly, Smith addresses a general feeling that echoes the one expressed by Patrick Henry, that while those directly involved with the War of Independence saw corruption as a deadly threat to nationhood, those feelings seemed to be changing. Henry suggested that it was he himself who was growing old and unfashionable. Smith states it even more strongly.
84 We were now in that stage of society in which we could deliberate with freedom; how long it might continue, God only knew!
85 Twenty years hence, perhaps, these maxims might become unfashionable.
He finishes the thought with a question that must explode in the mind of the modern reader.
87 When patriotism was already nearly hooted out of society, ought we not to take some precautions against the progress of corruption?
It is not the fickleness and inconstancy of the people that most worried Smith, it is corruption – corruption unchecked, corruption within the government that will turn it from being a representative of the people into being a representative of itself. What guard, then, will he propose as adequate against this tendency of corruption? There will be more of this shortly.
Discussion Topics
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
31 Oct 1787, Federalist #2
3 Nov 1787, Federalist #3
5 Nov 1787, John DeWitt #3
7 Nov 1787, Federalist #4
10 Nov 1787, Federalist #5
14 Nov 1787, Federalist #6
15 Nov 1787, Federalist #7
20 Nov 1787, Federalist #8
21 Nov 1787, Federalist #9
23 Nov 1787, Federalist #10
24 Nov 1787, Federalist #11
27 Nov 1787, Federalist #12
27 Nov 1787, Cato #5
28 Nov 1787, Federalist #13
29 Nov 1787, Brutus #4
30 Nov 1787, Federalist #14
1 Dec 1787, Federalist #15
4 Dec 1787, Federalist #16
5 Dec 1787, Federalist #17
7 Dec 1787, Federalist #18
8 Dec 1787, Federalist #19
11 Dec 1787, Federalist #20
12 Dec 1787, Federalist #21
14 Dec 1787, Federalist #22
18 Dec 1787, Federalist #23
18 Dec 1787, Address of the Pennsylvania Minority
19 Dec 1787, Federalist #24
21 Dec 1787, Federalist #25
22 Dec 1787, Federalist #26
25 Dec 1787, Federalist #27
26 Dec 1787, Federalist #28
27 Dec 1787, Brutus #6
28 Dec 1787, Federalist #30
1 Jan 1788, Federalist #31
3 Jan 1788, Federalist #32
3 Jan 1788, Federalist #33
3 Jan 1788, Cato #7
4 Jan 1788, Federalist #34
5 Jan 1788, Federalist #35
8 Jan 1788, Federalist #36
10 Jan 1788, Federalist #29
11 Jan 1788, Federalist #37
15 Jan 1788, Federalist #38
16 Jan 1788, Federalist #39
18 Jan 1788, Federalist #40
19 Jan 1788, Federalist #41
22 Jan 1788, Federalist #42
23 Jan 1788, Federalist #43
24 Jan 1788, Brutus #10
25 Jan 1788, Federalist #44
26 Jan 1788, Federalist #45
29 Jan 1788, Federalist #46
31 Jan 1788, Brutus #11
1 Feb 1788, Federalist #47
1 Feb 1788, Federalist #48
5 Feb 1788, Federalist #49
5 Feb 1788, Federalist #50
7 Feb 1788, Brutus #12, Part 1
8 Feb 1788, Federalist #51
8 Feb 1788, Federalist #52
12 Feb 1788, Federalist #53
12 Feb 1788, Federalist #54
14 Feb 1788, Brutus #12, Part 2
15 Feb 1788, Federalist #55
19 Feb 1788, Federalist #56
19 Feb 1788, Federalist #57
20 Feb 1788, Federalist #58
22 Feb 1788, Federalist #59
26 Feb 1788, Federalist #60
26 Feb 1788, Federalist #61
27 Feb 1788, Federalist #62
1 Mar 1788, Federalist #63
7 Mar 1788, Federalist #64
7 Mar 1788, Federalist #65
11 Mar 1788, Federalist #66
11 Mar 1788, Federalist #67
14 Mar 1788, Federalist #68
14 Mar 1788, Federalist #69
15 Mar 1788, Federalist #70
18 Mar 1788, Federalist #71
20 Mar 1788, Brutus #15
21 Mar 1788, Federalist #72
21 Mar 1788, Federalist #73
25 Mar 1788, Federalist #74
26 Mar 1788, Federalist #75
1 Apr 1788, Federalist #76
4 Apr 1788, Federalist #77
10 Apr 1788, Brutus #16
5 Jun 1788, Patrick Henry’s Speech to the New York Ratifying Convention #1
7 Jun 1788, Patrick Henry’s Speech to the New York Ratifying Convention #2
14 Jun 1788, Federalist #78
18 Jun 1788, Federalist #79
A wonderful and apt reference to Samuel’s warning. God was a special kind of libertarian insofar as government was concerned.
BTTT!
Wow....that prints up to 15 pages on a word document.
I am unfamiliar with this work; thanks for posting!
I had hoped that the last discussion topic might provoke a firestorm of comment, but so far no takers.
I had not read the last discussion topic because I was pouring over the essay. I had not read it before.
I’ll have some comments later, probably Thursday - - I have a speech to give to a small group tomorrow - - priorities are set.
There were three works in that room in Philadelphia which greatly influenced the final work product of those gathered there. The works are The Holy Bible, Emerich de Vattel's The Law of Nations, and Sir William Blackstone's An Analysis of the Laws of England. That is an incontrovertible FACT and the removal of any one of those sources from common public discourse necessarily weakens public understanding of what they did there! Informing the public of such facts does not infringe on the rights of anyone in my humble opinion.
Thank you. I had given up hope that anyone would respond to that question.
Well I did for whatever it’s worth!
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