An Address to the People of the State of New-York, on the subject of the Federal Constitution, Part II

Hoo-boy. Where to start?

As mentioned previously, a great deal of Jay’s Address relies on rhetoric rather than reason. Instead of arguing strictly in terms of fact and logic about the various ways that adopting the proposed constitution would benefit the citizens of New York, Jay peppered his pamphlet of April, 1788 with emotionally-weighted allusions and leading phrases. While each of them appear innocuous enough on their own, the cumulative effect would seem to be a portrayal of the Constitution’s opponents as either hysterical or corrupt, its supporters as selfless and logical, and its authors as wise, prudent, and trustworthy. The basis for these various interpretations was not observable fact so much as feeling. Rather than rely solely on what could be proven, Jay often resorted to appearance and implication – it wasn’t that his opponents absolutely had an ulterior motive so much as their intentions were not always entirely clear. Jay made use of this ambiguity, the high stakes of the ratification debate, and the reputations of the people involved to gird the fair number of legitimate insights he had to offer with a healthy dose of emotional manipulation. While the latter certainly doesn’t render the former invalid, it is important to be able to recognize when a man like Jay was making a reasonable point and when he was giving his countrymen “the hard sell.”

In the second paragraph, for example, Jay stated,

The people at large always mean well, and although they may on certain occasions be misled by the counsels, or injured by the efforts of the few who expect more advantage from the wreck, than from the preservation of national prosperity, yet the motives of these few, are by no means to be confounded with those of the community in general.

This, in essence, represents a variation on a classic rhetorical device – i.e. the attribution of support for an idea one does not like to a “vocal minority.” In private conversation and public discourse alike, this is a trope that has served well those who aim to weaken the case of someone they disagree with by crediting actual strength to mere perception. Soon after being elected President in 1969, Richard Nixon (1913-1994) deployed another variation on this same tactic when he described his base of support – the socially conservative masses who felt alienated by the liberalism of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations – as a “silent majority.” Jay and Nixon, though separated by over two hundred years, each attempted to alter the terms of the debate they were engaged in by subtly indicating that the apparent strength of their detractors was a matter of perception rather than reality. In Jay’s case, this rhetorical two-step was accomplished by attributing a lack of support for the proposed constitution to “the few who expect more advantage from the wreck, than from the preservation of national prosperity [.]” Being few, they could not claim to represent the majority of their fellow citizens; their motives were their own, and existed fundamentally apart from the hopes and intentions of the “community in general.”

            Another instance of Jay’s use of subtext as a rhetorical tool can be found in the twelfth paragraph of his Address. Speaking of the authors of the proposed Constitution, he admitted that, in spite of that group’s wisdom and collective record of public service, there were those among their critics who believed the delegates to the Philadelphia Convention were moved by, “Impure and improper motives.” Such a judgement, Jay declared, was unthinkable. “Zeal for public good,” he further explained,

Like zeal for religion, may sometimes carry men beyond the bounds of reason, but it is not conceivable, that on this occasion, it should find means so to inebriate any candid American, as to make him forget what he owed to truth and to decency, or induce him either to believe or to say, that the almost unanimous advice of the Convention, proceeded from a wicked combination and conspiracy against the liberties of their country.

While the overt intention of this rather lengthy sentence is fairly obvious – Jay refused to accept that any of his countrymen actually believed the Framers of the Constitution had conspired against their fellow Americans – an analysis of the specific phrasing points to a somewhat less generous sentiment. By first stating flatly that “zeal for public good […] may sometimes carry men beyond the bounds of reason,” Jay seemed to indicate what he felt was behind some of the criticisms levelled at the proposed constitution. It wasn’t reason or logic, both of which he earlier implored his readers to practice, but zeal – synonymous with ardor, passion, or fanaticism – that had moved certain individuals to decry the new federal charter.

By adding that it was “not conceivable” that any of his fellow Americans had become so inebriated by that selfsame zeal as to “forget what he owed to truth and decency [,]” Jay no doubt also intended to intimate that any who really did believe that the Framers had proceeded with nefarious intent had allowed their enthusiasm for the public good to overpower their sense or reason. Rhetorical constructions of this kind are far from uncommon in the realm of public political discourse, in the decorous 18^th century as in the informal 21^st. Declaring of one’s opponent, for example, “I know you don’t really believe that, because if you did it would demonstrate a shocking lack of patriotism” is generally preferable to simply stating outright, “You demonstrate a shocking lack of patriotism.” The former is insulting, but deniable – the speaker can effectively claim to have spoken well of their opponent. The latter, meanwhile, is direct, unambiguous, and thus quite damning. If Jay had declared that any who suspected the Framers of conspiracy were deceitful zealots, drunk on their own sense of self-righteousness, he may well have exposed himself to unwanted recriminations. The purpose of his Address, after all, was not to draw attention to the sharpness of his own tongue, but to make a strong case in favor of ratifying the proposed Constitution. Blatant insults would likely not have helped achieve this end. That being said, the occasional veiled slight was not uncalled for, if it managed to lessen the potency of an opponent’s argument.

Broad and unverifiable generalizations seemed to be another of Jay’s favored tactics in his 1788 Address. Involving claims so vague in their parameters as to be impossible either to confirm or deny, this manner of strategy was doubtless particularly effective in the absence of population statistics or opinion polling. Within such a context, someone like Jay could claim of the assembly that drafted the United States Constitution, “The Convention concurred with the people, that a national government, competent to every national object, was indispensably necessary [,]” without fear of being directly and decisively contradicted. Found at the beginning of the thirteenth paragraph of his Address, this phrase was no doubt intended by Jay to communicate a sense of casual authority. “The Philadelphia Convention did what the people wanted it to do,” it effectively claimed, doubtless aided by the special significance which seems ever to adhere to the phrase “the people” in American public discourse. Further examination, however, very quickly makes clear how problematic this sort of claim can be.

            It should first go almost without saying that John Jay had virtually no way to accurately gauge the opinion of the American people as of the late 1780s. There was no public polling and the various state governments were almost entirely dominated by landowners, making them at best a misleading measure of public opinion. In addition, it is worth recalling that the circumstances under which the Philadelphia Convention was summoned were somewhat at odds with the role it eventually took on. Though the assembly, once it was finally convened in May, 1787, very quickly turned its attention to drafting a new administrative framework for the United States of America, it was originally summoned for the purpose of reforming the existing government under the Articles of Confederation. The delegates sent to represent the twelve participating states were selected by their respective state legislatures with this specific object in mind, and the proceedings of the convention itself where kept secret from the public until it was adjourned. It would consequently have seemed rather odd for the Philadelphia Convention to have “concurred in opinion with the people” at a time when the general population of the United States had only the vaguest notion of what the delegates were engaged in. Granted, there were those in service of both the state and national governments who declared in the lead-up to the Philadelphia Convention that they were in favor of replacing the Articles. Nevertheless, it is next to impossible to say whether or not they were in the majority among their fellow Americans, Jay’s claim notwithstanding.

It is also worth considering that the phrase “a national government, competent to every national object” is somewhat open to interpretation. While someone like Jay, or Alexander Hamilton, or George Washington were of the stated opinion in the late 1780s that the United States government required a much more robust and centralized structure in order to achieve actual competence, many of their countrymen believed to the contrary that the existing government under the Articles could be made competent by little more than a series of modifications or reforms. Furthermore, there lay between these two extremes a whole spectrum of opinion as to what constituted competence in a national government, which policy areas fell under the rubric of “national objects,” and how the United States could best be placed on the path to stability and prosperity. In truth, public opinion in the United States at the end of the 1780s on the subject of the national government varied widely depending on where a person lived, the nature of their profession, or whether they had served in the Revolutionary War.

The state ratifying conventions amply bore this out, and were far more partisan and contentious as a result. Whereas the delegates to the Philadelphia Convention were chosen by the various state legislatures and were, as a group, well-educated and well-to-do – i.e. a fair representation of the American elite – the men who served in these state conventions were popularly elected and in large part members of the emerging middle class of small-scale farmers and artisans – that is to say, a reasonable cross-section of the general population. While both groups – the national convention on one hand and the state conventions on the other – were ultimately able to arrive at a workable consensus as to the viability of the proposed constitution, the latter often did so accompanied by a great deal more obvious tension. This effectively gave the lie to any hope held out by supporters of the Constitution that the document would be approved by the states with speed and unanimity, as well as to Jay’s claim that “The Convention concurred in opinion with the people [.]” If this was true at all, it was only in the sense that the majority of the delegates to the Philadelphia Convention and the majority of people in the United States probably agreed that some manner of reform was necessary if the national government was to serve a useful purpose. Phrased thusly, however, it comes as little surprise that Jay preferred to characterise the matter as vaguely as he could.

            Jay further attempted to characterize the Philadelphia Convention as having acted in perfect consort with the wishes of the American people in paragraph twenty-two of his 1788 Address. In attempting to paint an image of serene solidarity, he first declared that the delegates had been appointed, “At a time when the States had become very sensible of the derangement of our national affairs, and of the impossibility of retrieving them under the existing Confederation.” This was in spite of the fact that many delegates to the various ratifying conventions clearly stated that they believed the Articles of Confederation were capable and worthy of being salvaged. It is also worth recalling that certain of the states – New York and Pennsylvania chief among them – benefited from the inability of Congress under the Articles to exert its authority over interstate commerce, and so were less likely than others to support an alteration to the status quo. It would thus have been more accurate, though perhaps less persuasive, for Jay to have stated, “When some in the States had become very sensible,” rather than make it seem as though any or all of the state governments had determined that the federal union was in need of wholesale change.

It is also worth recalling that attendees to the Philadelphia Convention were not chosen by the people that Jay appeared to claim they represented. Unlike the delegates to the various state ratifying conventions, who were elected by the voting population of specific counties and towns, the men chosen to participate in the Constitutional Convention were selected by the state legislatures. As a result, while the former could realistically be expected to speak for the interests of the particular communities that chose them, the former were responsible only to the states – and more accurately the state governments – who had seen fit to sponsor their appointment. While recognizing this distinction does not necessarily speak ill of any of the parties involved or their intentions – Orange County, New York and Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania had valid interests to address, as did the governments of their respective states – conflating the two, as Jay appeared to in his Address, is undeniably problematic. By using the word “constituents,” he almost certainly intended to call to mind the voting population of a given state – that is to say, the same people who elected representatives to the various state assemblies. In point of fact, however, these people had no part in choosing who represented them at the Philadelphia Convention. If they had, the entire ratification process would have been unnecessary – having chosen the men who authored the constitution, what purpose would there have been in consulting the general population a second time? After all, laws devised by the people’s representatives don’t require popular approval before they take effect. In consequence, Jay’s assertion that the states, the delegates to the Philadelphia Convention, and the American people had worked in harmony all along represented a logical fallacy as well as a muddled and confusing characterization of how the Constitution actually came to be. 

            Jay’s 1788 Address notwithstanding, the general population of the United States was unaware during the life of the Constitutional Convention of what precisely its attendees where up to. If they had been – if, for instance, the people of Worcester County, Massachusetts, site of a major confrontation during the abortive Shays Rebellion of 1786, had known that delegates from their state were in the process of drafting a plan for a much stronger federal government – no small portion would more than likely have broken the “silent suspence” Jay attributed to them and raised a loud objection. As the ratification process made clear, the towns of Western Massachusetts, and the counties of Western Pennsylvania and Northern New York, were skeptical, if not openly hostile, towards the prospect of increasing the practical authority of the United States government. Though delegates had been sent to Philadelphia to theoretically represent their interests in the creation of a new charter for the federal union, the revelation of what those delegates had accomplished – the scope and scale of the government they created – came as an unpleasant surprise to many upon the unveiling of the Constitution in September, 1787. The reason for this is fairly obvious; rather than represent the interests of “the people” of the United States, the Philadelphia Convention had represented the interests of the states – i.e. the aggregate of the interests of the general population, filtered through franchise restrictions and political manoeuvring. Jay seemed to wilfully misrepresent this fact in his Address, doubtless in the hope of assuaging any fears that the proposed constitution was being foisted on a people who had no hand in its creation.