Last Best Hope of Earth

Tag: Congress

  • The Civil War: James Buchanan: From the Annual Message to Congress

    The Civil War: James Buchanan: From the Annual Message to Congress

    December 3, 1860

    Washington City

    James Buchanan was never going to avert the Civil War. But in his annual message to Congress, after the election of 1860, he scarcely even tried. Whereas most outgoing presidents use their last days in power to begin shaping their legacy, reflect on their time at the helm, and share their unique perspective on the country—and on the world—Buchanan was not like most outgoing presidents.

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  • Constitution Sunday: “Publius,” The Federalist XLVI [James Madison]

    New-York Packet

    January 29, 1788

    James Madison, who would later become the fourth President of the United States, sought to quell fears of an overreaching and overly powerful federal government. The Constitution’s opponents had shared their fears—fears that Madison called “chimerical”—of a federal government that took power from the states and dominated the country’s governing. Rather than the states governing themselves and the federal government keeping to its own affairs, many of which related to international relations, the thinking was that the federal government would subsume those states’ powers and undermine their sovereignty.

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  • Constitution Sunday: “Publius,” The Federalist XLI [James Madison]

    Independent Journal (New York)

    January 19, 1788

    Engineering a coup can be difficult. Usually, it requires a military to not only lose faith in the civilian government but to organize an overthrowing of that government. Democratic republics fear this prospect as much as any other type of government. Although democratic republics are better suited for allowing their citizens to vent their anger—through the vote, protest, and other expressions of speech—and presumably have a healthier, happier citizenry as a result, the threat still lingers. And during any period of American history, the potential for a standing army—one of permanence and at times one of substantial size—has raised the specter of a military coup on top of the obvious dedication of resources needed to support a standing army.

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  • Constitution Sunday: Nathaniel Barrell, a “Plain Husbandman,” Warns of the Passion for Power, but Favors Ratification

    February 5, 1788

    Massachusetts Ratifying Convention

    The draft Constitution had its parts that inspired and other parts that terrified. Nathaniel Barrell, either as a sign of his modesty or as a way to relate to his fellow residents of Massachusetts, claimed that he would not speak with the eloquence of a Cicero but would articulate his objections to the Constitution.

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  • Constitution Sunday: Thomas Dawes, Jr. on Legitimate Standing Armies

    Massachusetts Ratifying Convention

    January 24, 1788

    The Constitution empowers Congress to “raise and support Armies” with the limitation that any appropriation of money for raising and supporting armies must be limited to a two-year term (Article I, Section 8, Clause 12). At the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, there was debate as to whether that authority should exist at all and whether it should be housed with Congress.

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  • Constitution Sunday: A Sharp Exchange at the Massachusetts Convention

    Massachusetts Ratifying Convention

    January 17, 1788

    For those debating the Constitution’s ratification, no detail of the draft document was forgotten. To detractors, like the Honorable Mr. Turner who rose on January 17, 1788 at the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, there were hidden dangers throughout the document. One that he raised was that Congress “may alter the place for chusing representatives in the general Congress.” Turner, before the Convention, said to look to abuses of power: if members of Congress wished to help themselves, as people in power often do, then this is one way in which they may do so; they could alter the place to be inaccessible for three-fourths of the population. “The great law of self preservation will prevail,” Turner said, and it didn’t stop there. There were forces at work in the country that were changing the country and its people: “paper money, and the practice of privateering, have produced a gradual decay of morals—introduced pride—ambition—envy—lust of power—produced a decay of patriotism, and the love of commutative justice.” By giving this Constitution and the members of Congress this power, the Convention was creating the chance for abuse, and where that risk can be prevented, it should, so Turner reasoned.

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  • Constitution Sunday: Fisher Ames on Biennial Elections and on the Volcano of Democracy

    Massachusetts Ratifying Convention.

    January 15, 1788

    The duration of a term for a member of the House of Representatives was a contentious issue: while some favored one-year terms, others—such as Fisher Ames—advocated for two-year terms. To Ames, a member of the House would be unlikely to learn enough about the country in a year to cast informed votes and to represent the interests of the people. Adding to that was the fact that the country was set to grow: Ames expressed his hope that the country would be home to “fifty millions of happy people” and that a member of the House would require at “least two years in office” to enable that member “to judge of the trade and interests of states which he never saw.” But, also at issue was the expression and suppression of the will of the people through their representatives.

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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: James Wilson Replies to William Findley

    Constitution Sunday: James Wilson Replies to William Findley

    Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention.

    December 1, 1787

    James Wilson, one of the most eloquent and artful of his time, spoke at Pennsylvania’s Ratifying Convention on December 1, 1787 about the merits of the draft Constitution. One of the crucial components of the draft was its creation of the legislature as a “restrained” legislature; a legislature that would “give permanency, stability and security” to the new government.

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  • Constitution Sunday: Robert Whitehill at the Pennsylvania Convention

    Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention.

    November 30, 1787.

    At the Pennsylvania Convention, Robert Whitehill rose to speak about the proposed Constitution including—and perhaps especially—its biggest flaw. To Whitehill, despite the fact that the country’s learned people devised the Constitution, “the defect is in the system itself,—there lies the evil which. no argument can palliate, no sophistry can disguise.” The Constitution, as it was written, “must eventually annihilate the independent sovereignty of the several states” given the power that the Constitution allotted to the federal government.

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