Last Best Hope of Earth

Tag: Article I

  • Constitution Sunday: “Publius,” The Federalist XLIV [James Madison] Part II

    New-York Packet

    January 25, 1788

    The Federalist XLIV [James Madison] Part II Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 of the Constitution has long sparked controversy, granting Congress the power to create necessary and proper laws to execute its other powers. James Madison, in the Federalist Papers, defended this provision against those who deemed it excessive. For Constitution supporters, the Clause was crucial to prevent Congress from becoming ineffective and unimportant compared to state legislatures. James Madison argued that the Clause was essential, otherwise, the Constitution would become meaningless.

    Everywhere in the city, which had become his home, there were reminders of the inspiration he had brought.

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  • Constitution Sunday: “Brutus” X

    New York Journal

    January 24, 1788

    History is replete with military coups. At a time when a country’s government has grown weak, the temptation to make drastic change can become overwhelming. Sometimes, rather than wait for the next election, the military makes its move—to the detriment of the democracy, the people, and the chances for protecting the people’s rights. There are some who believe that the best way to prevent such coups is to prohibit having a standing army altogether. In 1788, an author, using the pen name Brutus, saw that the liberties of the people faced imminent threat if there was a “large standing army” allowed in the United States and made the case that the Constitution should prohibit such an army as it created too much of a danger to the viability of the Republic.

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  • Constitution Sunday: Oliver Ellsworth defends the Taxing Power and Comments on Dual Sovereignties and Judicial Review

    Connecticut Ratifying Convention

    January 7, 1788

    When the Connecticut Ratifying Convention assembled, there were objections against the draft Constitution on the basis that it was “despotic” in its bestowing great power upon Congress: to the objectors, Congress having both the power of the purse and the power of the sword was intolerable. Oliver Ellsworth, however, defended the Constitution as written. Ellsworth, who would later become a United States Senator and a Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, had seen the ineffectiveness of those United States as existed under the Articles of Confederation and thus saw the draft Constitution as remedying the defects that caused that ineffectiveness.

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  • Constitution Sunday: Rebuttal to “An Officer of the Late Continental Army”: “Plain Truth”

    Rebuttal to “An Officer of the Late Continental Army”: “Plain Truth”

    Independent Gazetteer (Philadelphia), November 10, 1787

    Following are excerpts from an article with an unknown author, published as a rebuttal to a reply by an officer of the late Continental Army to James Wilson’s speech:

    “Congress may ‘provide for calling forth the militia,’ ‘and may provide for organizing, arming and disciplining it.’—But the states respectively can only raise it, (more…)