The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates
So, I was going to review four books this month; however, kitchen renovations with unexpected bonus re-wiring of the kitchen, has made my reading time a bit scant these last two weeks. So instead, I missed last week entirely. And had to drop a book this month. But that’s ok, it is what it is. Probably did not help that the first book I was going to read, which is this week’s book, The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates, was a bit of a slog. Politicians, then as now, enjoyed hearing themselves talk. As my dad says, why use five words, when thirty will do just as well.
The first half of the book is reports from the Constitutional Convention, specifically focusing on the concerns raised by the anti-federalists who wanted to stick with the original Articles of Confederation. And these were well known individuals in the day, probably less so now, but they included Edmund Randolph, Elbridge Gerry, George Mason, and Gouvernor Morris. This was probably the more interesting part of the book, because it did show how the compromises of the final Constitution were achieved, including arguments from James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and exactly one point made by George Washington, who was present for every day of the convention debates, but only spoke once, and that was to argue that we should have more representatives than one per 40,000, which was the original amount before Washington spoke up. After he interjected his belief that the common man was not being represented enough, the number was one representative per 30,000. We’ll come back to that.
Washington was not president yet, obviously, but he was president of the Convention, so for him, it was his place to maintain order, not in interject his own opinion on the debates.
And however much this was a slog to read through, it’s important to understand that this process was not rushed. The Anti-Federalists did try to sell that the whole process was rushed, but it really wasn’t. The framers of the constitution did carefully consider each of the points to appear in the final document, including the number of representatives per population, what the executive powers should be, veto and how to override that, the judiciary, when should citizenship be granted to immigrants, and how this should be ratified.
After all these debates, they had an initial draft of the Constitution ready by August 6, 1787, after about two and a half months. They had initially met on May 25, 1787, and they met basically every single day for those nine weeks, hashing out the important parts. Then spent another six weeks fine tuning the Constitution, including the debate on whether the right to vote should be limited to land holders, which was ultimately decided no.
So, after three months and three weeks, they had a working constitution to present to the individual thirteen states for ratification, and it would not become the law of the land unless nine of the thirteen states ratified it. But the convention decided this was the best possible compromise they could come up with in securing a new nation, and on September 17, 1787, the Constitution was signed by all but three of those who attended the convention. The three holdouts who refused to sign, wanting to stick with the original Articles of Confederation, were Edmund Randolph, Elbridge Gerry, and George Mason.
Under The Articles of Confederation, which had been in effect since approximately 1781, what we had were thirteen individual countries working together in a loose confederation. This would be analogous to the modern-day European Union, where there are dozens of countries working together to secure trade borders and allow their citizens free travel between the countries. That’s what we had here in the States, prior to the passage of the Constitution, and yes what we have today. But what the framers of the Constitution were looking to do was to create not thirteen individual countries, which would ultimately fall to border and territorial disputes as the nation expanded westward, but rather one consolidated country with all the citizens of it pulling towards a common goal of nation building.
While the Constitution was signed on September 17, it did not become the law of the land until nine of the existing states had ratified it, which New Hampshire did on June 21, 1788, making this the new nation on the North American continent. This did not mean that the remaining four colonies HAD to ratify it. As of June 21, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, and South Carolina had all ratified it. All New Hampshire’s ratification meant is that those nine states together had agreed to form this new nation. The remaining four states, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island did NOT have to ratify. They could have just said Nope, not for us, and stayed their own Countries. However, with the nine making it THEIR law, it put the other states in a tenuous position. Theoretically, they each could have remained independent. But, with any trade wars or border disputes, the new United States would have rolled over their tiny little neighbors. So, with those nine, it was basically a done deal. Because it was not practical resist and insist on your own way, when all your neighbors are going along to get along. We should all be more or less familiar with this mentality.
Now, following the signing, the real work began. It took three months and three weeks to write. From September 17, 1787, until June 21, 1788 is nine months four days. For almost that entire nine-month span, the papers throughout the colonies were inundated with letters from supporters and detractors of the new plan to form a United States, and historically, these became known as the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. The Federalists are well known by now. In the day they were published anonymously and collectively under the pseudonym Publius, but we now know were written collectively by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. The Anti-Federalists we actually don’t know. We have submissions by Brutus, Cato, John DeWitt, Centinal, Federal Farmer, and quite famously, Patrick Henry, who used no pseudonyms and quite eloquently spoke against the new plan.
Now, the Anti-Federalist papers were…long. Patrick Henry was the most readable, to me. But all of them sounded important alarm bells which never came true while the framers and founders lived, but we see the repercussions of their warnings 200 years later. So, what were some of these ringing bells.
The 1:30,000 ratio of representatives worried them. Mostly that there was nothing in the Constitution preventing the legislatures from capping the number of representatives in the House. And they were right. They were worried that the House would cap it at the original 65 members from the needed nine states to ratify. In 1787 there were approximately 3 million people that counted for representation, which would have theoretically capped representation at 100 people in the house. Congress did eventually cap itself. If you do math at all, with our current population of 335,361,288, at a rate of 1:30,000 we should have 11,178 members in the House of Representatives. In 1792, the number of representatives was set by law at 105, and this was duly adjusted every ten years with the census until 1929, when federal law capped it at 435. This only awaits a repeal to change, but, just as the anti-federalists predicted, the House of Representatives capped their membership. Can you imagine how wonderfully deadlocked Congress would be if there were 11,178 members waiting to voice their opinions on every single law? It would be fabulous fucking chaos. I say we push to repeal that law. The Anti-Federalists were worried about under representation at 1:30,000. We are currently represented at approximately 1:770,972. Talk about grossly under-represented.
These arguments included arguments against the notorious 3/5 rule, where for apportioning representatives, persons held in bondage, i.e., slaves, would only count three out of five for purposes of representation. This too, did not go unremarked on. At least one of the letters decrying the new nation and Constitution pointed out the irony of a nation founded on liberty enshrining slavery in its founding documents.
Now, when the Constitution was written and passed, all the way up until 1913, the House of Representatives were the only elected body directly elected by the people. They would vote for the President, but the electors of the individual states would actually ballot for the president. And the senate was not elected in any metric by we the people. The way it was set up was the senators were the representatives of the state as a whole body politic. Accordingly, they were nominated and voted into office by the individual state legislatures. So, for modern example, the state of Nevada currently has 42 assemblymen…people…. whatever. If the 17th amendment had not been passed, those 42 assemblymen would have to pick who to send to DC as senator every six years, rather than the people directly. This made it very hard to build a political dynasty as a senator, which is why I am a fan of returning to this plan. But in the 18th century, the Anti-Federalists believed that the senators would be able to buy their way into the position, creating an aristocracy of the upper house. So that’s one they got wrong, since the aristocracy didn’t happen until the 17th amendment passed.
Anyways, it did change, but for the first 100+ years, senators were selected by the individual state legislators. Incidentally, I firmly believe that if the senators were not directly elected by We the People, then idiots like Barbara F Walter who think it’s grossly unfair that all states have equal representation in the upper house, i.e., The Senate, might be a little better informed today.
The Anti-Federalists firmly believed the Constitution was laying groundwork for a petty tyrant in the presidency, ESPECIALLY with the inclusion of a standing army as part of the Constitutional mandates. It was this fear of the standing army, incidentally, that got the second amendment included in the finished product. More than one of the Anti-Federalist papers that demanded a list of amendments included the right to keep and bear arms, specifying….literally spelling out…that this was not intended just for hunting, although that certainly remained a right, but that the right to protect against tyranny was paramount. And with the latest shit show out of New Mexico, it is kind of hard to argue that point. I mean, governor is not president, except that she is the chief executive of the state of New Mexico, now standing in direct violation of the constitution. So, there’s another point for the federalists.
The Shit Show in New Mexico
The concern with the standing army was cited directly as Julius Caesar, who used the standing army in Rome to seize power, which eventually led to the downfall of Rome. And man, there are few historians today who don’t make the connection between the fall of Rome and America’s own descent into debauchery and chaos. Maybe if we had more chaos in house…like the 11,178 representatives we SHOULD have. But then, they’d all need to be paid. Which would mean the bastards in office would have to cut their own pay to share the wealth. OR they’d try to raise taxes. Which might lead to another rebellion. Civil Wars are good for no one, so maybe that cap isn’t such a bad idea. I’ll have to ponder that one.
The fact there was no verbiage in the Constitution against corruption. Nothing to prevent them from taking bribes in the form of…say…lobbyists. Which were certainly a thing in the 18th century. This was a massive mark against the new proposed government. The fact that judges can be removed for high crimes and misdemeanors, but not legislators. No wonder corruption abounds in DC.
The power of taxation was a MASSIVE recurring theme. Namely that there were no limits on what they could tax for. Which obviously encourages more and more taxation on the part of our elected overlords. Again, hard to argue with this two hundred years later. And I don’t believe a single one of the Anti-Federalist papers DIDN’T mention the power of taxation as a giant red flag against the passage of the new Constitution.
The general phrase “To provide for the general welfare” was argued as being too vague. Again, hard to argue with that, given the absolute shit show of legislation that’s been handed down just in the last twenty years, but certainly going as far back as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which was bizarrely supported by the courts in the 1940’s.
I mean, basically, everything that people are now screaming about the government doing as being unconstitutional, were the alarm bells being rung way back during the debates on ratification. The Federalists were cock-eyed optimists, always looking at the best and saying but no, that’s not what’s intended with the Constitution, and so those elected would never do that, while the Anti-Federalists were die hard realists, who said, look at your history, those elected WILL TOTALLY do that.
I do understand why the Anti-Federalist papers are important reading, why they should be at least skimmed through with the salient points discussed in relation to current events. But this book was a total slog to get through. I probably COULD have had this read for last Sunday. But it was such a drag to push through that I would literally rather be ripping out kitchen cabinets and replacing the subflooring than reading through these deadly dull debates. Like, there’s a reason I don’t watch politics now. The art of boring the opposition to death is a time-tested method of ensuring no one is awake enough to oppose you.
This book was originally reviewed on YouTube on September 10, 2023, but is now available on Rumble and PodBean.
