There are, before I conclude my
examination of Anti-Federalist No. 85, a few more elements or passages I’d like
to bring to the attention of the court. They are relatively minor when compared
to those I've discussed thus far, but still worth mentioning for how they characterize
Melancton Smith, his assumptions and perspective.
As mentioned previously, a list
of what Smith considered to be distinctly disagreeable elements of the proposed
federal constitution followed the eighth paragraph of No. 85. Some of Smith’s
characterizations of these elements are, as I've explained, either false or
grossly exaggerated. Others, however, are somewhat more ambiguous, as they are
based on subjective judgements and not facts. For instance, the second in
Smith’s list of reservations claimed that, “the general legislature is too
small to secure liberty, or to answer the intention of representation.” Though
Smith chose to phrase it rather bluntly he was not wrong to want to bring the
matter to the attention of his contemporaries. In a representative democracy
issues of size are always valid; how many people should each representative be
responsible for? At what point does the size of a legislature become
detrimental to its basic function? It is even possible for representative
government to function as intended beyond a certain population threshold?
Though Smith did not ask these specific questions in Anti-Federalist No. 85,
they certainly stem from the same philosophical root concern that he expressed
when claiming that the proposed House of Representative would be too small. In
this he was far from alone; records of the various debates that took place
during the Philadelphia Convention indicate that the basis of political
representation was a topic frequently discussed by the delegates present. That
they subsequently agreed to implement proportional representation in the lower
house of Congress and enshrined the United States Census (the determining
instrument) in Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution indicates that the
Framers were similarly concerned as their critic Melancton Smith about the
underpinnings of representative government.
It’s also worth noting that the
states themselves have since adopted numerous different schemes for
apportioning seats in their respective legislatures. Nebraska’s unicameral
legislature is the smallest at only 49, each representing approximately 36,000
people, while New Hampshire’s 400 state representatives (the largest number by
far) are each responsible for only 3,200. Alaska’s 40 state representatives are
each accountable to 18,000 people, while California’s 80 each represent
475,000. Between these extremes there is a great deal of variation, and each
distinction was doubtless motivated by the same or a similar concern to that
which Smith expressed in 1788, that the existing legislature was either too
large or too small. Though he was perhaps too quick to condemn what had yet to
be tested his underlying concern was eminently valid.
The similarity between some of
the topics Smith discussed and the rhetoric he deployed in Anti-Federalist No.
85 to those of the Framers and the Federalists extended beyond concerns over
the practicalities of representative government. Indeed, I am struck by the
similarity of sentiment between certain sections of Smith’s No. 85 and
Alexander Hamilton’s and John Jay’s Federalist No. 1 & 2. In the fifteenth
paragraph of the former Smith wrote that, “Consequences are under the control
of that all-wise and all-powerful being, whose providence conducts the affairs
of all men. Our part is to act right, and we may then have confidence that the
consequences will be favorable.” This non-explicit invocation of God and use of
the term “providence” to signify an abstract but beneficent universal guiding
force were highly typical among those 18th-century thinkers educated
in the tradition of the Enlightenment. Jay was very much one of those men and
made use of similar language in arguing for the opposite end result. In
Federalist No. 2 he asserted that Providence played a principle role in shaping
the fate and features of the United States and its inhabitants. Both men, it
seems, believed that the critical endeavour in which they were engaged was being
guided by a higher moral force, and that it was to a degree the responsibility
of all men to try to understand and submit to the will of that force.
After invoking providence and
exhorting his readers to “act right” in their judgement of the proposed
constitution, Smith then more plainly stated what he considered that “right” to
be. “The path in which you should walk is plain and open before you,” he wrote,
“be united as one man, and direct your choice to such men as have been uniform
in their opposition to the proposed system in its present form, or without
proper alterations.” Rather than rely on providence to guide his fellow men or
trust in their individual determination of what is right, it seemed that Smith
had no qualms about informing his readers quite plainly on which side of the
ratification debate they ought to have fallen. Hamilton’s Federalist No. 1
seems to exhibit similarly divided sentiments. In the sixth paragraph of the
same, Hamilton claimed that his desire was to put his fellow Americans, “Upon
your guard against all attempts, from whatever quarter, to influence your
decision in a matter of the utmost moment to your welfare by impressions other
than those which may result from the evidence of truth.” Not three paragraphs
earlier, however, Hamilton warned his readers of what he considered, “Among the
most formidable obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter.”
These were, by his reckoning, state politicians who were attached to their
offices and the authority that accompanied them, and those whose “perverted
ambition” was to either utilize the “confusions of their country” so as to
aggrandize themselves or elevate their prospects by seeing the United States
divided into “several partial confederacies.” Far from guarding his fellow
citizens against all attempts to influence their decision, Hamilton was
explicitly attempting to shape it by casting those who stood against the
Constitution as self-interested, avaricious and untrustworthy. Though their
aims were undeniably opposed both Smith and Hamilton – Anti-Federalist and
Federalist – made use of the same kind of rhetorical language; professing
neutrality or claiming to trust in people’s sense of what was “right” and
“true” while at times explicitly courting or manipulating the sympathies of
their audience.
Where Smith seemed to differ from
his Federalist opponents, however, was in his apparent disregard for their
Enlightenment-derived emphasis on the primacy of debate and the toleration of
error. It was, after all, one of the key contentions of the philosophical
Enlightenment that truth in its theoretical absolute form was not the
possession of any one person, organization or authority but was equally
discoverable by every person. And as truth had nothing to fear from error if
the two were permitted to confront each other it was agreed that the best,
indeed the only way, to discover this truth was through open debate. Within
this arrangement discussion on all manner of topics was encouraged and people
were urged to change their opinions and beliefs as they were challenged by
coming into contact with new ideas. The members of the Founding Generation
tended to endorse this conception of truth and its relationship to error,
particularly as expressed in rejections of absolutism (monarchy) and
clericalism (church establishments). In fact their support of republicanism in general
constituted a tacit acceptance of this formulation of truth and the importance
of debate, republican governments being by their nature public, consultative
and often fluid.
Melancton Smith, conversely,
seemed to take the opposite tack. In the fifteenth paragraph of his
Anti-Federalist No. 85, after exhorting his readers to support those men who
had long been “uniform in their opposition to the proposed system,” he
cautioned that, “When men are uniform in their opinions, it affords evidence
that they are sincere. When they are shifting, it gives reason to believe, they
do not change from conviction.” On first blush this would appear to be a
categorical rejection of the purpose of open debate. If men who changed their
minds were to be subjects of suspicion, what would be the benefit of anyone
ever admitting that they were wrong? Why should an inflexibility of opinion be
taken as a sign of sincerity? After a fashion Smith seemed to be defeating his
own purpose. By the logic he deployed the Federalists would have seemed
dishonest if they admitted that their opponents were right, and there would
have been no purpose in trying to convince supporters of the Constitution to
alter their stance as doing so would have revealed a lack of conviction on
their part. Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist No. 1, approached the same core
idea from the opposite perspective. In the fourth paragraph of said document he
attempted to counter the suspicion he had cast on a particular group who stood
in opposition to the proposed constitution by admitting that, “even such men
may be actuated by upright intentions,” and that whatever mistakes they had
committed were likely, “the honest errors of minds led astray by preconceived
jealousies and fears.” It was thus
common, Hamilton argued, to see, “wise and good men on the wrong as well as on
the right side of questions, of the first magnitude to society.” Unlike Smith,
who appeared to believe that sincerity was a greater measure of worth than
whether a person was right or wrong, Hamilton held that men who were motivated
by what they perceived as the truth could end up on the wrong side of an
argument, and that moderation and respect were required to correct their errors
and foster consensus. Though it’s a matter of speculation as to whether Hamilton
truly believed this was the case – indeed his later career would indicate that
he was as capable of the intolerance of error that Smith professed – his
written position at least possessed a degree of logical consistency.
However Smith intended this
particular rhetorical jab at his opponents, claiming they’d displayed
inconsistent judgement by admitting the proposed Constitution wasn't perfect,
the end result appears both paradoxical and self-defeating. That being said,
the question remains as to why he was willing to commit such a statement to
print. The simple answer would be that he wished to easily and effectively
discredit his opponents in the eyes of the public. Claiming that they were
inconsistent and hypocritical doubtless seemed like a potentially fruitful
approach, and was likely intended to play into the sense of suspicion and
distrust that many Americans still felt in the aftermath of the Revolution
towards the idea centralized government. Just as the revolutionaries in the
1770s had been suspicious of the motives of the British Parliament in laying
taxes on the colonies, many Americans in the 1780s were wary of once more
recognizing the authority of a powerful and in some cases distant federal
government. For many of them it followed that those who supported the creation
of such a government were likewise of questionable motivations. By pointing out
the seeming changeability of their opinions concerning the quality of the
Constitution, Smith perhaps intended to feed into and exploit this latent
distrust.
Then again, perhaps Smith was
just a narrow-minded sort of person.
Though the members of the
Founding Generation were far from perfect, many of them at least appeared to
possess strong convictions about concepts like virtue, personal integrity,
truth, and public service. For many of them these convictions were the result
of their being the beneficiaries of classical educations whose curricula had
been shaped by the intellectual currents of the Enlightenment. Men like Thomas
Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were greatly
influenced by the study of Ancient Greek and Roman texts, philosophy, rhetoric
and logic, and in many cases full imbibed the values that these topics were
intended to impart. As a result the Founders and the Framers tended to value
logic over adherence to tradition, were generally well-read in matters of
contemporary philosophy and economics, and often expressed themselves in terms
that were distinctly universal (having to do with humanity, human history,
human civilization, etc…). Melancton Smith may not have been one of these men. Admitting
that I am unaware of the circumstances of his education, I will say that his
career biography and the sentiments he expressed in Anti-Federalist No. 85 lead
me to believe that his worldview was somewhat more parochial than that of some
of his contemporaries. Potentially lacking the kind of education that
encouraged a wide-ranging view of humanity and human society, deeply entrenched
in the politics of his home state and anxious of ensuring its continued
prestige and influence, Melancton Smith thus may have simply felt no affinity
for moderation, and felt little respect for the opinions of those he believed
were in error.
Still, I don’t suppose I could
really say one way or the other what kind of man Melancton Smith was. His
relative obscurity makes him difficult to grasp, and though Anti-Federalist No.
85 provides a fascinating window into a particular moment in both his life and
the life of the United States, there is little else on which to base even a
cursory character evaluation. That being said, I do believe that Smith was one
of the state politicians that Hamilton described as chief among the opposition
to the proposed Constitution. The thrust of his arguments in No. 85 often
seemed to relate to guarding against diminutions of state power and
demonstrating how unnecessary a strengthened federal government was. As Smith
expressed in the eighth paragraph of No. 85 and in the list of specific
concerns that followed, it was his belief that the main objective of the
government framed by the Constitution was the eventual erosion of the power and
purpose of the existing state government to the point of rendering them
obsolete. “The new system,” he wrote, “…is calculated to and will effect such a
consolidation of the States, as to supplant and overturn the state
governments.” As concerns this claim I believe that there are two things worth
noting.
One is that the text of the
Constitution itself, though laying a variety of restrictions on the ability of
the various states to either compete with one another or execute foreign and
trade policies independent of the federal government, also explicitly reserves
several powers and responsibilities to the said states. Just as, for instance,
the states were prohibited by Article I, Section 10 from entering into treaties
of their own accord, minting currency, raising troops in times of peace or
laying duties on imports or exports, Article I, Section 3 ensured that Senators
would be exclusively elected by the legislatures of the various states.
Likewise Article I, Section 8 ensured that the states would maintain control
over the appointment of militia officers, Article III, Section 2 guaranteed
that trials were to be held in the states in which the relevant crimes were
committed, and Article IV, Section 3 declared that the division or
reorganization of existing states would not occur unless accompanied by the
consent of the state legislatures concerned. Rather than attempt to render the
states obsolete, the Constitution created a specific legal and organizational
role for them to fulfil. Their elimination could only be accomplished by a
series of amendments that would drastically alter the form and function of the
United States government.
The second fact worth noting is
that Alexander Hamilton, arch-Federalist and supporter of the Constitution and
the resulting federal government, did in fact favour the gradual elimination of
the various states. Like his colleague James Madison, he took a dim view of the
rampant populism that had dominated state politics in the 1780s. Combined with
his experiences during the Revolutionary War of having to negotiate with
stubborn, short-sighted state governments for supplies and recruits, Hamilton
developed an acute disdain for what he perceived as unchecked state power. During the Philadelphia Convention he even
went so far as to propose to his fellow delegates a framework that would have
made state governors appointed by the federal government and given the
President (elected for life) an absolute veto over state legislation. This plan
was handily rejected, as few if any of the delegates present were willing to
countenance such an aggressive weakening of state prerogatives. While again it
bears remembering that this fact, along with all other proceedings of the
Philadelphia Convention, would not have become public knowledge until several
decades after the fact, Hamilton’s pseudo-monarchist proclivities and antipathy
towards the ideas of strong state governments were relatively well-known at the
time.
If the original, unamended text
of the United States Constitution does not contain measure that would have
afforded the elimination of the individual states then Melancton Smith’s
conviction to the contrary must have been drawn from elsewhere. Alexander
Hamilton was an ardent supporter of the proposed Constitution whose opposition
to strong, largely-autonomous states was no secret. Though Smith had no way of
knowing it, Hamilton had even proposed a plan of government that would have
made the states far more subservient to the federal government than that which
was contained in the final draft of the Constitution. Taking these facts into
consideration, along with Smith’s personal, financial and political attachment
to the government of his home state of New York, I would speculate that
Anti-Federalist No. 85 was directed as much at a perceived threat as an
explicit one. While he had every reason to treat certain elements of the
proposed constitution with a degree of caution, his most ardent suspicions were
perhaps directed more at the individuals he believed were championing the new
government than the thing itself. By positioning himself as a defender of the,
“common people, the yeomanry of the country,” against, “those who urge the
adoption of a bad constitution, under the delusive expectation of making
amendments after it is acceded to,” Smith demonstrated a plain antipathy for
the class of men he perceived as hustling the proposed government to an all-too
hasty adoption. By claiming that replacing the Articles of Confederation had
never entered into the minds of the state governments that had agreed to take
part in the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, he argued for a clear division of
interests between the states themselves and the supporters and Framers of the
Constitution. And by attempting to demonstrate the peace and prosperity that
the states had already come to enjoy under the Articles of Confederation in the
1780s, he tacitly questioned the necessity of altering the existing form of the
United States government and the speed with which that change was being
attempted.
Anyway, that’s how I see it. Give
it a read and decide for yourself: http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/antifederalist-paper-85
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