Last Best Hope of Earth

Tag: Federalism

  • Constitution Sunday: James Wilson’s Summation and Final Rebuttal

    Constitution Sunday: James Wilson’s Summation and Final Rebuttal

    Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention.

    December 11, 1787

    Before concluding the Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention, James Wilson delivered a closing argument for ratifying the draft Constitution and took on many of his adversaries’ best arguments while presenting the most compelling reasons for adopting the Constitution. To detractors of the Constitution, a most glaring flaw in the document was its creation of a relatively powerful federal government as compared to that existing under the Articles of Confederation. Some called for scrapping the draft Constitution and simply enlarging the powers of the present federal government to make it more effective yet still modest.

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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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  • Constitution Sunday: Thomas B. Wait to George Thatcher

    Portland, Maine, January 8, 1788

    When drafting any written constitution or even any law, there is a question of whether every right should be explicitly laid out in the document. Where there are express rights in a constitution—such as the right to freedom of speech—a reader (including judges) may conclude that the list of rights are exhaustive and that there are no rights but those mentioned in that constitution. A reader could also reason that those rights which are expressed in the constitution are not a complete list but only the most important rights and may, in fact, include other rights. Additionally, a constitution may have express prohibitions such as the United States Constitution at Article I, Section 9: “The privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended.” Questions of interpretation, such as these, led to debates between friends in the winter of 1787 and 1788, and a letter from Thomas B. Wait to George Thatcher illustrated those debates.

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  • Constitution Sunday: Answers to Mason’s “Objections”: “Marcus” [James Iredell] IV

    Answers to Mason’s “Objections”: “Marcus” [James Iredell] IV

    Norfolk and Portsmouth Journal (Virginia), March 12, 1788

    Following are excerpts from James Iredell’s responses to George Mason’s “Objections” to the Constitution:

    “VIIIth. Objection. ‘Under their own construction of the general clause at the end of the enumerated powers, the Congress may grant monopolies in trade and commerce, constitute new crimes, inflict unusual and severe punishments, and extend their power as far as they shall think proper (more…)

  • The Theories of Slavery

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    Trout Fishing in Sullivan County, New York. By: Henry Inman.

    In the 15 years leading up to the Civil War, a wide variety of theories emerged for how the federal government should deal with slavery expanding, or not expanding, into the territories acquired by the United States.

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  • Constitution Sunday: “A Landholder” [Oliver Ellsworth] III

    “A Landholder” [Oliver Ellsworth] III

    Connecticut Courant (Hartford), November 19, 1787

    Following are excerpts from Oliver Ellsworth’s article in the Connecticut Courant:

    “A government capable of controling the whole, and bringing its force to a point is one of the prerequisites for national liberty. (more…)

  • Constitution Sunday: Refutation of the “Federal Farmer”: Timothy Pickering to Charles Tillinghast

    Refutation of the “Federal Farmer”: Timothy Pickering to Charles Tillinghast

    Philadelphia, December 24, 1787

    Following are excerpts from Timothy Pickering’s letter to Charles Tillinghast, refuting the “Federal Farmer”:

    “In respect to the organization of the general government, the federal farmer, as well as other opposers, object to (more…)

  • Constitution Sunday: “Americanus” [John Stevens, Jr.] I

    “Americanus” [John Stevens, Jr.] I

    Daily Advertiser (New York), November 2, 1787

    Following are excerpts from John Stevens, Jr.’s article in the Daily Advertiser:

    “But, so prone is the spirit of man to party and faction, that even this admirable system will not prevent their mischievous efforts, in a state possessing a ‘small territory.’ (more…)

  • Two Supreme Coordinate Powers

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    Gouverneur Morris. Engraving by: J. Rogers.

    Coming out of the Philadelphia Convention, many Americans had different perspectives about what had transpired and how effective the Constitution could be as a governing document.

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