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To: justshutupandtakeit
Wide circulation is often nothing more than the appeal to the limited.

Yet you have no evidence to qualify Lee's writings as anything of the sort. My point is simply that they were very influential in his own day as one of the greatest contributions to his side of the debate. The only substantial reason they are lesser known than the federalists today is the fact that they took a position that was opposite of what ended up happening.

If Luther Martin is the best you can come up with then my point is confirmed. Without his largely self-imposed disabilities Martin might well have been a great man but as it was he drank himself into a lesser status.

Actually, the worst of his alcoholism hit him in older age. Though always a friend of the drink, he nevertheless proved his capability as one of the nation's leading legal minds over several decades. His greater "flaw," if you can call it that, was not the drink but rather eccentricity that accompanied what truly was a stroke of genius. Martin was bluntly spoken and had an extremely sharp tongue. It made him great in a courtroom and in print, but highly undiplomatic and abrasive in a congress. The writings of the other convention delegates reflect this sentiment - they practically all appreciated his brilliance and were also generally respectful of his contributions on the part of the states in committee negotiations, but on the open floor he came across as highly inflamatory in his rhetoric. It was that fact, and not the drink, that hindered his effectiveness as a floor debator.

As for his anti-federalist contributions, you cannot reasonably dispute that they were among the most far-sighted of any on either side of the ratification debate. He held anti-slavery views that were more advanced than almost all of his peers, he foresaw the abusive growth of the federal government, he predicted the civil war in greater detail than anyone a full 70 years before it happened. Yet you desire to arbitrarily dismiss the quality of his writings for no other reason than that he worked opposite of your false deity Hamilton.

782 posted on 09/08/2003 8:38:28 AM PDT by GOPcapitalist
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To: GOPcapitalist
Popular things are often cast into the dustbin of history and for good reason. The anti-federalist writings are a good example. And, no, the substantial reason they wound up there is not because they represented the losing side. They lost because they are filled with paranoid ramblings, hysterical hyperbole and fear rather than hope. Where the Federalist were written by three of the greatest men this nation ever produced their opponents were second rate at best. None of their authors are comparable to Hamilton, Madison or Jay in ANY respect. I will grant that the titles of the essays are hilarious.

Alcohol makes nice people abrasive and abrasive people intolerable. It did so with Martin. It also makes eccentric people even more so. It is the most dangerous drug available legal or not in my opinion. I have certainly seen it wreck more havoc on individuals than any other.

There was no abusive growth of the federal government at all and his prediction of it was dead wrong. It was almost the same size in 1860 as in 1788 and affected very few people's lives except in time of war. Federal growth took its first spurt because of the Slavers' Revolt.

I don't care that Martin opposed Hamilton (who is only a man to me, not a deity) particularly since he opposed almost everyone. Did he have any friends? Or anyone he agreed with for more than a small degree?
787 posted on 09/08/2003 10:40:53 AM PDT by justshutupandtakeit (America's Enemies foreign and domestic agree. Bush must be destroyed.)
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