Constitution Sunday: “An American Citizen” [Tench Coxe] I
“An American Citizen” [Tench Coxe] I Independent Gazetteer (Philadelphia), September 26, 1787 Following is an excerpt:
MoreA Blog Exploring American History and Politics
Constitution
The Genesis of the Bill of Rights
Prior to the American Revolution, the colonists had become familiar with the concept of charters. Charters, whether royal, corporate, or proprietary, operated “as the evidence of a compact between an English King and the American subjects.” Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787, 268; see also Leonard Krieger, The Politics of Discretion: Pufendorf and the Acceptance […]
MoreA Check on Dangerous Usurpations
While an upper house of state legislatures was desirable to some, as explained in The Birth of the Senate, it also had its detractors. Those detractors argued that it was a mere redundancy, wholly irrelevant to the founding of a stable government. In taking that position, the detractors ignored many of the benefits of having […]
MoreA Moral Reformation
As eluded to in Virtue as a Principle and Foundation, vices had come to plague American society shortly after the American Revolution. Patrick Henry said, in 1780, that he “feared that our Body politic was dangerously sick,” as from top to bottom, society appeared to be embracing vice. Patrick Henry to Jefferson, Feb. 15, 1780, Boyd, […]
MoreThe Delegation of Sovereignty
Prior to the creation and ratification of the Constitution, Americans struggled with legislatures who had run rampant. This, however, was the doing of the people themselves.
MoreCarrying Liberty to Excess
While there were perceptions that America was suffering from a malaise in the 1780s, the political theory at the time had an explanation: licentiousness.
MoreA Perceived Burden of Intolerable Evils
After the American Revolution and after the war with Britain, America was suffering what appeared to be a crisis.
MoreA Supreme Sovereign Power
Despite the fact that the Articles of Confederation loosely held the states together, there was still a remarkable union achieved. There were privileges and immunities granted, “reciprocity of extradition and judicial proceedings among the states,” no “travel and discriminatory trade restrictions between states, and the substantial grant of powers to the Congress in Article 9 […]
MoreCoalescing All the States
Americans had a keen understanding of the idea, popularized by Montesquieu, that “only a small homogeneous society whose interests were essentially similar could properly sustain a republican government.” Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787, 356. This idea created a fundamental problem for America: it was not a small homogeneous society, and it was rapidly […]
MorePreserving the Health of the Constitution
Corruption was rife in England in the decades leading up to the American Revolution, and Americans were keenly aware of that fact. For many individuals, the English Constitution was viewed as a hollow document, as the crown had taken the power away from all other sources. See Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787, 34-35. Americans […]
More