CHAPTER ONE:
The Evolution of the Federalist Faction
The Union as a Treaty Between Two Nations
In 1866, E.A. Pollard, the editor of the Richmond Examiner, wrote these insightful words: "No one can read aright the history of America, unless in light of a North and a South: two political aliens existing in a Union imperfectly defined as a confederation of States. If insensible or forgetful of this theory, he is at once involved in an otherwise inexplicable mass of facts, and will in vain attempt an analysis of controversies, apparently the most various and confused."(1) Pollard was absolutely correct. Understanding the nature of the American Union as "a treaty between two nations of opposite civilizations"(2) is indeed the key to properly assembling the complex puzzle of American history, especially the period of 1861-1865 which saw both sections locked in deadly combat with one another.
Though the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 brought an end to open war between England and the American States, the hostility of the former against the latter was by no means abated. According to John Scott, "[H]ostilities were not yet over; they had only assumed another and scarcely less harrassing and dangerous form. Baffled in field operations, King George resorted to a subtle expedient to regain, or if that should prove impracticable, to destroy, his former subjects."(3) Thus began what George Washington described as the "war of imposts."(4) Pollard further explained the effects of this commercial assault on America:
The close of the Revolution was followed by a distress of trade that involved all of the American States. Indeed, they found that their independence, commercially, had been very dearly purchased: that the British Government was disposed to revenge itself for the ill-success of its arms by the most severe restrictions on the trade of the States, and to affect all Europe against any commercial negotiations with them. The tobacco of Virginia and Maryland was loaded down with duties and prohibitions; the rice and indigo of the Carolinas suffered similarly; but in New England the distress was out of all proportion to what was experienced in the more fortunate regions of the South, where the fertility of the soil was always a ready and considerable compensation for the oppression of taxes and commercial imposts. Before the Revolution, Great Britain had furnished markets for more than three-fourths of the exports of the eight Northern States. These were now almost actually closed to them. Massachusetts complained of the boon of independence, when she could no longer find a market for her fish and oil of fish, which at this time constituted almost wholly the exports of that region, which has since reached to such insolence of prosperity, and now abounds with the seats of opulence. The most important branch of New England industry — the whale fisheries — had almost perished; and driven out of employment, and distressed by an unkind soil, there were large masses of the descendants of the Puritans ready to move wherever better fortune invited them, and the charity of equal laws would tolerate them.(5)
Compounding the financial devastation caused by being cut off from trade with Great Britain, the New England States also found themselves saddled with enormous public debts. Massachusetts in 1784, for example, had a debt of $5 million.(6) Such was the economic condition of the country following the struggle for independence from British rule. Right from the beginning, the two sections had different interests; the warm climate and long planting season of the South created an agricultural economy which was mainly self-sufficient, while the harsher climate and shorter planting season of the North created a manufacturing economy which relied heavily on commercial trade. The differing economies naturally engendered differing political worldviews — the agricultural South inclined towards decentralization of power and finance, private enterprise, and free trade while the manufacturing North inclined towards centralization of power and finance, government subsidies and internal improvement, and protectionism in the way of a high import tariff system. These differences were the root cause of the bitter animosities which have existed between the two sections right from the beginning. As noted by one historian, "[O]utcroppings of sectional differences based upon occupations left their imprint upon the compromises of the Constitution itself, and upon the objections north and south to its ratification."(7) Pierce Butler of South Carolina considered the interests of the North and South to be "as different as the interests of Russia and Turkey."(8) Patrick Henry of Virginia would argue for his State's rejection of the Constitution for the same reason: "There is a striking difference, and great contrariety of interests, between the states. They are naturally divided into carrying and productive states. This is an actual, existing distinction, which cannot be altered."(9) Henry's colleague, John Tyler, agreed: "So long as climate will have effect on men, so long will the different climates of the United States render us different."(10)
The Illegal Proceedings of the Philadelphia Convention
The theory which has dominated the history books for the last two hundred years is that, in the years immediately following the War for Independence, the country was in chaos and close to collapse due to the weaknesses inherent in the Articles of Confederation. According to one noted historian:
In the early spring of 1787, after the most violent winter but one in almost a decade, ominous calm descended upon the land. The very life of the Republic was on trial. (No external enemy threatened its shores, and no enemy agents conspired to destroy it from within, but it was in mortal danger nonetheless, for the freest people in the world had ceased to care whether the Republic lived or died.)
Or so it had seemed for four years and more, and especially for the last two. During those four years, and especially for the last two, everywhere one looked closely the Union seemed to be coming apart.(11)
There are, however, good reasons to question the veracity of this claim. In a letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, George Washington wrote, "I expect that many blessings will be attributed to our new government, which are now taking their rise from that industry and frugality, into the practice of which the people have been forced from necessity. I really believe that there never was so much labor and economy to be found before in the country, as at the present moment."(12) These words were penned while the States were still united under the Articles. Speaking of the Articles, Thomas Jefferson said, "With all the imperfections of our present government, it is, without exception, the best existing or the best that ever did exist."(13) Early in 1787, Benjamin Franklin declared that the country as a whole was "so prosperous" that there was "every reason for profound thanksgiving." Farmers were "paid better prices than ever for their products" and the value of their lands were rising in value. Nowhere in Europe were the laboring classes "so well paid, fed, or clothed."(14) Historian Charles Austin Beard wrote:
It may very well be that Franklin's view of the general social conditions just previous to the formation of the Constitution is essentially correct and that the defects in the Articles of Confederation were not the serious menace to the social fabric which the loud complaints of advocates of change implied. It may be that "the critical period" was not such a critical period after all; but a phantom of the imagination produced by some undoubted evils which could have been remedied without a political revolution.... It does not appear that any one has really inquired just what precise facts must be established to prove that "the bonds of the social order were dissolving".... When it is remembered that most of our history has been written by Federalists, it will become apparent that great care should be taken in accepting, without reserve, the gloomy pictures of the social conditions prevailing under the Articles of Confederation.(15)
As noted above, independence was hard on both the North and the South, but the latter, due to its self-sufficiency, was able to revive its prosperity. Virginia at that time was far and above the most prosperous of all the thirteen States. In New England, however, things were far different. Forrest McDonald wrote, "Massachusetts had long since reached the point of being unable to support itself except by shrewd trading."(16) As will be shown hereafter, a shrewdness in politics would become the handmaiden of shrewd trading in the Old Bay State.
The Articles contained the following provision at Article XIII: "Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State." In accordance with this provision, delegates from twelve of the thirteen States were sent to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in May of 1787 "for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation" and making such "alterations and provisions therein as shall render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of the Government and the preservation of the Union,"(17) However, the drafting of the Constitution and its ratification two years later altered the very nature of the American civil structure:
The general Federal Convention that framed the Constitution at Philadelphia was a secret body; and the greatest pains were taken that no part of its proceedings should get to the public until the Constitution itself was reported to Congress. The Journals were confided to the care of Washington and were not made public until many years after our present Government was established. The framers of the Constitution ignored the purposes for which they were delegated; they acted without any authority whatever; and the document, which the warring factions finally evolved from their quarrels and dissensions, was revolutionary. This capital fact requires iteration, for it is essential to an understanding of the desperate struggle to secure the ratification of that then unpopular instrument.
"Not one legislature in the United States had the most distant idea when they first appointed members for a convention, entirely commercial... that they would without any warrant from their constituents, presume on so bold and daring a stride," truthfully writes the excitable Gerry of Massachusetts in his bombastic denunciation of "the fraudulent usurpation at Philadelphia." The more reliable Melancton Smith of New York testifies that "previous to the meeting of the Convention the subject of a new form of government had been little thought of and scarcely written upon at all.... The idea of a government similar to" the Constitution "never entered the minds of the legislatures who appointed the Convention and of but very few of the members who composed it, until they had assembled and heard it proposed in that body."
"Had the idea of a total change been stated," asserts the trustworthy Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, "probably no state would have appointed members to the Convention.... Probably not one man in ten thousand in the United States... had an idea that the old ship was to be destroyed."(18)
According to George McHenry, a Southern historian writing in 1863, "[T]he members of the Convention who voted for the Constitution became nothing less than a body of secessionists; they created what might be called a peaceable revolution, for they disregarded their instructions from the respective States...."(19) More recently, John W. Burgess referred to the actions of the Convention as a coup d'etat: "What they actually did, stripped of all fiction and verbiage, was to assume constituent powers, ordain a constitution of government and of liberty, and demand a plebiscite over the heads of all existing legally ordained powers. Had Julius or Napoleon committed these acts they would have been pronounced coups d'etat."(20) These men certainly exceeded their delegated powers to merely revise the Articles and their subsequent appeal directly to the people of the States, rather than to the legislatures of the States, as required by that document, was revolutionary to the core. James Madison admitted as much when, in justifying the actions of the Convention, he appealed to the "transcendent and precious right of the people 'to abolish or alter their governments as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.'"(21) Even George Washington himself admitted that "in strict propriety a Convention so holden may not be legal."(22) It is therefore not surprising that an oath of absolute secrecy bound everyone present at the Convention, and that the journals were not released to the public until the death of Madison several decades later.
It is rare to find any mention of the illegal nature of the Convention in modern history textbooks. However, this subject was foremost in the minds of many of the Anti-Federalist opponents of the Constitution, particularly Patrick Henry, who said:
I have the highest respect for those gentlemen who formed the Convention, and, were some of them not here, I would express some testimonial of esteem for them. America had, on a former occasion, put the utmost confidence in them — a confidence which was well placed; and I am sure, sir, I would give up any thing to them; I would cheerfully confide in them as my representatives. But, sir, on this occasion, I would demand the cause of their conduct. Even from that illustrious man who saved us by his valor, I would have a reason for his conduct: that liberty which he has given us by his valor, tells me to ask this reason; and sure I am, were he here, he would give us that reason. But there are other gentlemen here, who can give us this information. The people gave them no power to use their name. That they exceeded their power is perfectly clear. It is not mere curiosity that actuates me: I wish to hear the real, actual, existing danger, which should lead us to take these steps, so dangerous in my conception. Disorders have arisen in other parts of America; but here [in Virginia], sir, no dangers, no insurrection or tumult have happened; every thing has been calm and tranquil. But, notwithstanding this, we are wandering on the great ocean of human affairs. I see no landmark to guide us. We are running we know not whither. Difference of opinion has gone to a degree of inflammatory resentment in different parts of the country which has been occasioned by this perilous innovation. The federal Convention ought to have amended the old system; for this purpose they were solely delegated; the object of their mission extended to no other consideration. You must, therefore, forgive the solicitation of one unworthy member to know what danger could have arisen under the present Confederation, and what are the causes of this proposal to change our government.(23)
Henry spoke these words during the Virginia convention which assembled at Richmond on 2 June 1788. His audience did not take his wisdom to heart, however, and, choosing to ignore the illegality of the Philadelphia proceedings, the State convention finally ratified the Constitution three weeks later on the twenty-fifth of June. It was generally believed that without Virginia's assent, the Constitution would never have gone into effect.(24) Thus, the "Old Dominion" placed her seal of approval upon a revolution, the outworking of which would seven decades later saturate her soil with the blood of her own sons.
"Anti-Federalist" Distrust of the Constitution
In his Farewell Address, published in 1796, George Washington warned:
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home; your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee, that from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual and immoveable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned, and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
In contemplating the causes which may disturb our union, it occurs as a matter of serious concern, that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations: Northern and Southern; Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence, within particular districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart burnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection....
Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally. This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy.
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments occasional riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passion. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.(25)
Washington's warning came too late, for the "spirit of party" (faction), which would eventually bring the country to ruin in less than two generations, had already begun to sprout in the soil of American liberty. Ironically, its roots went deep into the very system of government which Washington called upon his countrymen to cherish and defend. James Madison, often credited as the "father of the Constitution," wrote, "A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principle task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government." He stressed the economic origin of this political diversity: "From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of society into different interests and parties."(26) Since these diverse interests, which, according to Madison, would be constantly vying with one another for control over the government, would come into the public arena with antagonistic political views and contradictory economic agendas, it was therefore necessary that a system be set up whereby they would be effectively checked and balanced: "The only remedy is to enlarge the sphere and thereby divide the community into so great a number of interests and parties that, in the first place, a majority will not be likely, at the same moment, to have a common interest separate from that of the whole, or of the minority; and, in the second place, that, in case they should have such an interest, they may not be so apt to unite in the pursuit of it."(27) Such was the theory behind the United States Constitution — a theory which the unfolding of American history over the next several decades proved to have been in error.
These factions were present and active right from the start. As pointed out by Stephen D. Carpenter:
...[T]here were three classes in the National Convention that formed our Constitution — the purely Democratic, who had a constant dread of Federal encroachments, and were for gauging the power of the General Government to the lowest scale; a Democratic Republican party, that desired to invest the Federal Government with just enough power to make it efficient, and no more; and the Monarchists, "a small but active division," who utterly repudiated a Republican form of government. This faction ultimately attached themselves to the Federal party.(28)
Prior to the ratification and implementation of the Constitution in 1789, the men who became known as "Anti-Federalists"(29) voiced their fears that there were serious flaws in the proposed system of government which would eventually move it in the direction of consolidation, thereby usurping the sovereignty of the several States. The majority of the opponents of ratification were from the South, and Virginia in particular, and were men who recognized the danger posed to the liberties of the people of both sections by special commercial interests in the Northeast. As William Grayson pointed out, "With respect to the citizens of the Eastern and Middle States, perhaps the best and surest means of discovering their general dispositions, may be by having recourse to their interests."(30) Northern delegate to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, Nathaniel Gorham, had already candidly admitted that "the Eastern States had no motive to Union but a commercial one."(31) Virginian delegates Edmund Randolph and George Mason objected throughout the Convention that the "energetic government" outlined by the delegates would prove to be a Northern-dominated oligarchy. Mason, who "would rather chop off his right hand than put it to the Constitution" as it was written,(32) believed that the document would "produce a monarchy or a corrupt, oppressive aristocracy," and that the new Government would "most probably vibrate some years between the two, and then terminate in one or the other."(33) He also predicted that, in ratifying the Constitution, the "Southern States... will deliver themselves bound hand & foot to the Eastern States...."(34) This prediction was echoed by Benjamin Harrison when he stated, "If the Constitution is carried into effect, the States south of the Potomac will be little more than appendages to those to the northward of it."(35)
Luther Martin of Maryland believed that the hidden agenda of the advocates of the Constitution was "the total abolition and destruction of all state governments." It was his suspicion that the compact was made to seem "federal" enough on the surface for the benefit of the unsuspecting public, but that once ratified, all such appearances would be dropped "to render it wholly and entirely a national government."(36) An equally suspicious William Grayson predicted that Northern delegates would demand "a very strong government, & wish to prostrate all the state legislatures," and then added, "[B]ut I don't learn that the people are with them."(37) In a letter to Massachusetts Governor James Bowdoin, Elbridge Gerry, Rufus King, and Samuel Holten warned that the proposed revision of the Articles of Confederation was premature, and that the country's republican institutions were in danger from "plans artfully laid, & vigorously pursued, which had they been successful, we think, would inevitably have changed our republican Governments, into baleful Aristocracies."(38) One anonymous Anti-Federalist in South Carolina expressed his apprehension in verse:
When thirteen states are moulded into one
Your rights are vanish'd and your honors gone;
The form of Freedom shall alone remain,
As Rome had Senators when she hugg'd the chain.
In Five short years of Freedom weary grown
We quit our plain republics for a throne;
Congress and President full proof shall bring
A mere disguise for Parliament and King.(39)
In a letter which was uncannily prognostic of events to come, another anonymous Anti-Federalist from Virginia warned that the proposed system of government would lead directly to a destructive civil war between the States which would terminate in a centralized tyranny:
The new constitution in its present form is calculated to produce despotism, thraldom and confusion, and if the United States do swallow it, they will find it a bolus, that will create convulsions to their utmost extremities. Were they mine enemies, the worst imprecation I could devise would be, may they adopt it. For tyranny, where it has been chained (as for a few years past) is always more cursed, and sticks its teeth in deeper than before.... Our present constitution, with a few additional powers to Congress, seems better calculated to preserve the rights and defend the liberties of our citizens, than the one proposed, without proper amendments. Let us therefore, for once, show our judgment and solidity by continuing it, and prove the opinion to be erroneous, that levity and fickleness are not only the foibles of our tempers, but the reigning principles in these states. There are men amongst us, of such dissatisfied tempers, that place them in Heaven, they would find something to blame; and so restless and self-sufficient, that they must be eternally reforming the state. But the misfortune is, they always leave affairs worse than they find them. A change of government is at all times dangerous, but at present may be fatal, without the utmost caution, just after emerging out of a tedious and expensive war....
Beware my countrymen! Our enemies — uncontrolled as they are in their ambitious schemes, fretted with losses, and perplexed with disappointments — will exert their whole power and policy to increase and continue our confusion. And while we are destroying one another, they will be repairing their losses, and ruining our trade. Of all the plagues that infest a nation, a civil war is the worst. ...[W]hen a civil war is kindled, there is then forth no security of property nor protection from any law. Life and fortune become precarious. And all that is dear to men is at the discretion of profligate soldiery, doubly licentious on such an occasion. Cities are exhausted by heavy contributions, or sacked because they cannot answer exorbitant demand. Countries are eaten up by the parties they favor, and ravaged by the one they oppose. Fathers and sons sheath their swords in one another's bowels in the field, and their wives and daughters are exposed to the rudeness and lust of ruffians at home. And when the sword has decided quarrel, the scene is closed with banishments, forfeitures, and barbarous executions that entail distress on children then unborn. May Heaven avert the dreadful catastrophe!
In the most limited governments, what wranglings, animosities, factions, partiality, and all other evils that tend to embroil a nation and weaken a state, are constantly practised by legislators. What then may we expect if the new constitution be adopted as it now stands? The great will struggle for power, honor and wealth; the poor will become a prey to avarice, insolence and oppression. And while some are studying to supplant their neighbors, and others striving to keep their stations, one villain will wink at the oppression of another, the people be fleeced, and the public business neglected. From despotism and tyranny good Lord deliver us.(40)
Another man, writing under the nom de plume "A Federal Republican," enumerated the inherent dangers of investing Congress "with the formidable powers of raising armies, and lending money, totally independent of the different states," and pointed out that "they will moreover, have the power of leading troops among you in order to suppress those struggles which may sometimes happen among a free people, and which tyranny will impiously brand with the name of sedition." He also warned that, working hand-in-hand with these standing armies would be the "Continental collector" of taxes, against whose abuses there would be scant remedy available to the Citizen of one of the States. He concluded with these words:
Thus will you be necessarily compelled either to make a bold effort to extricate yourselves from these grievous and oppressive extortions, or you will be fatigued by fruitless attempts into the quiet and peaceable surrender of those rights, for which the blood of your fellow citizens has been shed in vain. But the latter will, no doubt, be the melancholy fate of a people once inspired with the love of liberty, as the power vested in congress of sending troops for suppressing insurrections will always enable them to stifle the first struggles of freedom.(41)
Thomas Jefferson, who had venerated the Government under the Articles of Confederation as "the best existing or the best that ever did exist," said of the new Constitution, "I confess there are things in it which stagger all my dispositions to subscribe to what such an assembly has proposed. Their President seems a bad edition of a Polish king.... Indeed, I think, all the good of this new Constitution might have been couched in three or four articles to be added to the old and venerable fabric."(42) On another occasion, he went on, "Our [State] Convention has been too much impressed by the [Shays] insurrection in Massachusetts, and on the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in order."(43)
It was the opinion of leading Virginians, such as George Mason and Patrick Henry, that the South would be much better off forming its own confederacy and would be more likely to prosper without political connection with the Northern States.(44) It was Henry's fear that the Constitution was a device to consolidate all the monetary and military powers of the country into the hands of the Executive branch:
...[W]here and when did freemen exist when the purse and the sword were given up from the people? Unless a miracle in human affairs interposed, no nation ever retained its liberty after the loss of the purse and the sword. Can you prove by any argumentative deduction that it is possible to be safe without one of them? If you give them up, you are gone.(45)
Henry, who had refused to even attend the Convention at Philadelphia because he "smelt a rat,"(46) enjoyed such a prominent reputation as a statesman that he represented a formidable obstacle to the ratification of the Constitution by the Old Dominion State. Viewed as "the great adversary who will render the event [ratification] precarious," he was routinely denounced by Federalists, both publicly and privately, as the "nefarious and highly Criminal P. Henry"(47) and "a very Guilty man."(48) One New Hampshire Federalist confidently stated that the ratification process would have been smooth if God had confined both Henry and Mason "to the regions of darkness."(49)
"Anti-Federalists" Condemned as "Rebels"
According to Beard, not more than five percent of the population of the entire country, or about 160,000 voters, took part in the election of delegates to the several State conventions.(50) The vast majority of the people were either completely ignorant of the new system or were opposed to it. Those who were in favor of the Constitution generally lived in the cities and commercial centers, while those opposed to it lived in the interior agricultural districts of the States. In the end, the friends of the Constitution won the day, not because of the inherent qualities of the instrument itself, but because they were better funded and better organized than the opposition:
Talent, wealth, and professional abilities were, generally speaking, on the side of the Constitutionalists. The money to be spent on the campaign of education was on their side also; and it was spent in considerable sums for pamphleteering, organizing parades and demonstrations, and engaging the interest of the press....
The opposition on the other hand suffered from the difficulties connected with getting a backwoods vote out to the town and county elections. This involved sometimes long journeys in bad weather, for it will be remembered that the elections were held in the late fall and winter.... [T]hey had no money to carry on their campaign; they were poor and uninfluential — the strongest battalions were not on their side. The wonder is that they came so near to defeating the Constitution at the polls.(51)
Though the Anti-Federalists were certainly varied in their political backgrounds, they all seemed to have one thing in common: nearly to a man, they foresaw "a great variety of impending woes to the good people of the southern States"(52) should the Constitution go into effect between the several States. In the words of George Mason, "the Constitution as it stood was swollen with dangerous doctrine"(53) — doctrine which would be taken advantage of by, as Richard Henry Lee characterized the Federalists, a faction "of monarchy men, military men, aristocrats and drones whose noise, impudence and zeal exceeds all belief."(54)
The "noise" generated by the Federalists was certainly loud, and for good reason: The Anti-Federalists had been amazingly accurate in their assessment of the opposing party, some of whose members privately were planning to "overset our state dung cart with all its dirty contents,"(55) and who spoke amongst themselves of "the Revolution" to destroy "the monstrous system of State governments."(56) Alexander Hamilton, the arch-Federalist who "hated Republican Government, and never failed on every occasion to advocate the excellence of and avow his attachment to a Monarchic form of Government,"(57) was so enamored with the British system of government that he called for the virtual annihilation of the several State governments.(58) He advocated the appointment of a Senate and Executive for life as well as the creation of a subservient House of Commons in order to "check the imprudence of democracy,"(59) and suggested that the "rich and well born" should have "a distinct, permanent share in the government"(60) because "the mass of the people... seldom judge or determine right."(61) During a speech delivered in New York in 1792, he exclaimed, "The People! Gentlemen, I tell you the people are a great Beast!"(62) Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, the man responsible for writing the final draft of the Constitution, shared the views of Hamilton, believing that the Congress "ought to be composed of men of great and established property — aristocracy; men who, from pride, will support consistency and permanency; and to make them completely independent, they must be chosen for life, or they will be a useless body. Such an aristocratic body will keep down the turbulence of democracy."(63)
Since it was essential to Federalist plans that the people of the States — the very people whom the Federalists held in such contempt — be led to willingly accept the new system of government, the Anti-Federalists had to either be silenced or discredited. As would become their trademark, Federalist writers chose to avoid direct debate as much as possible and began instead to unleash a volley of vicious epithets against their dissenters: "So soon as the banner of Federalism was unfurled, and the inclination of leading characters had become known, every avenue to the popular mind was choked with slander. The very atmosphere was impregnated by its foul breath.... He who would indulge in the luxury of defamation, may gratify that horrid appetite by consulting the memorials of that period."(64) Opponents of ratification were caricaturized by the press as "spirits of discord," "selfish patriots," and "pettifogging antifederal scribblers" who were conspiring against the country as "the confirmed tools and pensioners of foreign courts" and were "fabricating the most traitorous productions" designed to discredit the new Constitution. For their "treason," the Anti-Federalists deserved "the most opprobrious gibbet of popular execration odium and infamy."(65) One New Jersey newspaper suggested that Federalists adopt the name of "Washingtonians," while the label of "Shayites" (rebels) should be applied to the Anti-Federalists.(66) Another Federalist from Hartford, Connecticut wrote, "Shun, my countrymen, the sham patriot, however dignified, who bids you distrust the Convention. Mark him as a dangerous member of society.... Fix your eyes on those who love you... on those whose views are not bounded by the town or county which they may represent, nor by the state in which they reside, nor even by the union — their philanthropy embraces the interest of all nations" [emphasis in original].(67) The Anti-Federalist response to this type of journalism was equally as passionate: "It is an excellent method when you cannot bring reason for what you assert, to fall to ribaldry and satire... instead of arguments, spit out a dozen mouthfuls of names, epithets, and interjections in a breath, cry Tory! Rebel! Tyranny! Centinel! Anarchy! Sidney! Monarchy! Misery! George the Third! Destruction! Arnold! Shays! Confusion! & c. & c."(68) This tension between the "Federalists" and the "Anti-Federalists," though carried on under different names throughout the decades subsequent to the adoption of the Constitution in 1789, eventually culminated, just as the latter feared, in a sectional clash of arms in 1861 and the subjugation of one party to the other.
Endnotes
1. E.A. Pollard, The Lost Cause (New York: E.B. Treat and Company, 1866), page 46.
2. Pollard, ibid., page 47.
3. John Scott, The Lost Principle: The Sectional Equilibrium, How It Was Created, How Destroyed, and How It May Be Restored (Richmond, Virginia: James Woodhouse and Company, 1860), page 68.
4. George Washington, letter to James McHenry, 22 August 1785; in W.W. Abbot, The Papers of George Washington: Confederation Series (Charlottesville, Virginia: University Press of Virginia, 1994), Volume III, page 199.
5. Pollard, Lost Cause, page 55.
6. Forrest McDonald, E Pluribus Unum: The Formation of the American Republic, 1776-1790 (Indianapolis, Indiana: Liberty Fund, Inc., 1979), page 225.
7. Jesse T. Carpenter, The South as a Conscious Minority, 1789-1861 (New York: New York University Press, 1930), page 8.
8. Pierce Butler, in Max Farrand (editor), The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1913), Volume II, page 449.
9. Patrick Henry, speech delivered on 12 June 1788; in Jonathan Elliott (editor), The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution (Washington, D.C.: Self-published, 1837), Volume III, page 328.
10. John Tyler, speech delivered on 25 June 1788; in Elliott, ibid., page 600.
11. McDonald, E Pluribus Unum, page 227.
13. Washington, quoted by Scott, Lost Principle, page 168.
13. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Carrington, 4 August 1787; in Julian P. Boyd (editor), The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1955), Volume XI, page 678.
14. Benjamin Franklin, quoted by Matthew Carey, The American Museum, January 1787, Volume I, page 5.
15. Charles Austin Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1935), pages 47-48.
16. McDonald, E Pluribus Unum, page 218.
17. Resolution of the United States in Congress Assembled, 21 February 1787; quoted by George McHenry, The Cotton Trade: Negro Slavery in the Confederate States (London: Saunders, Otley, and Company, 1863), page 145.
18. Albert J. Beveridge, The Life of John Marshall (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1916), Volume I, pages 323-325.
19. McHenry, Cotton Trade, page 147.
20. John W. Burgess, Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1896), Volume I, page 105.
21. James Madison, The Federalist, Number XL.
22. Washington, letter to John Jay, 10 March 1787; quoted by Garry Willis, Cincinnatis: George Washington and the Enlightenment (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1984), page 154.
23. Patrick Henry, in Elliott, Debates in the Several State Conventions, Volume III, pages 22-23.
24. Scott, Lost Principle, pages 55-56. The ninth State — New Hampshire — had, unbeknownst to the Virginia convention delegates, ratified the Constitution in June of 1788, and the Union was thereby already established according to Article VII. However, it is certainly true that without the influence and wealth of Virginia, the Union could not have long survived.
25. Washington, Farewell Address; published in the Boston (Massachusetts) Independent Chronicle, 26 September 1796.
26. Madison, The Federalist, Number X.
27. Madison, in Elliott, Debates in the Several State Conventions, Volume V, page 163.
28. Stephen D. Carpenter, The Logic of History: Five Hundred Political Texts Being Concentrated Extracts of Abolitionism (Madison, Wisconsin: self-published, 1864), page 24.
29. "Anti-Federalist" was a deliberate misnomer attached by those who favored a more centralized form of government to those who favored a federal union of sovereign States. Hence, the "Anti-Federalists" were actually the true federalists, while those who pirated the name "Federalists" were the real anti-federalists. As is too often the case, labels are applied to the opposing party in a debate for the purpose of diverting the public's attention from the real issues at hand. This same tactic would be used with great success just two generations later when the so-called Republican party rose to power by denouncing the supporters of the Constitution as "traitors."
30. William Grayson, quoted by Scott, Lost Principle, page 124.
31. Nathaniel Gorham, in Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, Volume II, page 414.
32. George Mason, in James Madison (editor), Notes of Debate in the Federal Convention of 1787 (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1966), page 566.
33. Mason, in Robert Allen Rutland (editor), The Papers of George Mason (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1970), Volume III, pages 991, 993.
34. Mason, in Madison, Notes of Debate in the Federal Convention, pages 549-550.
35. Benjamin Harrison, letter to George Washington, 4 October 1787; quoted by Bernard Janin Sage, The Republic of Republics: A Retrospect of Our Century of Federal Liberty (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: William W. Harding, 1878), page 246.
36. Luther Martin, in Elliott, Debates in the Several State Conventions, Volume I, pages 344, 389.
37. Grayson, letter to James Madison, 29 May 1787; in Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, Volume II, page 414.
38. Elbridge Gerry, Rufus King, and Samuel Holten, letter to James Bowdoin, 3 September 1785; quoted by Robert Allen Rutland, The Ordeal of the Constitution (Boston: Northern University Press, 1983), page 7.
39. Charleston (South Carolina) State Gazette, 28 January 1788; quoted by Louie M. Miner, Our Rude Forefathers American Political Verse 1783-1788 (Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Torch Press, 1937), page 204.
40. "Philanthropos," Alexandria (Virginia) Advertiser, 6 December 1787.
41. "A Federal Republican," Portsmouth (Virginia) Register, 5 March 1788.
42. Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 13 November 1787; quoted by Scott, Lost Principle, page 223.
43. Jefferson, quoted by Scott, ibid.
44. Cyrus Griffin, letter to Thomas Fitzsimons, 18 February 1788; in Edmund C. Burnett (editor), Letters and Correspondence of Members of the Continental Congress (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1921), Volume VIII, page 700.
45. Henry, quoted by Carpenter, Logic of History, page 273.
46. Henry, quoted by Edmund Randolph, letter to James Madison, 1 March 1787; in Moncure Daniel Conway, Omitted Chapters of History Disclosed in the Life and Papers of Edmund Randolph (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1888), page 65.
47. Edward Carrington, letter to William Short, 21 October 1787; quoted by Rutland, Ordeal of the Constitution, page 169.
48. St. John Crevecour, letter to William Short, 20 February 1788; quoted by Rutland, ibid., page 191.
49. Nicholas Gilman, letter to John Sullivan, 23 March 1788; in Burnett, Letters and Correspondence, Volume VIII, page 709.
50. Beard, Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, page 250.
51. Beard, ibid., pages 251-252.
52. Patrick Dollard, Providence (Rhode Island) United States Chronicle, 3 July 1788; in Elliott, Debates in the Several State Conventions, Volume IV, page 337.
53. Mason, in Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, Volume II, page 631.
54. Richard Henry Lee, letter to George Mason, 1 October 1787; in Burnett, Letters and Correspondence, Volume VIII, pages 652-653.
55. Benjamin Rush, quoted by Rutland, Ordeal of the Constitution, page 27.
56. David Humphreys, letter to Alexander Hamilton, 1 September 1787; in U.S. Government, Documentary History of the Constitution of the United States (Washington, D.C.: 1904), Volume IV, page 269.
57. George Edmonds, Facts and Falsehoods Concerning the War on the South 1861-1865 (Memphis, Tennessee: A.R. Taylor and Company, 1904), page 92.
58. House Documents (Fifteenth Congress, First Session), Volume III, pages 22, 129; Elliott, Debates in the Several State Conventions, page 421; Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, Volume II, pages 292, 323.
59. Elliott, op. cit., Volume I, pages 421-422.
60. Hamilton, in Elliott, op. cit., Volume I, pages 450.
61. Hamilton, in Elliott, op. cit., page 422.
62. Hamilton, quoted by Edmonds, Facts and Falsehoods, page 92.
63. Morris, in Elliott, Debates in the Several State Conventions, page 475.
64. Scott, Lost Principle, page 111.
65. "Cato," Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer, 17 November 1787; "A Federal Centinel," New-Hampshire Spy, 23 November 1787; quoted by Rutland, Ordeal of the Constitution, page 27.
66. Rutland, ibid., pages 31-32.
67. An anonymous Federalist, quoted by Rutland, ibid., page 27.
68. Poughkeepsie County Journal, 22 April 1788; quoted by Rutland, ibid., page 203.
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