Centinel I, Part VI: Instruments of Despotism

During the various debates which took place among the assembled delegates to the Philadelphia Convention during the summer and fall of 1787 – out of which emerged the framework of the United States Constitution – there was perhaps one single political concept which did more to shape what was and was not spoken about than any other. It was not republicanism, interestingly enough, or civil liberties, or the separation of powers. Rather, it was the notion of monarchy. Having thrown off the authority of the British Crown but five years prior after eight years of bloody conflict, the delegates were in some sense paranoid, in another terrified, that in attempting to reform the nascent union of states into a centralized national government they might unintentionally reintroduce some element of monarchy into the framework of American life. Power, in consequence, was handled very carefully in the proposed constitution, particularly when it devolved upon the individual. Consider, to that end, the office of President. While in many respects the chief executive of the United States of America resembled a monarch in terms of the function it was intended to perform and the responsibilities it was entrusted with, a host of safeguards were simultaneously put in place for the purpose of restraining the American President from engaging in anything even resembling monarchical excess. These safeguards included, but were not limited to, a four year term in office, Senate approval of appointees and international treaties, a legislative override of the executive veto, and birth and age requirements as prerequisites for election. The combined result of these measures was that the President of the United States enjoyed a fairly narrow scope of independent action, could go no more than four years before returning to the people for approval or dismissal, and could select as advisors only those whom the legislative branch approved. The knowledge that George Washington would serve as the inaugural holder of this office served as an additional, informal precaution. Having proven himself over the course of the Revolutionary War and its immediate aftermath to be a man of humility, prudence, and self-sacrifice, it was confidently assumed that Washington’s calm, evenhanded presence atop the newly-empowered national government would ensure that no abuses took place over the formative years of the presidency, and that he would leave in his wake a set of worthy precedents which his successors would be loath to break.

Valuable as these provisions – and the paranoia of those who erected them – did ultimately prove, they were nevertheless confined to the realm of institutional power. The delegates to the Philadelphia Convention, though clearly very concerned about the manner in which authority was to be wielded under the system of government they had gathered to construct, appeared to give otherwise little thought to the manner in which authority would be wielded outside of – but still very much affecting – the formal structures of the state. A great deal of attention, for instance, had been paid to the form and function of the legislative branch while at the same time seemingly nothing was offered as a counter to the influence of wealth upon legislative elections. Just so, in spite of the careful attention focused upon the particular mechanism by which the American President was to be elected, little concern appeared to have been given to the possibility of factional manipulation of the relevant electors. In some cases, this may have come about as a result a necessary compromise between state and national prerogatives. The President, for example, was wholly a creature of the federal government, elected on a national basis rather than by the states or their representatives in Congress. But the manner by which the electors whose formal duty it was to select the President was left entirely to the states to determine, allowing for a high degree of regional variation in accordance with regional needs or desires.

It may also have been the case that the aforementioned delegates simply did not believe it was their responsibility – or that it was even possible – to identify and counter every social deficiency which might have affected the performance of the government they had designed. People would be swayed by money, driven by ambition, and cowed by fear under the auspices of even the best government ever created, and none of those selfsame delegates would surely have avowed that their proposed constitution embodied anything like perfection. Rather than attempt to create a framework of government that was somehow impervious to the worst aspects of humanity – which, again, would almost certainly have been impossible – the Framers may instead have honestly tried to focus those aspects in a socially constructive direction. If men were inevitably going to seek power and preferment, harness their achievement to public service. If local and national interests were always going to struggle for predominance, use that struggle to keep each party in check. It was, by and large, a very messy way to go about things, but one which would seemingly never lack for energy.   

There was another possibility, of course, though it was not one which the men involved would likely have been willing to admit. The United States Constitution may have lacked formal safeguards against the influence of non-institutional power because its architects were exactly those who possessed and wielded it. They were men of accomplishment, after all – lawyers, and doctors, and merchants, and bankers – possessed of wealth, connections, and influence, over and within the communities from which they hailed. Most of them had served in the Continental Army, and enjoyed the respect of their neighbors and the trust of their peers as a result. A number of them owned large plantations and numerous slaves, and at least two of them could fairly count themselves among the richest men in America. It followed accordingly that, in the event of the creation of a new national government whose core conceit was the widespread and frequent election of its officers, these men – these fifty-five luminaries, grandees, and notables – would be better equipped than the great majority of their countrymen to turn their abundant social and economic power into publically-sanctioned political power. They had been doing exactly that since the colonial era – they or their forefathers – serving generation after generation in legislatures or on councils, as sheriffs and justices. No doubt they took it as a given that they would continue in this manner within whatever expanded federal power structure they managed to erect.

This is not to say, of course, that the Framers were wholly self-interested in their collective approach to the United States Constitution and the government it described. By all accounts, these were men of conscience as well as attainment whose concern for the liberties of their fellow countrymen was conscious and genuine. Nevertheless, it may still have been their unconscious intention to leave unaddressed certain deficiencies in the framework of federal power which they in turn were well-placed to exploit. This unspoken relationship between institutional and non-institutional power, the text of Centinel I makes clear, was of particular concern to its author Samuel Bryan. Surveying the condition of United States at the time of his writing in the late 1780s, he noted with evident trepidation that,

The late revolution having effaced in a great measure all former habits, and the present institutions are so recent, that there exists not that great reluctance to innovation, so remarkable in old communities, and which accords with reason, for the most comprehensive mind cannot foresee the full operation of material changes on civil polity [.]

The American people, in short, appeared to Bryan as in a state of particular suggestibility. Having cast off centuries of tradition along with the authority of the British Crown, they were at that moment more receptive to a major alteration of their social and political habits than they ever had been and perhaps ever would be again. At the same time that this was potentially a moment of tremendous opportunity, however, it also presented to the American people an equally outsized danger.

            The problem, Bryan avowed, was that at the same time the American people had been made particularly amenable to a significant alteration in their political customs, they remained vulnerable to all the deficiencies inherent in human nature. They were, for example, ill-informed on certain subjects, and often unwilling to become informed due to disinterest, idleness, or arrogance. In the case of a topic like, “The science of government” this tendency was exacerbated by what Bryan described as the abstruseness of the subject. The mechanisms and philosophy of public administration were to most people so exceptionally obscure, he avowed, that, “Few are able to judge for themselves [.]” That this accordingly made some degree of assistance necessary, Bryan freely admitted, to the point of calling, “Those who are competent to the task of developing the principles of government […] to come forward, and thereby the better enable the people to make a proper judgment [.]” But to this encouragement, the author of Centinel I joined a healthy dose of caution. “Without assistance,” he continued,

The people are too apt to yield an implicit assent to the opinions of those characters, whose abilities are held in the highest esteem, and to those in whose integrity and patriotism they can confide; not considering that the love of domination is generally in proportion to talents, abilities, and superior acquirements; and that the men of the greatest purity of intention may be made instruments of despotism in the hands of the artful and designing.

The implicit distinction to which Bryan appeared to be calling the attention of his countrymen was between expert assistance and popular leadership. It was one thing to seek the aid of someone possessed of knowledge in a particular area. Not only was this a useful endeavor, he avowed, but in times of profound decision it was nothing short of essential. But experts are not the only people inclined to offer their guidance, and nor are they the only figures that the public tends to turn to.

Certain individuals, for reasons of popularity, affection, respect, or achievement will seem always to enjoy the attention, the loyalty, and the following of their fellow man. In matters of taste, they become trend setters. In matters of reason, they become de facto authorities. At times, their position may fairly be described as having been earned, through toil, or hardship, or service. But at others, they have simply managed to catch the fancy of their neighbors through some mixture of luck and presentation. Their importance, in short, stems from the fact that they take pains to appear important. In spite the gulf which would seem to separate their moral significance, however, the public does not always seem attentive to, or interested in, the difference between one and the other. Some people, it appears to be the ineffable truth, simply want to be led, and some people, it appears equally true and equally ineffable, simply want to lead. It was this fundamental maxim with which Samuel Bryan appeared to concern himself in the passage cited above. Sensible, at the very least, that a decision of great importance had been placed before them which was beyond their capabilities to make without assistance, Bryan was evidently anxious that certain of his countrymen would not adequately differentiate between informed advice and uninformed leadership. Those who were possessed of popularity in proportion to their talents, he avowed, should be viewed with the utmost suspicion, for ambition was so often the consequence of ability. Even when this was not the case – when purity of motive could be definitively established – caution was still called for. While he did not enjoin his countrymen to make it a cardinal rule in all their dealings, Bryan nonetheless advised that, “Men of the greatest purity of intention may be made instruments of despotism [.]” The possibility of cooption – the “may be” – was evidently enough to disqualify even the most outwardly selfless guidance that came from a popular source.

The rationale behind Bryan’s abiding distrust of the popular and the powerful, the relevant text of Centinel I went on to explain, once more seemed to stem from both the peculiar state of America society at that moment in time and certain persistent deficiencies readily observable in human nature. As to the former, he again made clear that recent events had rendered his fellow countrymen, “Unsettled in their sentiments,” and consequently, “Prepared to acceded to any extreme of government [.]” Precedents which had stood for centuries were but recently cast aside, and the general attitude of the public was decidedly in favor of change. At the same time, however, certain truths as to the nature of human society and the moral character of mankind remained fundamentally unaltered. “The wealthy and ambitious,” Bryan affirmed, “Who in every community think they have a right to lord it over their fellow creatures,” were yet a factor in the United States of America to be taken into account. Having observed the impressionable mood of their fellow citizens, these perennial cultivators of power had doubtless set themselves to formulating a plan by which the situation at hand would play out to their advantage. Thus did the author of Centinel I attribute the calls for reforming the existing union of states which ultimately led to the Philadelphia Convention to a plot on the part of unnamed but interested intriguers. “All the distresses and difficulties they experience,” he accordingly explained,

Proceeding from various causes, have been ascribed to the impotency of the present confederation, and thence they have been led to expect full relief from the adoption of the proposed system of government, and in the other event, immediately ruin and annihilation as a nation.

Thus the American people were led to believe that a reform of their national institutions was of paramount necessity. And having been convinced that the union of states was on the brink of collapse, they acceded to the schemes of exactly the class of men who stood to derive the greatest benefit from the centralization of federal power.

            While Bryan was certainly correct in his assessment that the United States under the Articles of Confederation was at no point realistically faced with “ruin and annihilation as a nation,” the economic recovery which followed the conclusion of armed hostilities with Great Britain in 1783 was in actual fact both slight and highly uneven. Imports of British goods rebounded to pre-war levels, trade was significantly expanded between the nascent American republic and such venerable mercantile partners as France, Portugal, and the Netherlands, and the Mid-Atlantic States in particular – i.e. New York and Pennsylvania – enjoyed a period of industrial expansion in part facilitated by access to former Loyalist property and capital. At the same time, however, taxes in some states were forced to exceed pre-war levels in order to meet the tremendous debt obligations taken on during the 1770s, paper currency was widely over-printed by state governments, leading to large-scale inflation, and foreign trade agreements remained few and far between as long as Congress proved itself incapable of enforcing its authority over the quarrelsome states. In consequence of these varied circumstances, while life could be said to have markedly improved for people in contemporary New York City, Philadelphia, or Richmond, rural areas continued to suffer from shortages of hard currency and credit, interstate trade was marred by high tariffs, and foreclosures upon private property became increasingly common. Rural Western Massachusetts even became the site of a grassroots insurrection when, over the course of the 1780s, farmers found themselves unable to pay the debts they owed to their merchant creditors and responded by seizing and shutting down the local courts. While this most definitely represented an isolated incident – and one which was settled relatively quickly in spite of government indecision – “Shays’ Rebellion,” as it became known, nonetheless embodies the straits to which some Americans really were reduced during the period that the Articles of Confederation were in force.