Ratification Debate

1. Ratification Debate Federalist (Publius) vs.Anti-federalist (Brutus)

2. Ratification debates addressed two questions: • Should the Articles of Confederation be replaced?. • If the Articles should be replaced, what should be the features of the new constitution?

3. Federalist: Stronger central government was needed to maintain order and preserve the union. Emphasized the wk/ness of AofC Opponents were negative with no solutions Stronger leaders; well orgainzed

4. Anti-Federalist The Constitution “fixed” the Articles, but at what cost? • New Constitution insufficient protection for the rights of individuals and states from the powerful new federal government. • It will Destroy work of Revolution by limiting Democracy • Appealed to popular distrust of gov’t. • Poorly organized, slow to respond to federalist challenges

5. The Ratification Controversy • Closely contested nationally during 1787 and 1788 • Article VII- 9/13 • Rejection by any of the four most prominent states-Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, or Virginia would have doomed the Constitution

6. Federalist Papers John Jay (1745- 1829) Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804 ) James Madison (1751- 1836)

7. Hamilton’s Problem • Anti-Federalists were led by “His Excellency,” Governor George Clinton. • Had a vested interest in preventing the formation of a strong national government. • Clinton’s popularity as “father of New York” made him a formidable rival.

8. Hamilton’s Strategy • Hamilton focused on behind the scenes political manipulation to build support among political elites. • He also proposed a series of essays designed to persuade the public of the Constitution’s value. • These essays served as a “debaters handbook.”

9. The Federalist Papers • A set of essays, written by Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, and published in New York newspapers under the pseudonym Publius. • During the ratification controversy, these essays were circulated nationally. • The essays linked opposition to the new Constitution with hot-headed liberals (Patrick Henry) and those with a vested interest in maintaining a weak government (George Clinton).

10. Assignment • Read the quotes • For each quote Identify • Fed or Anti-fed • Main argument (explain) • Strategy? Explain • Click to next slide to see answer

11. In a federal republic, power is divided vertically between a general (federal) government and state governments. Two levels of government, each supreme in its own sphere, can exercise powers separately and directly on the people.

12. “… In the first place the office of president of the United States appears to me to be clothed with such powers as are dangerous...an elective king…to lay the foundation for a military government, which is the worst of all tyrannies…” - An Old Whig

13. “… Wherein does this president, invested with his powers and prerogatives, essentially differ from the king…? The safety of the people in a republic depends on the share or proportion they have in the government; but experience ought to teach you, that when a man is at eh head of an elective government invested with great powers, and interested in his reelection…appointments will be made by which means an imperfect aristocracy bordering on monarchy may be established

14. “…It might be here shewn, that the power in the federal legislative, to raise and support armies at pleasure, as well in peace as in war, and their control over the militia, tend, not only to a consolidation of the government, but the destruction of liberty…” - Brutus

15. “Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing; and as they retain everything they have no need of particular reservations…Bill of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but dangerous…Why declare that things not be done which there is no power to do?...the truth is…that the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, a BILL OF RIGHTS

16. Hamilton: • Const. provides enough checks and limits to protect Rights

17. In so extensive a republic, the great officers of government would soon become above the control of the people...They will use the power, when they have acquired it, to the purposes of gratifying their own interest and ambition...”

18. Anti-Federalist Large Republics Cannot be Free

19. It is the opinion of the ablest writers on the subject that no extensive empire can be governed on republican principles, and that such a government will degenerate to a despotism…No instance can be found of any free government of any considerable extent…Large and consolidated empires may indeed dazzle the eyes of a distant spectator with their splendor, but if examined more nearly are always found to be full of misery

20. Such various, extensive, and important powers combined in one body of men, are inconsistent with all freedom… "when the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty…"

21. “The faith, the reputation, the peace of the whole Union are thus continually at the mercy, the prejudices, the passions, and the interests of every member of which it is composed. Is it possible that foreign nations can either respect or confide in such a government? Is it possible the people of America will longer consent to trust their honor, happiness, safety, on so precarious a foundation? The Confederation…is a system so radically vicious and unsound as to admit not of amendment but by an entire change in its leading features and characters

22. Hamilton: AofC poorly constructed

23. “…There is no declaration of rights: and the laws of the general government being paramount to the laws and constitutions of the several states, the declaration of rights, in the separate states, are no security. Nor are the people secured even in the enjoyment of the benefit of the common law, which stands here upon no other foundations than its having been adopted by the respective acts forming the constitutions of several states.

24. Anti-Federalist The Constitution does not protect liberty

25. “Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that the majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens…Hence, it clearly appears that the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic

26. A republican government is one "in which the scheme of representation takes place." It is based on the consent of the governed because power is delegated to a small number of citizens who are elected by the rest.