Facts, or otherwise, aside, many
of the assertions that Melancton Smith made in Anti-Federalist No. 85 employ
rhetoric, generalizations or speculation rather than outright falsehoods or
omissions. In this sense Smith was no different than Alexander Hamilton, one of
his Federalist opposite numbers and a fellow New Yorker. Smith and Hamilton
were alike in their desire to manipulate the terms of the debate in which they
took part in order to best suit their respective positions. Just as Hamilton
was willing to exaggerate the degree to which the United States was threatened
by disunion or even civil war, Smith seemed to have no trouble painting the
troubled 1780s as a time of peace and prosperity, in spite of limited evidence
to back up either claim. The reason for this apparent impulse to dishonesty, I
believe, was that both men understood the importance of rhetoric and debate,
and both felt that the stakes they were playing for were exceedingly high.
Hamilton stood to help craft what would become perhaps the single most powerful
and influential state in human history, while Smith feared watching the state
he’d worked to advance, protect and prosper lose a significant portion of its
sovereignty and become once again subject to a potentially distant central
government. Both were perfectly valid causes, and I hasten to point out once
again that it’s not my intention to expose the extent of Smith’s attempt to
mislead or deceive his readers. Rather, I only wish to promote a sense of
understanding in regards to a group that has often been looked upon as among
history’s losers. Just as with the ultimately successful Federalists, I feel
it’s important to understand what Anti-Federalists like Melancton Smith were
really arguing for, what elements of the constitutional debate they
prioritized, and how they attempted to appeal to their audience.
Among the rhetorical devices that
Smith made use of in No. 85 are what might be called “unqualified
generalizations,” whereby the eminent Plebian laid out bold, blanket statements
which he treated as well-known facts in spite of providing no evidence to
support them. I would not consider these declarations to be outright falsehoods
because I can see no way of unequivocally disproving them, though their
accuracy is clearly suspect. The seventh paragraph contains such an instance,
in which Smith discussed the recent Federalist victories at the Massachusetts
and Connecticut ratifying conventions. Specifically he asserted that though
Massachusetts had voted in favour of the proposed constitution it did so by only
a slight margin, and in consequence there was no way to know on which side the
majority of that state’s population truly fell. This is fair enough; accounts
from the period and subsequent events point to Massachusetts being among the
most evenly split in terms of supporting or opposing the Constitution. Though
one might fairly assume that the 187 to 168 margin was a decent indicator of where
the majority of that state’s population stood (having elected the delegates
themselves), I wouldn't consider Smith’s claim of uncertainty in this case to
be unreasonable. That being said, his further claims that though a larger
majority in Connecticut voted in favour of the Constitution (128 to 40), it was
still well-known that, “a large portion of the yeomanry of the country are
against it,” and that, “In both these states the body of the common people, who
always do the fighting of a country, would be more likely to fight against it
that for it,” seem much harder to justify. Indeed the question which to my mind
begs answering is how did a wealthy New York merchant know what the common
people in other states were thinking and feeling?
There almost certainly is no
satisfying answer. Perhaps by some alchemy Smith was able to gather information
about the common sentiments among the New England yeomanry, though it seems
highly improbable. The kinds of demographic and statistical information and
opinion polls which we are so used to seeing our modern politicians and pundits
deploy in making their various arguments simply didn't exist in the late 18th
century. There were virtually no mechanisms for gathering and synthesizing
public opinion, and few publications that would have reached to the lowermost
social strata of early American society. Indeed, until at least the mid-19th
century the “common people” were more distrusted than embraced by the political
classes in the United States, and few members of the Founding Generation ever
had much cause to consider the opinions of the masses during their respective
careers in public service. Though it’s possible that Smith gathered anecdotal
information from friends or colleagues who lived and worked in other states and
formulated his arguments based on their sense of the public opinion, this
scenario strikes me as something of a stretch. That being said, Smith may well
have been correct in his assessment. As Shays Rebellion had shown, farmers and
workers in Massachusetts were both capable and willing to engage in armed
resistance in response to measures taken by their government that displeased
them or threatened their economic integrity. Taking into consideration as well
the kinds of popular displays that went on in that state in the 1760s and 1770s
in response to unpopular British taxes, and the fact that Massachusetts was
where the armed portion of the American Revolution began, it certainly wouldn't
have been beyond reason to suppose that the common people of the Bay State were
generally sceptical of authority and unafraid to take up arms against it. Nevertheless,
Smith’s claim was still a dubious one for its total lack of corroborating
evidence and ought to be regarded as an example of rhetoric and not reason.
In the eighth paragraph of
Anti-Federalist No. 85 Smith further called into question the transparency of
the events surrounding the drafting and ratification of the proposed
constitution. Addressing once again the spirit of haste that seemed to him to
characterize the efforts and rhetoric of the document’s supporters, Smith
questioned whether or not the calling of a second convention to amend the
Constitution was as impossible as the Federalists claimed. The Philadelphia
Convention, they argued, brought together a group of men who collectively
represented a wide variety of ideals and sentiments. The spirit of consensus
that had emerged by the time the gathering adjourned was thus hard-won, and the
result of lengthy disagreements that only grudgingly gave way to concession and
understanding. The Constitution, far from perfect in itself, was thus as
perfect as was possible to achieve. A second convention would accomplish
little, as all parties had already conceded on as many points as their
respective consciences would allow. To this assertion Smith supposed that, “the
contrary inference was the fair one.” If the delegates at Philadelphia, he
reasoned, had truly been possessed of such a keen sense of moderation and
compromise, and had through debate and negotiation become accustomed to and
understanding of each-other’s opinions and prejudices, there was ample reason
to believe that, “this same spirit will continue and prevail in a future
convention, and produce an union of sentiments on the points objected to.” While
I would once again grant that Smith’s central point is not without merit – that
a second convention might have conceivably produced worthwhile amendments – the
specific argument he deployed in paragraph eight of No. 85 seems rather
illogical.
The compromises that emerged out
of the Philadelphia Convention were indeed hard-won, and though few of the
delegates present later claimed that the resulting draft of the Constitution
was all that they could have hoped, most of them agreed that further conciliation
would have been virtually impossible. The divisions that emerged during the
months-long convention where too numerous – agricultural vs. commercial, small
states vs. large states, North vs. South, anti-slavery vs. pro-slavery – and in
some cases too fundamental to afford an easy process of give and take. As well,
much of the final character of the draft constitution was doubtless owed to the
specific personalities involved in its creation, the likes of James Madison,
Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson, Alexander Hamilton, John Dickinson and John
Rutledge, to name but a few. Each of these men played an essential part in
shaping some aspect of the Constitution or the debate that produced it. It
would thus, I think, be fair to say that a different group of men would have
produced a fundamentally different document. With that in mind I would agree
that calling a second constitutional convention made up of an entirely new set
of delegates for the purpose of amending the draft produced by the first would
surely have resulted in new and different debates taking place and generated
compromises simply not possible in Philadelphia in 1787. This is not, however,
what Melancton Smith seemed to be suggesting.
It was Smith’s contention that
the, “spirit of moderation and condescension,” that came to characterize the
deliberations of the Philadelphia Convention, coupled with the fact that the
various delegates came to, “accommodate themselves to each other’s opinions,
and even prejudices,” would suggest that a second convention of the same delegates would have no
trouble proceeding in the same spirit. The wisdom of this I am forced to
question. Even some of the Constitution’s most ardent supporters – Madison,
Hamilton, Wilson – felt that the final draft was in certain aspects
unsatisfactory. Still, seeing in the new plan of government a vast improvement
over that which existed under the Articles of Confederation they threw their
all behind its ratification. If these men who with gusto wrote and campaigned
for the adoption of the Constitution felt that it was an imperfect thing, it should
then follow that its outwardly less-enthusiastic supports held an even lower
opinion of its quality. Nevertheless, few if any of the men that signed their
name to the final draft of the document agreed subsequently that a second
convention was either possible or desirable. For all their well-documented
ideological and philosophical differences they seemed to be in fundamental accord
that they could do no better. How
they might have been persuaded otherwise Smith failed to offer in
Anti-Federalist No. 85, for which I can see at least two possible reasons.
He may have truly believed it was
possible to reunite the Framers of the Constitution at a second convention and
have them reach something other than a stalemate. Smith hadn't attended the
first convention in Philadelphia, the proceedings of which would not become
public for decades, and so likely had little idea of how difficult it had been
for those present to arrive at anything like a consensus. Thinking perhaps that
the subsequent protestations of many of the Framers against further revisions
of the Constitution were mere subterfuge (since they likely stood to gain by
its quick ratification), Smith was perhaps trying to call their bluff. More
likely, however, Smith was aware of how doubtful a second meeting of the
Framers would have been of producing the revisions he and his allies desired
but pushed for it anyway. Perhaps he did so simply in an attempt to sow doubt
among those responsible for ratifying the proposed constitution in the
remaining states. If they could be convinced that not only was the document
itself flawed but its authors stubbornly refused to make good on their error maybe
the entire enterprise could be defeated. Whatever Smith’s reasons may have been,
they are not made clear in the text of Anti-Federalist No. 85. What is clear,
however, is that his stated rationale for convening a second convention
composed of the same delegates as before defies the opinions to the contrary
expressed by those same delegates. Thus I would argue that his assertion of the
viability of a second convention was probably intended as a means of harnessing
and manipulating the American public’s existing anxieties in order to produce
what Smith considered to be a desirable outcome.
Indeed, much of the language
Melancton Smith made use of in Anti-Federalist No. 85 seemed carefully chosen
in order to cast the debate over the proposed constitution in a populist light.
In numerous instances Smith invoked, “the people,” or, “the common people,”
“the general opinion,” and “the yeomanry,” as well as specifically farmers,
mechanics (workers) and merchants. These were whom he claimed to represent (and
said as much in paragraph fifteen), while the Framers and supporters of the
Constitution were conversely characterized as distant, distinctly separate and
possessed of priorities and an agenda all their own. The people, he argued, had
had the Constitution foisted upon them by the delegates in Philadelphia and had
subsequently been asked to consider and approve something they had no say in
shaping. Indeed the secrecy with which the deliberations of the Philadelphia
Convention were carried out and the fact that it was convened with the stated
intent of only revising the Articles of Confederation led many American into a
state of confusion as to how and why an entirely new national constitution had
come into being at all. Specifically, Smith wrote that the idea of drafting a
plan of government similar to the one put before the states for ratification,
“never entered the minds of the legislatures who appointed the convention, and
of but very few of the members who composed it, until they had assembled and
heard it proposed in that body.” He went on to add that the secrecy of the
Convention ensured that, “no opportunity was given for well informed men to
offer their sentiments upon the subject,” and that the proposed constitution
was, “not known to the people until after it was proposed.” Based on these
statements the reader would seem forced to conclude that the Plebian who
authored No. 85 considered the state legislatures to be more trustworthy
representatives of the American people than the delegates they sent to the
Philadelphia Convention, that these same delegates were themselves not “well
informed men,” and that they were not even worthy of being considered among
“the people.” Considering what Smith had previously intimated about the
delegates to the Philadelphia Convention there would seem to be something of a
contradiction at work in his argument.
At the beginning of the eighth
paragraph of Anti-Federalist No. 85 Smith seemed satisfied enough with the
abilities and knowledge of the Framers of the Constitution to want to call them
back into attendance for a second convention in order to address the errors he
and his colleagues managed to detect in the finished document. Whatever he may
have thought of their initial efforts he must have been confident enough in
their ability to get it right the second time around to say as much in print.
That being said it would seem rather odd for him to then, within the same
paragraph, cast the Framers as distant, secretive, and perhaps even
untrustworthy.
The logical progression of his
argument seems to be, if I have it right:
a)
The state legislatures selected delegates to
attend the Philadelphia Convention with the understanding that its purpose
would be to discuss revisions of the Articles of Confederation
b)
The delegates attended the Convention with
this same understanding in mind, and only came upon the idea of drafting a new
national constitution after they’d already assembled
c)
The delegates, now set on drafting a
national constitution, proceeded to do so in secrecy
d)
The delegates presented a completed draft of
the proposed constitution to the people of the various states for ratification,
much to their surprise
This scenario seems place the state
legislatures and “the people” on one side of the debate as having been in favour
of only modifying the existing federal government and the convention delegates
on the other as having secretly originated, discussed and drafted an entirely
new plan of government. This arrangement would appear to belie the fact that
the state legislatures presumably chose the various delegates to attend the
Philadelphia Convention because they felt that each man selected could be
depended on to represent the interests of his particular state. Since the
suggestion of drafting a new plan of government came from the delegates
themselves, and since of the 55 delegates in attendance only 16 either left
before affairs had concluded or refused to sign the final draft of the
Constitution, it would seem a fair conclusion that approximately 70% of those
in attendance felt that the creating of a new national government was not
inconsistent with their respective responsibilities to represent the interests
of their states.
If my inference is correct, that Melancton Smith intended to portray the Framers of the
Constitution as having worked in opposition to the wishes of the legislatures
that initially sent them to Philadelphia, then the logical culmination of this
line of thinking would conceivably be that the Constitutional Convention of
1787 represented some form of elitist conspiracy. The 39 delegates that
ultimately signed the Constitution came from 12 different states. All were
chosen by the elected legislatures of their home states to be in attendance. It
would seem either the height of coincidence or a pre-planned collusion that the
overwhelming majority supported the idea of creating a new plan of national
government when it was presented to them and were willing to sign their names
to the finished product. Or that is to say, it would seem that way were it not
more reasonable to conclude that at least some of the state legislatures were
aware of their chosen delegates’ pro-federal leanings and sent them to
Philadelphia for that reason. Perhaps they sensed that a change was coming and
wanted to ensure that their interests were represented in the process by
someone(s) they trusted. Or perhaps they were in favour of the creation of a
stronger federal government and were keen to see it accomplished by sending men
they believed were “well informed.” Whatever the truth of the matter I at least
feel comfortable asserting that Melancton Smith’s admittedly subtle attempt to
create distance between the interests of the states/the people and the Framers in
Anti-Federalist No. 85 is another example of his various efforts to use
rhetoric to shape the terms of the debate in which he was engaged.
No comments:
Post a Comment