CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / ADOPTION
I think with others, that nations are to be
governed with regard to their own interests, but I am convinced that
it is their interest, in the long run, to be grateful, faithful to
their engagements, even in the worst of circumstances, and honorable
and generous always. If I had not known that the head of our
government was in these sentiments, and that his national and
private ethics were the same, I would never have been where I am. I
am sorry to tell you his health is less firm than it used to he.
However, there is nothing in it to give alarm. The opposition to our
new Constitution has almost totally disappeared. Some few indeed had
gone such lengths in their declarations of hostility, that they feel
it awkward perhaps to come over; but the amendments proposed by
Congress, have brought over almost all their followers. If the
President can be preserved a few years till habits of authority and
obedience can be established generally, we have nothing to fear. The
little vautrien, Rhode Island, will come over with a little more
time. |
Marquis
de Lafayette
2 Apr 1790 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / AMENDING
The operations which have taken place in
America lately, fill me with pleasure. In the first place, they
realize the confidence I had, that whenever our affairs go obviously
wrong, the good sense of the people will interpose, and set them to
rights. The example of changing a constitution, by assembling the
wise men of the State, instead of assembling armies, will be worth
as much to the world as the former examples we had given them. The
Constitution, too, which was the result of our deliberations, is
unquestionably the wisest ever yet presented to men, and some of the
accommodations of interest which it has adopted, are greatly
pleasing to me, who have before had occasions of seeing how
difficult those interests were to accommodate. A general concurrence
df opinion seems to authorize us to say, it has some defects. I am
one of those who think it a defect, that the important rights, not
placed in security by the frame of the Constitution itself, were not
explicitly secured by a supplementary declaration. There are rights
which it is useless to surrender to the government, and which
governments have yet always been found to invade. These are the
rights of thinking, and publishing our thoughts by speaking or
writing; the right of free commerce; the right of personal freedom.
. . I hope to receive soon permission to visit America this summer,
and to possess myself anew, by conversation with my countrymen, of
their spirit and their ideas. I know only the Americans of the year
1784. They tell me this is to be much a stranger to those of 1789.
This renewal of acquaintance is no indifferent matter to one, acting
at such a distance, as that instructions cannot be received hot and
hot. |
Humphreys
(Colonel)
18 Mar 1789 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / AMENDING
Where then is our republicanism to be found?
Not in our Constitution certainly, but merely in the spirit of our
people. That would oblige even a despot to govern us republicanly.
Owing to this spirit, and to nothing in the form of our
Constitution, all things have gone well. But this fact, so
triumphantly misquoted by the enemies of reformation, is not the
fruit of our Constitution, but has prevailed in spite of it. Our
functionaries have done well, because generally honest men. If any
were not so, they feared to show it.
But it will be said, it is easier to find faults than to amend
them. I do not think their amendments so difficult as is pretended.
Only lay down true principles, and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not
be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or
the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people. …I
am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are
our dependence for continued freedom.
Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and
deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched.
They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than
human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that
age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of
its country. It was very like the present, but without the
experience of the present; and forty years of experience in
government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would
say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not
an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and
constitutions. I think in moderate imperfections had better be borne
with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them,
and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know
also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the
progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more
enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and
manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances,
institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We
might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him
when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of
their barbarous ancestors. It is this preposterous idea which has
lately deluged Europe in blood. Their monarchs, instead of wisely
yielding to the gradual change of circumstances, of favoring
progressive accommodation to progressive improvement, have clung to
old abuses, entrenched themselves behind steady habits, and obliged
their subjects to seek through blood and violence rash and ruinous
innovations, which, had they been referred to the peaceful
deliberations and collected wisdom of the nation, would have been
put into acceptable and salutary forms: Let us follow no such
examples, nor weakly believe that one generation is not as capable
as another of taking care 6f itself, and of ordering its own
affairs. Let us, as our sister States have done, avail ourselves of
our reason and experience, to correct the crude essays of our first
and unexperienced, although wise, virtuous, and well-meaning
councils. And lastly, let us provide in our Constitution for its
revision at stated periods. What these periods should be, nature
herself indicates. By the European tables of mortality, of the
adults living at any one moment of time, a majority will be dead in
about nineteen years. At the end of that period then, a new majority
is come into place; or, in other words, a new generation. Each
generation is as independent of the one preceding, as that was of
all which had gone before. It has then, like them, a right to choose
for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its
own happiness; consequently, to accommodate to the circumstances in
which it finds itself, that received from its predecessors; and it
is for the peace and good of mankind, that a solemn opportunity of
doing this every nineteen or twenty years, should be provided by the
Constitution; so that it may be handed on, with periodical repairs,
from generation to generation, to the end of time, if anything human
can so long endure.
This corporeal globe, and everything upon it, belong to its present
corporeal inhabitants, during their generation. They alone have a
right to direct what is the concern of themselves alone, and to
declare the law of that direction; and this declaration can only be
made by their majority. That majority, then, has a right to depute
representatives to a convention, and to make the Constitution what
they think will be the best for themselves. |
Samuel
Kercheval
12 Jul 1816 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / AMENDING
Our revolution commenced on more favorable
ground. It presented us an album on which we were free to write what
we pleased. We had no occasion to search into musty records, to hunt
up royal parchments, or to investigate the laws and institutions of
a semi-barbarous ancestry. We appealed to those of nature, and found
them engraved on our hearts .
We have not yet so far perfected our constitutions as to
venture to make them unchangeable. But still, in their present
state, we consider them not otherwise changeable than by the
authority of the people, on a special election of representatives
for that purpose expressly: they are until then the lex legum.
But can they be made unchangeable? Can one generation bind another,
and all others, in succession forever? I think not. The Creator has
made the earth for the living, not the dead. Rights and powers can
only belong to persons, not to things, not to mere matter, unendowed
with will. The dead are not even things. The particles of matter
which composed their bodies, make part now of the bodies of other
animals, vegetables, or minerals, of a thousand forms. To what then
are attached the rights and powers they held while in the form of
men? A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues
in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place,
holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held, and
may change their laws and institutions to suit themselves. Nothing
then is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
|
John
Cartwright
5 Jun 1824 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / BILL OF RIGHTS
I like much the general idea of framing a
government, which should go on of itself, peaceably, without needing
continual recurrence to the State legislatures. I like the
organization of the government into legislative, judiciary and
executive. I like the power given the legislature to levy taxes, and
for that reason solely, I approve of the greater House being chosen
by the people directly. For though I think a House so chosen, will
be very far inferior to the present Congress, will be very lily
qualified to legislate for the Union, for foreign nations, etc., yet
this evil does not weigh against the good, of preserving inviolate
the fundamental principle, that the people are not to be taxed but
by representatives chosen immediately by themselves. I am captivated
by the compromise of the opposite claims of the great and little
States, of the latter to equal, and the former to proportional
influence. I am much pleased, too, with the substitution of the
method of voting by person, instead of that of voting by States; and
I like the negative given to the Executive, conjointly with a third
of either House; though I should have liked it better, had the
judiciary been associated for that put-pose, or invested separately
with a similar power. There are other good things of less moment I
will now tell you what I do not like. First, the omission of a bill
of rights, providing clearly, and without the aid of sophism, for
freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against
standing armies, restriction of monopolies, the eternal and
unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in
all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land, and not by the
laws of nations.
The second feature I dislike, and strongly dislike, is the
abandonment, in every instance, of the principle of rotation in
office, and most particularly in the case of the President. Reason
and experience tell us, that the first magistrate will always be
re-elected if he may be re-elected. He is then an officer for life.
This once observed, it becomes of so much consequence to certain
nations, to have a friend or a foe at the head of our affairs, that
they will interfere with money and with arms. A Galloman, or an
Anglo-man, will be supported by the nation he befriends. If once
elected, and at a second or third election outvoted by one or two
votes, he will pretend false votes, foul play, hold possession of
the reins of government, be sup ported by the States voting for him,
especially if they be the central ones, lying in a compact body
themselves, and separating their opponents; and they will be aided
by one nation in Europe, while the majority are aided by another.
The election of a President of America, some years hence, will be
much more interesting to certain nations of Europe, than ever the
election of a King of Poland was. . . . Smaller objections are, the
appeals on matters of fact as well as laws; and the binding all
persons, legislative, executive, and judiciary by oath, to maintain
that constitution. I do not pretend to decide, what would be the
best method of procuring the establishment of the manifold good
things in this constitution, and of getting rid of the bad. Whether
by adopting it, in hopes of future amendment; or after it shall have
been duly weighed and canvassed by the people, after seeing the
parts they generally dislike, and those they generally approve, to
say to them, "We see now what you wish. You are willing to give
to your federal government such and such powers; but you wish, at
the same time, to have such and such fundamental rights secured to
you, and certain sources of convulsion taken away. Be it so. Send
together deputies again. Let them establish your fundamental rights
by a sacrosanct declaration, and let them pass the parts of the
Constitution you have approved. These will give powers to your
federal government sufficient for your happiness."
This is what might be said, and would probably produce a speedy,
more perfect and more permanent form of government. At all events, I
hope you will not be discouraged from making other trials, if the
present one should fail. We are never permitted to despair of the
commonwealth. I have thus told you freely what I like, and what I
dislike, merely as a matter of curiosity; for I know it is not in my
power to offer matter of information to your judgment, which has
been formed after hearing and weighing everything which the wisdom
of man could offer on these subjects. I own, I am not a friend to a
very energetic government. It is always oppressive. It places the
governors indeed more at their ease, at the expense of the people.
The late rebellion in Massachusetts has given more alarm, than I
think it should have done. Calculate that one rebellion in thirteen
States in the course of eleven years, is but one for each State in a
century and a half. No country should be so long without one. Nor
will any degree of power in the hands of government, prevent
insurrections. . . . And say, finally, whether peace is best
preserved by giving energy to the government, or information to the
people. This last is the most certain, and the most legitimate
engine of government Educate and inform the whole mass of the
people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve
peace and order, and they will preserve them. And it requires no
very high degree of education to convince them of this. They are the
only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. After all,
it is my principle that the will of the majority should prevail. If
they approve the proposed constitution in all its parts, I shall
concur in it cheerfully, in hopes they will amend it, whenever they
shall find it works wrong. This reliance cannot deceive us, as long
as we remain virtuous; and I think we shall be so, as long as
agriculture is our principal object, which will be the case, while
there remain vacant lands in any part of America. When we get piled
upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become
corrupt as in Europe, and go to eating one another as they do there.
|
James
Madison
20 Dec 1787 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / BILL OF RIGHTS
I must now say a word on the declaration of
rights, you have been so good as to send me. I like it, as far as it
goes; but I should have been for going further. For instance, the
following alterations and additions would have pleased me: Article
4. "The people shall not be deprived of their right to speak,
to write, or otherwise to publish anything but false facts affecting
injuriously the life, liberty, property or reputation of others, or
affecting the peace of the confederacy with foreign nations. Article
7. All facts put in issue before any judicature, shall be tried by
jury, except, I, in cases of admiralty jurisdiction, wherein a
foreigner shall be interested; 2, in cases cognizable before a court
martial, concerning only the regular officers and soldiers of the
United States, or members of the militia in actual service in time
of war or insurrection; and 3, in impeachments allowed by the
constitution. Article 8. No person shall be held in confinement more
than -- days after he shall have demanded and been refused a writ of
habeas corpus by the judge appointed by law, nor more than -- days
after such a writ shall have been served on the person holding him
in confinement, and no order given en due examination for his
remandment or discharge, nor more than -- hours in any place at a
greater distance than - miles from the usual residence of some judge
authorized to issue the writ of habeas corpus; nor shall that writ
be suspended for any term exceeding one year, nor in any place more
than -- miles distant from the State or encampment of enemies or of
insurgents. Article 9. Monopolies may be allowed to persons for
their own productions in literature, and their own inventions in the
arts, for a term not exceeding -- years, but for no longer term, and
no other purpose. Article 10. All troops of the United States shall
stand ipso facto disbanded, at the expiration of the term for which
their pay and subsistence shall have been last voted by Congress,
and all officers and soldiers, not natives of the United States,
shall be incapable of serving in their armies by land, except during
a foreign war." These restrictions I think are so guarded, as
to hinder evil only. However, if we do not have them now, I have so
much confidence in my countrymen, as to be satisfied that we shall
have them as soon as the degeneracy of our government shall render
them necessary. |
James
Madison
28 Aug 1789 |
CONSITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / BILL OF RIGHTS
A little reflection soon convinced me it ought
not to be. What I disapproved from the first moment, also, was the
want of a bill of rights to guard liberty against the legislative as
well as the executive branches of the government; that is to say, to
secure freedom in religion, freedom of the press, freedom from
monopolies, freedom from unlawful imprisonment, freedom from a
permanent military, and a trial by jury in all cases determinable by
the laws of the land. I disapproved, also, the perpetual
re-eligibility of the President. |
Francis
Hopkinson
13 Mar 1789 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / BILL OF RIGHTS
Your thoughts on the subject of the declaration
of rights, in the letter of October the 17th, I have weighed with
great satisfaction. Some of them had not occurred to me before, but
were acknowledged just in the moment they were presented to my mind.
In the arguments in favor of a declaration of rights, you omit one
which has great weight with me; the legal check which it puts into
the hands of the judiciary. This is a body, which, if rendered
independent and kept strictly to their own department, merits great
confidence for their learning and integrity. In fact, what degree of
confidence would be too much, for a body composed of such men as
Wythe, Blair and Pendleton? On characters like these, the civium
ardor prava jubentium would make no impression. I am happy to
find that, on the whole, you are a friend to this amendment. The
declaration of rights is, like all other human blessings, alloyed
with some inconveniences, and not accomplishing fully its object.
But the good in this instance, vastly overweighs the evil. . . . The
executive, in our government, is not the sole, it is scarcely the
principal object of my jealousy. The tyranny of the legislatures is
the most formidable dread at present, and will he for many years.
That of the executive will come in its turn; but it will be at a
remote period. I know there are some among us, who would now
establish a monarchy. But they are inconsiderable in number and
weight of character. The rising race are all republicans. We were
educated in royalism; no wonder, if some of us retain that idolatry
still. Our young people are educated in republicanism; an apostasy
from that to royalism, is unprecedented and impossible. I am much
pleased with the prospect that a declaration of rights will be
added; and I hope it will be done in that way, which will not
endanger the whole frame of government, or any essential part of it.
|
James
Madison
15 Mar 1789 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / BILL OF RIGHTS
In mentioning me in your Essays, and
canvassing my opinions, you have done what every man has a right to
do, and it is for the good of society that that right should be
freely exercised. No republic has more zeal than that of letters,
and I am the last in principles, as I am the least in pretensions,
to any dictatorship in it Had I other dispositions, the
philosophical and dispassionate spirit with which you have expressed
your own opinions in opposition to mine, would still have commanded
my approbation. A desire of being set right in your opinion, which I
respect too much not to entertain that desire, induces me to hazard
to you the following observations. It had become an universal and
almost uncontroverted position in the several States, that the
purposes of society do not require a surrender of all our rights to
our ordinary governors,. that there are certain portions of right
not necessary to enable them to carry on an effective government,
and which experience has nevertheless proved they will be constantly
encroaching on, if submitted to them; that there are also certain
fences which. experience has proved peculiarly efficacious against
wrong, and rarely obstructive of right, which yet the governing
powers have ever shown a disposition to weaken and remove. Of the
first kind, for instance, is freedom of religion; of the second,
trial by jury, habeas corpus laws, free presses. These were the
settled opinions of all the States, of that of Virginia, of which I
was writing, as well as of the others. The others had, in
consequence, delineated these unceded portions of right, and these
fences against wrong, which they meant to exempt from the power of
their governors, in instruments called declarations of rights and
constitutions; and as they did this by conventions, which they
appointed for the express purpose of reserving these rights, and of
delegating others to their ordinary legislative, executive and
judiciary bodies, none of the reserved rights can be touched without
resorting to the people to appoint another convention for the
express purpose of permitting it. Where the constitutions then have
been so formed by conventions named for this express purpose, they
are fixed and unalterable but by a convention or other body to be
specially authorized; and they have been so formed by, I believe,
all the States, except Virginia. That State concurs in all these
opinions, but has run into the wonderful error that her
constitution, though made by the ordinary legislature, cannot yet be
altered by the ordinary legislature. I had, therefore, no occasion
to prove to them the expediency of a constitution alterable only by
a special convention. Accordingly, I have not in my notes advocated
that opinion, though it was and is mine, as it was and is theirs. I
take that position as admitted by them, and only proceed to adduce
arguments to prove that they were mistaken in supposing their
constitution could not be altered by the common legislature. Among
other arguments I urge that the convention which formed the
constitution had been chosen merely for ordinary legislation; that
they had no higher power than every subsequent legislature was to
have; that all their acts are consequently repealable by subsequent
legislatures; that their own practice at a subsequent session proved
they were of this opinion themselves; that the opinion and practice
of several subsequent legislatures had been the same, and so
conclude "that their constitution is alterable by the common
legislature." Yet these arguments urged to prove that their
constitution is alterable, you cite as if urged to prove that it
ought not to be alterable, and you combat them on that
ground. An argument which is good to prove one thing, may become
ridiculous when exhibited as intended to prove another thing. I will
beg the favor of you to look over again the passage in my notes, and
am persuaded you will be sensible that you have misapprehended the
object of my arguments, and therefore have combated them on a ground
for which they were not intended. |
Noah
Webster
4 Dec 1790 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / BILL OF RIGHTS
No man in the United States, I suppose,
approved of every tittle in the Constitution: no one, I believe,
approved more of it than I did, and more of it was certainly
disapproved by my accuser than by me, and of its parts most vitally
republican. Of this the few letters I wrote on the subject (not half
a dozen I believe) will be a proof; and for my own satisfaction and
justification, I must tax you with the reading of them when I return
to where they are. You will there see that my objection to the
Constitution was, that it wanted a bill of rights securing freedom
of religion, freedom of the press, freedom from standing armies,
trial by jury, and a constant habeas corpus act Colonel Hamilton's
was, that it wanted a king and house of lords. The sense of America
has approved my objection and added the bill of rights1 not the king
and lords.
... No government ought to be without censors; and where the press
is free, no one ever will. If virtuous, it need not fear the fair
operation of attack and defence. Nature has given to man no other
means of sifting out the truth, either in religion, law, or
politics. |
George
Washington
7 Nov 1792 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / BILL OF RIGHTS
The denunciation of the democratic societies is
one of the extraordinary acts of boldness of which we have seen so
many from the faction of monocrats. It is wonderful indeed, that the
President should have permitted himself to be the organ of such an
attack on the freedom of discussion, the freedom of writing,
printing and publishing. It must be a matter of rare curiosity to
get at the modifications of these rights proposed by them, and to
see what line their ingenuity would draw between democratical
societies, whose avowed object is the nourishment of the republican
principles of our Constitution, and the society of the Cincinnati, a
self-created one, carving out for itself hereditary
distinctions, lowering over our Constitution eternally, meeting
together in all parts of the Union, periodically, with closed doors,
accumulating a capital in their separate treasury, corresponding
secretly and regularly, and of which society the very persons
denouncing the democrats are themselves the fathers, founders and
high officers. Their sight must be perfectly dazzled by the
glittering of crowns and coronets, not to see the extravagance of
the proposition to suppress the friends of general freedom, while
those who wish to confine that freedom to the few, are permitted to
go on in their principles and practices. I here put out of sight the
persons whose misbehavior has been taken advantage of to slander the
friends of popular rights; and I am happy to observe, that as far as
the circle of my observation and information extends, everybody has
lost sight of them, and views the abstract attempt on their natural
and constitutional rights in all its nakedness. I have never heard,
or heard of, a single expression or opinion which did not condemn it
as an inexcusable aggression. And with respect to the transactions
against the excise law, it appears to me that you are all swept away
in the torrent of governmental opinions, or that we do not know what
these transactions have been. We know of none which, according to
the definitions of the law, have been anything more than riotous.
There was indeed a meeting to consult about a separation. But to
consult on a question does not amount to a determination of that
question in the affirmative, still less to the acting on such a
determination; but we shall see, I suppose, what the court lawyers,
and courtly judges, and would-be ambassadors will make of it.
|
James
Madison
28 Dec 1794 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / CONVENTION
Our first essay, in America, to establish a
federative government had fallen, on trial, very short of its
object. During the war of Independence, while the pressure of an
external enemy hooped us together, and their enterprises kept us
necessarily on the alert, the spirit of the people, excited by
danger, was a supplement to the Confederation, and urged them to
zealous exertions, whether claimed by that instrument or not; but,
when peace and safety were restored, and every man became engaged in
useful and profitable occupation, less attention was paid to the
calls of Congress. The fundamental defect of the Confederation was,
that Congress was not authorized to act immediately on the people,
and by its own officers. Their power was only requisitory, and these
requisitions were addressed to the several Legislatures, to be by
them carried into execution, without other coercion than the moral
principle of duty. This allowed, in fact, a negative to every
Legislature, on every measure proposed by Congress; a negative so
frequently exercised in practice, as to benumb the action of the
Federal government, and to render it inefficient in its general
objects, and more especially in pecuniary and foreign concerns. The
want, too, of a separation of the Legislative, Executive, and
Judiciary functions, worked disadvantageously in practice. Yet this
state of things afforded a happy augury of the future march of our
Confederacy, when it was seen that the good sense and good
dispositions of the people, as soon as they perceived the
incompetence of their first compact, instead of leaving its
correction to insurrection and civil war, agreed, with one voice, to
elect deputies to a general Convention, who should peaceably meet
and agree on such a Constitution as "would ensure peace,
justice, liberty, the common defense and general welfare."
This Convention met at Philadelphia on the 25th of May, '87. It sat
with closed doors, and kept all its proceedings secret, until its
dissolution on the 17th of September, when the results of its labors
were published all together. I received a copy, early in November,
and read and contemplated its provisions with great satisfaction. As
not a member of the Convention, however, nor probably a single
citizen of the Union, had approved it in all its parts, so I, too,
found articles which I thought objectionable. The absence of express
declarations ensuring freedom of religion, freedom of the press,
freedom of the person under the uninterrupted protection of the
Habeas corpus, and trial by jury in Civil as well as in Criminal
cases, excited my jealousy; and the re-eligibility of the President
for life, I quite disapproved. I expressed freely, in letters to my
friends, and most particularly to Mr. Madison and General
Washington, my approbations and objections. How the good should be
secured and the ill brought to rights, was the difficulty. To refer
it back to a new Convention might endanger the loss of the whole. My
first idea was, that the nine States first acting, should accept it
unconditionally, and thus secure what in it was good, and that the
four last should accept on the previous condition, that certain
amendments should be agreed to; but a better course was devised, of
accepting the whole, and trusting that the good sense and honest
intentions of our citizens, would make the alterations which should
be deemed necessary. Accordingly, all accepted, six without
objection, and seven with recommendations of specified amendments.
Those respecting the press, religion, and juries, with several
others, of great value, were accordingly made. |
Notes
for an Autobiography
6 Jan 1821 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / DEBT AND THE BANKS
Besides much other good matter [in your Enquiry into the
Principles of Our Government], it settles unanswerably the right
of instructing representatives and their duty to obey. The system of
banking we have both equally and ever reprobated. I contemplate it
as a blot left in all our constitutions, which, if not covered, will
end in their destruction, which is already hit by the gamblers in
corruption and is sweeping away in its progress the fortunes and
morals of our citizens. Funding I consider as limited, rightfully,
to a redemption of the debt within the lives of a majority of the
generation contracting it; every generation coming equally, by the
laws of the Creator of the world, to the free possession of the
earth he made for their subsistence, unencumbered by their
predecessors, who, like them, were but tenants for life. …And I
sincerely believe with you that banking establishments are more
dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending
money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but
swindling futurity on a large scale. |
John
Taylor
28 May 1816 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / DEFECTS
Our new Constitution is powerfully attacked in
the American newspapers. The objections are, that its effect would
be to form the thirteen States into one; that, proposing to melt all
down into one general government, they have fenced the people by no
declaration of rights; they have not renounced the power of keeping
a standing army; they have not secured the liberty of the press;
they have reserved the power of abolishing trials by jury in civil
cases; they have proposed that the laws of the federal legislatures
shall be paramount to the laws and constitutions of the States; they
have abandoned rotation in office; and particularly, their President
may be re-elected from four years to four years, for life, so as to
render him a King for life, like a King of Poland; and they have not
given him either the check or aid of a council. To these they add
calculations of expense, etc., etc., to frighten the people. You
will perceive that these objections are serious, and some of them
not without foundation. The Constitution, however, has been received
with a very general enthusiasm. |
William
Carmichael
11 Dec 1787 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / ELECTION OF 1800
I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor
of February the 20th, and to thank you for your congratulations on
the event of the election. Had it terminated in the elevation of Mr.
Burr, every republican would, I am sure, have acquiesced in a
moment; because, however it might have been variant from the
intentions of the voters, yet it would have been agreeable to the
Constitution. No man would more cheerfully have submitted than
myself, because I am sure the administration would have been
republican, and the chair of the Senate permitting me to be at home
eight months in the year, would, on that account, have been much
more consonant to my real satisfaction. But in the event of an
usurpation, I was decidedly with those who were determined not to
permit it. Because that precedent once set, would be artificially
reproduced, and end soon in a dictator. Virginia was bristling up I
believe. |
Thomas
M'Kean
9 Mar 1801 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / FREEDOM OF RELIGION
I promised you a letter on Christianity, which
I have not forgotten. On the contrary, it is because I have
reflected on it, that I find much more time necessary for it than I
can at present dispose of. I have a view of the subject which ought
to displease neither the rational Christian nor Deists, and would
reconcile many to a character they have too hastily rejected. I do
not know that it would reconcile the genus irritabile vatum
who are all in arms against me. Their hostility is on too
interesting ground to be softened. The delusion into which the X. Y.
Z. plot showed it possible to push the people; the successful
experiment made under the prevalence of that delusion on the clause
of the Constitution, which, while it secured the freedom of the
press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy
a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular
form of Christianity through the United States; and as every sect
believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his
own, but especially the Episcopalians and Congregationalists. The
returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their
hopes, and they believe that any portion of power confided to me,
will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe
rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility
against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all
they have to fear from me; and enough too in their opinion.
|
Benjamin
Rush
23 Sep 1800 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / FREEDOM OF THE PRESS
I believe you take some interest in our
fortune, and because our newspapers, for the most part, present only
the caricatures of disaffected minds. Indeed, the abuses of the
freedom of the press here have been carried to a length never before
known or borne by any civilized nation. But it is so difficult to
draw a clear line of separation between the abuse and the wholesome
use of the press, that as yet we have found it better to trust the
public judgment, rather than the magistrate, with the discrimination
between truth and falsehood. And hitherto the public judgment has
performed that office with wonderful correctness. |
Mr.
Pictet
5 Feb 1803 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / FREEDOM OF THE PRESS
I have laid before the President your letters
of the I 11th and 13th instant. Your residence in the United States
has given you an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the extreme
freedom of the press in these States. Considering its great
importance to the public liberty, and the difficulty of subjecting
it to very precise rules, the laws have thought it less mischievous
to give greater scope to its freedom, than to the restraint of it.
The President has therefore no authority to prevent publications of
the nature of those you complain of in your favor of the 11th. I can
only assure you that the government of the United States has no part
in them, and that all its expressions of respect towards his
Catholic Majesty, public and private, have been as uniform as their
desire to cultivate his friendship has been sincere.
|
Messrs.
De Viar and Jaudenes
14 July 1793 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / GENERAL
… though we may say with confidence, that
the worst of the American constitutions is better than the best
which ever existed before, in any other country, and that they are
wonderfully perfect for a first essay, yet every human essay must
have defects. |
Thomas
Mann (Jr.) Randolph
6 Jul 1787 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / GENERAL
… I do not go as far in the reforms
thought necessary, as some of my correspondents in America; but if
the convention should adopt such propositions, I shall suppose them
necessary. My general plan would be, to make the States one as to
everything connected with foreign nations, and several as to
everything purely domestic. But with all the imperfections of our
present government, it is without comparison the best existing, or
that ever did exist. Its greatest defect is the imperfect manner in
which matters of commerce have been provided for. It has been' so
often said, as to be generally believed, that Congress have no power
by the Confederation to enforce anything; for example, contributions
of money. It was not necessary to give them that power expressly;
they have it by the law of nature. When two parties make a compact,
there results to each a power of compelling the other to execute it.
Compulsion was never so easy as m our case, where a single frigate
would soon levy on the commerce of any State the deficiency of its
contributions; nor more safe than in the hands of Congress, which
has always shown that it would wait; as it ought to do, to the last
extremities, before it. would execute any of its powers which are
disagree able. I think it very material, to separate, in the hands
of Congress, the executive and legislative powers, as the judiciary
already are, in some degree. This, I hope, will be done. The want of
it has been the source of more evil than we have experienced from
any other cause. Nothing is so embarrassing nor so mischievous, in a
great assembly, as the details of execution. The smallest trifle of
that kind occupies as long as the most important act of legislation,
and takes place of everything else. Let any man recollect, or look
over, the files of Congress; he will observe the most important
propositions hanging over, from week to week, and month to month,
till the occasions have passed them, and the things never done. I
have ever viewed the executive details as the greatest cause of evil
to us, because they in fact place us as if we had no federal head,
by diverting the attention of that head from great to small
subjects; and should this division of power not be recommended by
the convention, it is my opinion Congress should make it itself, by
establishing an executive committee. |
Edward
Carrington
4 Aug 1787 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / GENERAL
Our Federal Convention is likely to sit til
October; there is a general disposition through the States to adopt
what they shall propose, and we may be assured their propositions
will be wise, as a more able assembly never sat in America. Happily
for us, that when we find our constitutions defective and
insufficient to secure the happiness of our people, we can assemble
with all the coolness of philosophers, and set it to rights, while
every other nation on earth must have recourse to arms to amend or
to restore their constitutions. |
Monsieur
Dumas
10 Sep 1787 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / GENERAL
You ask me in your letter, what ameliorations I think necessary
in our federal constitution. It is now too late to answer the
question, and it would always have been presumption in me to have
done it. Your own ideas, and those of the great characters who were
to be concerned with you in these discussions, will give the law, as
they ought to do, to us all. My own general idea was, that the
States should severally preserve their sovereignty in whatever
concerns themselves alone, and that whatever may concern another
State, or any foreign nation, should be made a part of the federal
sovereignty; that the exercise of the federal sovereignty should be
divided among three several bodies, legislative, executive, and
judiciary, as the State sovereignties are; and that some peaceable
means should be contrived, for the federal head to force compliance
on the part of the States. |
George
Wythe
16 Sep 1787 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / GENERAL
I do not know whether it is to yourself or Mr.
Adams, I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new constitution.
I beg leave through you to place them where due. It will yet be
three weeks before I shall receive them from America. There are very
good articles in it, and very bad. I do not know which preponderate.
What we have lately read, in the history of Holland, in the chapter
on the Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a chief
magistrate, eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been
disposed towards one; and what we have always read of the elections
of Polish Kings should have forever excluded the idea of one
continuable for life. Wonderful is the effect of impudent and
persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their
gazetteers to repeat, and model into every form, lies about our
being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the
English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come
to believe them, and what is more wonderful, we have believed them
ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever
exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can
history produce an instance of rebellion so honorably conducted? I
say nothing of its motives. They were founded in ignorance, not
wickedness. God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a
rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The
part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the
importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under
such misconceptions, it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to
the public liberty. We have had thirteen States independent for
eleven years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one
rebellion in a century and a half, for each State. What country
before, ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And
what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not
warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a
century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to
time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural
manure. Our convention has been too much impressed by the
insurrection of Massachusetts; and on the spur of the moment, they
are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in order. I hope in God,
this article will be rectified before the new constitution is
accepted. |
Colonel
Smith
13 Nov 1787 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / GENERAL
I had intended to have written a word to your
Excellency on the subject of the new Constitution, but I have
already spun out my letter to an immoderate length. I will just
observe, therefore, that according to my ideas, there is a great
deal of good in it. There are two things, however, which I dislike
strongly. 1. The want of a declaration of rights. I am in hopes the
opposition of Virginia will remedy this, and produce such a
declaration. 2. The perpetual re-eligibility of the President. This,
I fear, will make that an office for life, first, and then
hereditary. I was much an enemy to monarchies before I came to
Europe. I am ten thousand times more so, since I have seen what they
are. There is scarcely an evil known in these countries, which may
not be traced to their king, as its source, nor a good, which is not
derived from the small fibres of republicanism existing among them.
I can further say, with safety, there is not a crowned head in
Europe, whose talents or merits would entitle him to be elected a
vestryman, by the people of any parish in America. However, I shall
hope, that before there is danger of this change taking place in the
office of President, the good sense and free spirit of our
countrymen, will makes the changes necessary to prevent it.
|
George
Washington
2 May 1788 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / GENERAL
I do then, with sincere zeal, wish an
inviolable preservation of our present federal Constitution,
according to the true sense in which it was adopted by the States,
that in which it was advocated by its friends, and not that which
Its enemies apprehended, who therefore became its enemies. . . . I
am for freedom of religion, and against all manoeuvres to bring
about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another: for freedom of
the press, and against all violations of the Constitution to silence
by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or
unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents. And I
am for encouraging the progress of science in all its branches; and
not for raising a hue and cry against the sacred name of philosophy;
for awing the human mind by stories of raw-head and bloody bones to
a distrust of its own vision, and to repose implicitly on that of
others; to go backwards instead of forwards to look for improvement;
to believe that government, religion, morality, and every other
science were in the highest perfection in ages of the darkest
ignorance, and that nothing can ever be devised more perfect than
what was established by our forefathers. To these I will add, that I
was a sincere well-wisher to the success of the French revolution,
and still wish it may end in the establishment of a free and
well-ordered republic; but I have not been insensible under the
atrocious depredations they have committed on our commerce. The
first object of my heart is my own country. In that is embarked my
family, my fortune, and my own existence. I have not one farthing of
interest, nor one fibre of attachment out of it, nor a single motive
of preference of any one nation to another, but in proportion as
they are more or less friendly to us. But though deeply feeling the
injuries of France, I did not think war the surest means of
redressing them. I did believe, that a mission sincerely disposed to
preserve peace, would obtain for us a peaceable and honorable
settlement and retribution; and I appeal to you to say, whether this
might not have been obtained, if either of your colleagues had been
of the same sentiment with yourself.
These, my friend, are my principles; they are unquestionably the
principles of the great body of our fellow-citizens, and I know
there is not one of them which is not yours also. . . . And did we
ever expect to see the day, when, breathing nothing but sentiments
of love to our country and its freedom and happiness, our
correspondence must be as secret as if we were hatching its
destruction! |
Elbridge
Gerry
26 Jan 1799 |
CONSTITUTION
/ UNITED STATES / GENERAL
In the great work which has been effected in
America, no individual has a right to take any great share to
himself. Our people in a body are wise, be-cause they are under the
unrestrained and unperverted operation of their own understanding.
Those whom they have assigned to the direction of their affairs,
have stood with a pretty even front. If any one of them was
withdrawn, many others entirely equal, have been ready to fill his
place with as good abilities. A nation, composed of such materials,
and free in all its members from distressing wants, furnishes
hopeful implements for the interesting experiment of
self-government; and we feel that we are acting under obligations
not confined to the limits of our own society. It is impossible not
to be sensible that we are acting for all mankind; that
circumstances denied to others, but indulged to us, have imposed on
us the duty of proving what is the degree of freedom and
self-government in which a society may venture to leave its
individual members. One passage, in the paper you enclosed me, must
be corrected. It is the following, "and all say it was yourself
more than any other individual, that planned and established it,"
i.e., the Constitution. I was in Europe when the Constitution was
planned, and never saw it till after it was established. On
receiving it I wrote strongly to Mr. Madison, urging the want of
provision for the freedom of religion, freedom of the press, trial
by jury, habeas corpus, the substitution of militia for a standing
army, and an express reservation to the States of all rights not
specifically granted to the Union. He accordingly moved in the first
session of Congress for these amendments, which were agreed to and
ratified by the States as they now stand. This is all the hand I had
in what related to the Constitution. Our predecessors made it
doubtful how far even these were of any value; for the very law
which endangered your personal safety, as well as that which
restrained the freedom of the press, were gross violations of them.
However, it is still certain that though written constitutions may
be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a
text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the
people; they fix too for the people the principles of their
political creed. |
Joseph
Priestley
19 Jun 1802 |
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