Essays on the Constitution of the United States Part 21

Deliberate, therefore, on this new national government with coolness; a.n.a.lize it with criticism; and reflect on it with candor: if you find that the influence of a powerful few, or the exercise of a standing army, will always be directed and exerted for your welfare alone, and not to the aggrandizement of themselves, and that it will secure to you and your posterity happiness at home, and national dignity and respect from abroad, adopt it; if it will not, reject it with indignation-better to be where you are for the present, than insecure forever afterwards. Turn your eyes to the United Netherlands, at this moment, and view their situation; compare it with what yours may be, under a government substantially similar to theirs.

Beware of those who wish to influence your pa.s.sions, and to make you dupes to their resentments and little interests-personal invectives can never persuade, but they always fix prejudices, which candor might have removed-those who deal in them have not your happiness at heart. Attach yourselves to measures, not to men.

This form of government is handed to you by the recommendations of a man who merits the confidence of the public; but you ought to recollect that the wisest and best of men may err, and their errors, if adopted, may be fatal to the community; therefore, in principles of _politics_, as well as in religious faith, every man ought to think for himself.

Hereafter, when it will be necessary, I shall make such observations on this new const.i.tution as will tend to promote your welfare and be justified by reason and truth.

CATO.

_Sept. 26, 1787._

Cato, II.

The New York Journal, (Number 2136)

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1787.

For the New York Journal.

_To the_ CITIZENS _of the_ STATE _of_ NEW YORK:

"Remember, O my friends! the laws, the rights, The generous plan of power deliver'd down, By your renown'd Forefathers; So dearly bought, the price of so much blood!

O let it never perish in your hands!

But piously transmit it to your children."

The object of my last address to you was to engage your dispa.s.sionate consideration of the new Federal government; to caution you against precipitancy in the adoption of it; to recommend a correction of its errors, if it contained any; to hint to you the danger of an easy perversion of some of its powers; to solicit you to separate yourselves from party, and to be independent of and uninfluenced by any in your principles of politics; and that address was closed with a promise of future observations on the same subject, which should be justified by reason and truth. Here I intended to have rested the introduction; but a writer under the signature of CaeSAR, in Mr. Child's paper of the 1st instant, who treats you with pa.s.sion, insult, and threat, has antic.i.p.ated those observations which would otherwise have remained in silence until a future period. It would be criminal in me to hesitate a moment to appear as your advocate in so interesting a cause, and to resist the influence of such doctrines as this Caesar holds. I shall take no other cognizance of his remarks on the _questionable_ shape of my future, or the _equivocal_ appearance of my past reflections, than to declare, that in my past, I did not mean to be misunderstood (for Caesar himself declares that it is obviously the language of distrust), and that in my future there will not be the semblance of doubt. But what is the language of Caesar-he ridicules your prerogative, power, and majesty-he talks of this _proffered const.i.tution_ as the tender mercy of a benevolent sovereign to deluded subjects, or, as his tyrant name-sake, of his proffered grace to the virtuous Cato:-he shuts the door of free deliberation and discussion, and declares that you must receive this government in manner and form as it is _proffered_-that you cannot revise or amend it, and lastly, to close the scene, he insinuates that it will be more healthy for you that the American Fabius should be induced to accept of the presidency of this new government than that, in case you do not acquiesce, he should be solicited to command an army to impose it on you. Is not your indignation roused at this absolute, imperious style? For what did you open the veins of your citizens and expend their treasure? For what did you throw off the yoke of Britain and call yourselves independent? Was it from a disposition fond of change, or to procure new masters?-if those were your motives, you have reward before you-go, retire into silent obscurity, and kiss the rod that scourges you, bury the prospects you had in store, that you and your posterity would partic.i.p.ate in the blessings of freedom, and the employments of your country-let the rich and insolent alone be your rulers. Perhaps you are designed by providence as an emphatic evidence of the mutability of human affairs, to have the show of happiness only, that your misery may seem the sharper, and if so, you must submit. But if you had n.o.bler views, and you are not designed by heaven as an example-are you now to be derided and insulted? Is the power of thinking, on the only subject important to you, to be taken away? and if per chance you should happen to differ from Caesar, are you to have Caesar's principles crammed down your throats with an army? G.o.d forbid!

In democratic republics the people collectively are considered as the sovereign-all legislative, judicial, and executive power, is inherent in and derived from them. As a people, your power and authority have sanctioned and established the present government-your executive, legislative, and judicial acknowledge it by their public acts-you are again solicited to sanction and establish the future one-yet this Caesar mocks your dignity and laughs at the majesty of the people. Caesar, with his usual dogmatism, enquires, if I had talents to throw light on the subject of legislation, why did I not offer them when the Convention was in session? He is answered in a moment-I thought with him and you, that the wisdom of America, in that Convention, was drawn as it were to a Focus. I placed an unbounded confidence in some of the characters who were members of it, from the services they had rendered their country, without adverting to the ambitious and interested views of others. I was willingly led to expect a model of perfection and security that would have astonished the world. Therefore to have offered observation, on the subject of legislation, under these impressions, would have discovered no less arrogance than Caesar. The Convention, too, when in session, shut their doors to the observations of the community, and their members were under an obligation of secrecy. Nothing transpired. To have suggested remarks on unknown and antic.i.p.ated principles would have been like a man groping in the dark, and folly in the extreme. I confess, however, I have been disappointed, and Caesar is candid enough to make the same declaration, for he thinks it _might_ have been more perfect.

But to call in dispute, at this time, and in the manner Caesar does, the right of free deliberation on this subject, is like a man's propounding a question to another, and telling him at the same that if he does not answer agreeable to the opinion of the propounder, he will exert force to make him of the same sentiment: to exemplify this, it will be necessary to give you a short history of the rise and progress of the Convention, and the conduct of Congress thereon. The states in Congress suggested, that the articles of confederation had provided for making alterations in the confederation-that there were defects therein, and as a means to remedy which, a Convention of delegates, appointed by the different states, was resolved expedient to be held for the sole and express purpose of revising it, and reporting to Congress and the different legislatures such alterations and provisions therein as should (when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the several states) render the federal const.i.tution adequate to the exigencies of government. This resolution is sent to the different states, and the legislature of this state, with others, appoint, in conformity thereto, delegates for the purpose, and in the words mentioned in that resolve, as by the resolution of Congress, and the concurrent resolutions of the senate and a.s.sembly of this state, subjoined, will appear. For the sole and express purpose aforesaid a Convention of delegates is formed at Philadelphia: what have they done?

Have they revised the confederation, and has Congress agreed to their report?-neither is the fact. This Convention have exceeded the authority given to them, and have transmitted to Congress a new political fabric, essentially and fundamentally distinct and different from it, in which the different states do not retain separately their sovereignty and independency, united by a confederate league-but one entire sovereignty, a consolidation of them into one government-in which new provisions and powers are not made and vested in Congress, but in an a.s.sembly, senate, and president, who are not known in the articles of confederation.

Congress, without agreeing to, or approving of, this system _proffered_ by the Convention, have sent it to the different legislatures, not for their confirmation, but to submit it to the people; not in conformity to their own resolution, but in conformity to the resolution of the Convention made and provided in that case.(53) Was it, then, from the face of the foregoing facts, the intention of Congress, and of this and the other states, that the essence of our present national government should be annihilated, or that it should be retained and only have an increase of substantial necessary powers? Congress, sensible of this latter principle, and that the Convention had taken on themselves a power which neither they nor the other states had a right to delegate to them, and that they could not agree to and approve of this consolidated system, nor the states confirm it-have been silent on its character; and although many have dwelt on their unanimity, it is no less than the unanimity of opinion that it originated in an a.s.sumption of power, which your voice alone can sanctify.

This new government, therefore, founded in usurpation, is referred to your opinion as the origin of power not heretofore delegated, and, to this end, the exercise of the prerogative of free examination is essentially necessary; and yet you are unhesitatingly to acquiesce, and if you do not, the American Fabius, if we may believe Caesar is to command an army to impose it. It is not my view to rouse your pa.s.sions. I only wish to excite you to, and a.s.sist you in, a cool and deliberate discussion of the subject, to urge you to behave like sensible freemen. Think, speak, act, and a.s.sert your opinions and rights-let the same good sense govern you with respect to the adoption of a future system for the administration of your public affairs that influenced you in the formation of the present.

Hereafter I do not intend to be diverted by Caesar, or any other. My object is to take up this new form of national government-compare it with the experience and opinions of the most sensible and approved political authors-and to show that its principles, and the exercise of them, will be dangerous to your liberty and happiness.

CATO.

Cato, III.

The New York Journal, (Number 2138)

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1787.

TO THE CITIZENS OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK:

In the close of my last introductory address, I told you that my object in the future would be to take up this new form of national government, to compare it with the experience and opinions of the most sensible and approved political authors, and to show you that its principles, and the exercise of them, will be dangerous to your liberty and happiness.

Although I am conscious that this is an arduous undertaking, yet I will perform it to the best of my ability.

The freedom, equality and independence which you enjoyed by nature, induced you to consent to a political power. The same principles led you to examine the errors and vices of a British superintendence, to divest yourselves of it, and to rea.s.sume a new political shape. It is acknowledged that there are defects in this, and another is tendered to you for acceptance; the great question then, that arises on this new political principle, is, whether it will answer the ends for which it is said to be offered to you, and for which all men engage in political society, to wit, the preservation of their lives, liberties, and estates.

The recital, or premises on which the new form of government is erected, declares a consolidation or union of all the thirteen parts, or states, into one great whole, under the firm of the United States, for all the various and important purposes therein set forth. But whoever seriously considers the immense extent of territory comprehended within the limits of the United States, together with the variety of its climates, productions, and commerce, the difference of extent, and number of inhabitants in all; the dissimilitude of interest, morals, and politics, in almost every one, will receive it as an intuitive truth, that a consolidated republican form of government therein, can never _form a perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to you and your posterity_, for to these objects it must be directed: this unkindred legislature therefore, composed of interests opposite and dissimilar in their nature, will in its exercise, emphatically be like a house divided against itself.

The governments of Europe have taken their limits and form from advent.i.tious circ.u.mstances, and nothing can be argued on the motive of agreement from them; but these advent.i.tious political principles, have nevertheless produced effects that have attracted the attention of philosophy, which have established axioms in the science of politics therefrom, as irrefragable as any in Euclid. It is natural, says Montesquieu, _to a republic to have only a small territory, otherwise it cannot long subsist: in a large one, there are men of large fortunes, and consequently of less moderation; there are too great deposits to trust in the hands of a single subject; an ambitious person soon becomes sensible that he may be happy, great, and glorious by oppressing his fellow citizens, and that he might raise himself to grandeur, on the ruins of his country. In large republics, the public good is sacrificed to a thousand views; in a small one, the interest of the public is easily perceived, better understood, and more within the reach of every citizen; abuses have a less extent, and of course are less protected_-he also shows you, that the duration of the republic of Sparta was owing to its having continued with the same extent of territory after all its wars; and that the ambition of Athens and Lacedemon to command and direct the union, lost them their liberties, and gave them a monarchy.

From this picture, what can you promise yourselves, on the score of consolidation of the United States into one government? Impracticability in the just exercise of it, your freedom insecure, even this form of government limited in its continuance, the employments of your country disposed of to the opulent, to whose contumely you will continually be an object-you must risk much, by indispensably placing trusts of the greatest magnitude, into the hands of individuals whose ambition for power, and aggrandizement, will oppress and grind you-where from the vast extent of your territory, and the complication of interests, the science of government will become intricate and perplexed, and too mysterious for you to understand and observe; and by which you are to be conducted into a monarchy, either limited or despotic; the latter, Mr. Locke remarks, _is a government derived from neither nature nor compact_.

_Political liberty_, the great Montesquieu again observes, _consists in security, or at least in the opinion we have of security_; and this _security_, therefore, or the _opinion_, is best obtained in moderate governments, where the mildness of the laws, and the equality of the manners, beget a confidence in the people, which produces this security, or the opinion. This moderation in governments depends in a great measure on their limits, connected with their political distribution.

The extent of many of the states of the Union, is at this time almost too great for the superintendence of a republican form of government, and must one day or other revolve into more vigorous ones, or by separation be reduced into smaller and more useful, as well as moderate ones. You have already observed the feeble efforts of Ma.s.sachusetts against their insurgents; with what difficulty did they quell that insurrection; and is not the province of Maine at this moment on the eve of separation from her? The reason of these things is, that for the security of the _property_ of the community, in which expressive term Mr. Locke makes life, liberty, and estate, to consist-the wheels of a republic are necessarily slow in their operation; hence in large free republics, the evil sometimes is not only begun, but almost completed, before they are in a situation to turn the current into a contrary progression: the extremes are also too remote from the usual seat of government, and the laws, therefore, too feeble to afford protection to all its parts, and insure _domestic tranquility_ without the aid of another principle. If, therefore, this state, and that of North Carolina, had an army under their control, they never would have lost Vermont, and Frankland, nor the state of Ma.s.sachusetts suffer an insurrection, or the dismemberment of her fairest district, but the exercise of a principle which would have prevented these things, if we may believe the experience of ages, would have ended in the destruction of their liberties.

Will this consolidated republic, if established, in its exercise beget such confidence and compliance, among the citizens of these states, as to do without the aid of a standing army? I deny that it will. The malcontents in each state, who will not be a few, nor the least important, will be exciting factions against it-the fear of a dismemberment of some of its parts, and the necessity to enforce the execution of revenue laws (a fruitful source of oppression) on the extremes and in the other districts of the government, will incidentally and necessarily require a permanent force, to be kept on foot: will not political security, and even the opinion of it, be extinguished? Can mildness and moderation exist in a government where the primary incident in its exercise must be force? Will not violence destroy confidence, and can equality subsist where the extent, policy, and practice of it will naturally lead to make odious distinctions among citizens?

The people who may compose this national legislature from the southern states, in which, from the mildness of the climate, the fertility of the soil, and the value of its productions, wealth is rapidly acquired, and where the same causes naturally lead to luxury, dissipation, and a pa.s.sion for aristocratic distinction; where slavery is encouraged, and liberty of course less respected and protected; who know not what it is to acquire property by their own toil, nor to economize with the savings of industry-will these men, therefore, be as tenacious of the liberties and interests of the more northern states, where freedom, independence, industry, equality and frugality are natural to the climate and soil, as men who are your own citizens, legislating in your own state, under your inspection, and whose manners and fortunes bear a more equal resemblance to your own?

It may be suggested, in answer to this, that whoever is a citizen of one state is a citizen of each, and that therefore he will be as interested in the happiness and interest of all, as the one he is delegated from; but the argument is fallacious, and, whoever has attended to the history of mankind, and the principles which bind them together as parents, citizens, or men, will readily perceive it. These principles are, in their exercise, like a pebble cast on the calm surface of a river-the circles begin in the center, and are small, active, and forcible, but as they depart from that point, they lose their force, and vanish into calmness.

The strongest principle of union resides within our domestic walls. The ties of the parent exceed that of any other; as we depart from home, the next general principle of union is amongst citizens of the same state, where acquaintance, habits, and fortunes, nourish affection, and attachment; enlarge the circle still further, and, as citizens of different states, though we acknowledge the same national denomination, we lose in the ties of acquaintance, habits, and fortunes, and thus by degrees we lessen in our attachments, till, at length, we no more than acknowledge a sameness of species. Is it, therefore, from certainty like this, reasonable to believe, that inhabitants of Georgia, or New Hamps.h.i.+re, will have the same obligations towards you as your own, and preside over your lives, liberties, and property, with the same care and attachment? Intuitive reason answers in the negative.

In the course of my examination of the principles of consolidation of the states into one general government, many other reasons against it have occurred, but I flatter myself, from those herein offered to your consideration, I have convinced you that it is both presumptuous and impracticable, consistent with your safety. To detain you with further remarks would be useless. I shall, however, continue in my following numbers to a.n.a.lyse this new government, pursuant to my promise.

CATO.

Cato, IV.

The New York Journal, (Number 2140)

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1787.

For the New York Journal.

TO THE CITIZENS OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK:

Admitting, however, that the vast extent of America, together with the various other reasons which I offered you in my last number, against the practicability of the just exercise of the new government are insufficient to convince; still it is an undesirable truth, that its several parts are either possessed of principles, which you have heretofore considered as ruinous and that others are omitted which you have established as fundamental to your political security, and must in their operation, I will venture to a.s.sert, fetter your tongues and minds, enchain your bodies, and ultimately extinguish all that is great and n.o.ble in man.