Anti-Federalist No. 85 (A Plebian), Part IV: Rhetoric

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 18^th 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-19^th 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.

Anti-Federalist No. 85 (A Plebian), Part III: Fact, contd.

Smith overstated America’s prospects once more in the fifth paragraph of Anti-Federalist No. 85, in this case when he argued that the debts facing the various states were not as burdensome as some had claimed. Indeed, what seemed to concern Smith more were the debts held by individuals. Personal debts that were contracted before the Revolutionary War, he argued, were left unpaid during the commencement of hostilities and were increased after the arrival of peace by the sudden re-appearance of costly foreign luxuries on the American market. These, he claimed, were, “the true sources to which we are to trace all the private difficulties of individuals.” To this initial proposal he added that the colonies that became the United States suffered through similar hardships during the years of the French and Indian War (1754-1763) as they had during the more recent conflict with Britain. In spite of the scarcity of hard currency, abundance of debt and decline in agriculture, however, the colonies were able to recover in relatively short order without the need for the formation of any kind of federal administration. In short, Smith argued that the cause of America’s debts were obvious, the remedy clear, and the severity of the situation greatly exaggerated.

In this instance Smith was guilty of omission as well as misrepresentation. In fairness, he was correct to point out that the existing debts held by certain citizens of the colonies were left unpaid during the Revolutionary War, and that the influx of British goods into the United States after the conclusion of hostilities likely contributed to many people’s debts increasing. He failed entirely, however, to account for the financial obligations accrued by the various states on behalf of the war effort, and by the Continental Congress on behalf of the states. By 1790, when the United States’ national debt was being calculated, the federal government owed something on the order of $52 million to both foreign and domestic lenders. The states owed a comparatively minor $20 million, with a great deal of variation between them. States in the North, by and large, had failed to pay off most of their existing debt in the years following the Revolutionary War, while states like Virginia had managed to reduce almost half of their financial obligations by the late 1780s. Smith’s home state of New York was somewhere in between. Though it owed nowhere near as much as Massachusetts ($4 million) and close to half as much as Pennsylvania ($2 million), its $1, 200,000 debt was hardly to be glossed over. However well-off New York was compared to some of its sister-states, at some point it would have needed to pay what it owed. And as the situation in Massachusetts had shown in 1786, attempts to raise taxes in order to pay off state debts and commencing foreclosures on individuals who could not afford to pay off their own obligations had the potential to lead to armed resistance.

Where Smith also fell short in his argument about debt was in his assessment of the situation in America after the French and Indian War. As he portrayed it in No. 85, the war was fought by the colonies themselves, debts were accrued or left unpaid in a similar fashion to the later War of Independence, and in spite of the economic downturn that followed the declaration of peace in 1763 the American colonists were able to recover thanks to little more than, “time and industry.” What Smith neglected to mention, of which he surely must have been aware, was that the French and Indian War was chiefly funded not by the colonial governments but by their imperial masters in Britain. The colonies certainly contributed their share of manpower and resources, and it was in their territory that many battles took place, but the majority of the financial burden of the conflict fell to the British taxpayers, effectively doubling the national debt. Indeed it was Britain’s attempt to remedy this situation in the 1760s by levying taxes on the colonies that set in motion the events that led to the formation of the United States. The crucial fact that Smith glossed over, therefore, was that the ease of the American colonies’ recovery after the French and Indian War was greatly facilitated by the fact that the conflict was waged at little financial cost to them. His analogy between the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War was thus a false one. And unless Smith wished to see the government of his beloved New York overthrown by angry debtors a solution of some kind or another was demanded.

  That last clear instance of factual error that can be pointed to in Anti-Federalist No. 85 comes in the form of a list, at the end of the eighth paragraph, of some of the aspects of the Constitution that Smith and his compatriots found particularly objectionable. Though some of these complaints, it must be said, represent opinions which are neither right nor wrong, or creative interpretations of verifiable facts, others are demonstrably false. For instance, Smith argued that the proposed constitution was potentially dangerous because it gave to Congress, “an unlimited power of taxation both with respect to direct and indirect taxes, a right to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises of every kind and description, and to any amount.” Considering the fact that disputes over taxation were one of the events that sparked the American Revolution in the 1770s, this would no doubt have seemed an alarming claim that touched on a sensitive issue. It was also, however, factually incorrect. Among the explicit mentions the United States Constitution makes of taxes or taxation, several impose distinct limits on the nature and exercise of the government’s taxing power. Article I, Section 2 states that taxes, along with Congressional representatives, shall be apportioned among the states, “according to their respective numbers.” Far from unlimited, taxes can thus only be levied according to population. Article I, Section 8 states that, though Congress does possess the authority to, “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,” these fees shall be, “uniform throughout the United States.” This would seem to ensure that no one state could be made to feel the burden of taxation to a greater degree than any of its counterparts. Article I, Section 9, in addition to reiterating the earlier prohibition on any taxes being levied without accounting for population, also states that, “No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.” These declared limits may not have given much comfort to Smith, who was likely uncomfortable altogether with the idea of an entity other than the government of New York being able to tax that state’s citizens. Regardless, they are absolutely limits on federal power.

Within this same list Smith also stated that the, “liberty granted by the system to establish and maintain a standing army without limitation or restriction,” was also viewed by critics of the proposed constitution as worthy of reconsideration. Once again, this is a perfectly understandable complaint. Classical republicanism was a philosophy very much in vogue among the learned classes in the early years of the United States, as was its traditional antipathy towards standing armies. Coupled with some of the events of the 1770s, during which large numbers of British troops were stationed and quartered among the population of Boston without the consent of the colonial assembly, the Anti-Federalists’ fear of inaugurating a government with significant military authority was well-founded. That being said the Constitution of the United States makes scant mention of any such authority, and where it does imposes clear limits on its exercise. Article I, Section 8 states that Congress possesses the authority to raise and support armies, but that, “no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years.” There would seem to be little ambiguity in this statement; the purpose, size, and composition of any army raised under the authority of Congress would need to be reviewed every two years at least if its funding is to be maintained. Article I, Section 8 contains further instructions as to federal authority over state militias, and Article II, Section 2 references the role of President as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. Nowhere else in the entire document are standing armies mentioned, either as a tool capable of being wielded by Congress or as something that must be limited and controlled. Smith’s sense of alarm as expressed in Anti-Federalist No. 85, while philosophically grounded, would thus seem to have been ultimately unnecessary.

 And speaking of necessity, I hear you asking, what is the purpose of exposing the lies of a man who’s been dead for over two hundred years? So Melancton Smith was a bit dodgy with his facts; so what? This, I must admit, is a very good question. You’re to be commended for thinking of it, though you could have been a tad more diplomatic. Taking the falsehoods contained in Anti-Federalist No. 85 that I've pointed out in hand, there would seem to be several conclusions that present themselves.

First, it’s possible that Smith never intended to represent his arguments as anything other than the truth, and that if he did lie it came purely from a place of ignorance. He was, as I’ve pointed out more than once, a man whose life and career was spent very much within the physical and mental confines of the state of New York. Not only was he materially connected to his home state, owning property there and perhaps never having travelled outside its borders, but his energies and loyalties would appear to have been very much devoted to its prosperity, security, and liberty. If he was thus unaware of the larger economic situation unfolding across the United States, in the failed diplomatic initiatives of Congress or the petty squabbles of the New England states, it was because these things did not interest him, or seemed only distantly related to the fortunes of the Empire State. If this seems to us a hopelessly parochial perspective there is ample reason for it. We forget so easily how small the world used to be, and how skewed the perspective of historical actors often was as a result of the information they had access to and the environment in which they lived and worked. There are certainly times, and I suppose I'm speaking as a historian, when a subject of study (a Jefferson, James I or Genghis Khan) will surprise us with how sophisticated their understanding of their world seems to be. Yet, there are also times when we are struck by how little a person from the past seems to know about the world around them, particularly in regard to subjects that we have long since taken for granted as common knowledge. Melancton Smith may not have known what was going on in the other states, how bad the economic situation was or how close the Union was to collapse, because the information needed to form those kinds of conclusions simply wasn't available to him. To be honest it probably wasn't available to most people in the 18^th century, and for that I don’t believed Smith ought to be faulted.

There is, of course, also the possibility that he knew precisely how bad the economic/political/diplomatic situation was in 1780s America and set out to mislead the public regardless. This would seem, on the surface, to fly in the face of what many of us have come to understand as the inherent virtue of the Founding Generation, their appreciation of things like truth and reason, and their oft-repeated assertion that open debate is the only way for right to triumph over wrong. Washington, folk-tales notwithstanding, was above simple falsehoods; as were Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and Madison. These were Great Men doing Great Work; lying is simply not a part of what we understand to be their psychological or moral makeup. Is the conclusion, then, that Melancton Smith was in some fundamental way less than they were? The answer, I believe, is that none of them were as saintly as we sometimes imagine.

Maybe Melancton Smith lied while making his case in Anti-Federalist No. 85, but then Alexander Hamilton was a master manipulator, Thomas Jefferson was a raging hypocrite, and John Adams was petty and vain. They were all of them human beings, as complex and as capable of defying logic as any of us. If Melancton Smith lied about the state of America in the 1780s and the powers granted by the proposed constitution it was not without reason; the authority and autonomy of his state, his home, his livelihood, was potentially being threatened. Whatever the advocates of the Constitution promised, whatever the benefits of the new government might have been, there was no way to know in 1788 what would come to pass if the ratification process was successful. In the meantime the various states were being asked to voluntarily surrender a significant portion of the sovereignty they had so recently fought to protect. Faced with this stark reality it’s perhaps not so difficult to understand why someone like Melancton Smith would have preferred the devil he knew to the one he didn't. This isn't to excuse the fact that he lied, just as it isn’t meant as a condemnation. It isn't important that Smith be judged for his falsehoods, whatever they may be, but it is very important that they and the logic behind them be understood.

The truth, if the word hasn't lost all meaning at this point, probably lies somewhere between these two extremes. There were, I'm certain, many things about the state of the American economy in the 1780s, the availability of credit, the pressures faced by American merchants abroad, and the magnitude of the total debt held by the United States that Melancton Smith simply wasn't aware of. And I don’t doubt that this was at least in part due to his lack of exposure to the national political/diplomatic stage. At the same time, there were assuredly many other assertions he was abundantly aware of but chose not to acknowledge. This might have been out of a desire to mislead, or because he simply didn't trust their source. The advocates of the Constitution were the ones painting the bleak economic picture; surely it was because they stood to gain? Perhaps the Constitution claimed to set limits on taxation and the use of standing armies, but how could a plan that required the states to divest themselves of some of their independence possibly have been crafted with their best interests in mind? In short, Smith might truly have believed that he was not lying so much as countering what he perceived as the lies inherent in the Federalist position. This is, I’ll be the first to admit, a rather muddy conclusion, but such is the nature of studying the past with anything like nuance in mind.

You’ll forgive me if this next part gets a bit philosophical.  

You see, in many ways the past is kind of unknowable. There are facts, as we understand them, there are perspectives, which we try to account for, and there are theories, which we attempt to hone to as keen an edge as Occam’s proverbial razor. But beyond all of that there is the great and unbridgeable expanse of time that ever lies between now and then. In that expanse so much is lost forever; thoughts, feelings, motivations. And try as we might to reconstruct them out of the fragments or shadows that posterity has left us, there will always, always be something that we miss. But for all that we must try. For in the attempt to understand the past, its assumptions and idiosyncrasies, we gain a deeper understanding of where we came from, how we came to be, and all the things that we take for granted every single day.

Anti-Federalist No. 85 (A Plebian), Part II: Fact

Considering what was at stake for the Federalists and Anti-Federalists alike during the early summer of 1788 when Melancton Smith donned his “Plebian” disguise and gave voice to his anxieties in Anti-Federalist No. 85, its rather strident tone is hardly surprising. This isn’t to say that Smith was, at that moment, desperate to avert what he perceived as an immanent disaster. As I’ve argued already, he was writing at a moment in time in which it could not have been clear to anyone whether the Constitution would succeed or fail. I feel it would be fair to say, however, that Smith clearly endeavoured to make the best argument possible in No. 85, and in the process bent or elided certain facts. He was hardly alone in this; Alexander Hamilton’s arguments in favor of the proposed constitution were rife with exaggerations and highly-charged rhetoric, as well as certain factual inaccuracies and selective distortions of the truth. Arguably, this was the norm. Though the high-minded James Madison or moralistic John Jay might have disagreed, the ratification debate was not as much about the triumph of fact, reason, and right as it was about persuasion, rhetoric, and politics.

Keeping that in mind, I’ve determined to break up my examination of Anti-Federalist No. 85 into two parts. The first, which will follow here, will discuss some of the factual omissions or distortions that Smith presented to his readers in the course of his argument. The second, which will unfold in subsequent posts, will look into some of the rhetoric that Smith deployed, its meaning, and desired effect.

The first argument that Smith deployed in No. 85, which in many ways forms the intellectual or philosophical backdrop for that which followed, asserted that the urgency with which the Federalists were promoting the adoption of the Constitution was based on a fundamentally false assumption. Whereas the advocates of the new government urged that the federal administration under the Articles of Confederation was weak and ineffectual and had been the root cause of the economic and diplomatic struggles widely felt in the post-Revolutionary War United States, Smith believed that this acute sense of distress was largely manufactured. Contrary to Americans being, “in a condition the most deplorable of any people on earth,” Smith wrote in the fourth paragraph, they were rather blessed by an existence grounded in freedom and prosperity. Famers cultivated their land and reaped the fruit of their labour; workingmen and artisans plied their arts and enjoyed the due reward of their toil; merchants extended their commercial practices and enjoyed honest gain for honest work; in all things from commerce, to agriculture, to the law (which Smith claimed was being executed as well as ever), the United States was the farthest from despair and collapse as could be imagined. There was, therefore, no reason to hastily put in place a new and untested system of government, and one having been recommended no reason to rush its approval without due reflection and possible amendment. This is indeed an encouraging portrait of the United States in the 1780s, and one which no doubt accorded with the experiences of a not insignificant portion of the total population. It was in the main, however, demonstrably untrue for a great number of people living in all thirteen of the states then in existence.      

      

The reason that men like Alexander Hamilton and James Madison so strongly advocated for the replacement of the Articles of Confederation was that the United States was suffering materially from a lack of internal unity and external strength. Keeping in mind that I’ve run down a similar list of the deficiencies of the federal government under the Articles in a previous week’s post, I’ll try to keep this next bit brief.  

States and individuals alike had accrued sizable debts during the years of the Revolutionary War (1775-1783) and in the aftermath of the conflict there was very little hard currency left to pay them off. The paper money printed by the Continental Congress lost its value at an alarming rate and many people, chief among them farmers, attempted to make use of the political institutions of the states in which they lived in order to remedy the situation. The resultant push and pull between debtors and creditors, the newly empowered “common people” and the traditional elite, resulted in civil and political strife in numerous states. The most famous example of this economic discontent was the 1786 rebellion led by Daniel Shays that erupted in Massachusetts. The causes of the disturbance, which was ultimately crushed in early 1787, included the strains of the post-war economic depression, the credit crunch brought about by the lack of hard currency, and the harsh economic policies put in place by the Massachusetts government in 1785 in order to pay of the state’s debt. Massachusetts was not alone in attempting to cope with these sorts of pressures, and to a greater or lesser degree all of these factors can conceivably be traced to the weaknesses inherent in the federal government.   

American foreign and trade policy during the years under the Articles were similarly disjointed. The boycott of British goods that had been in place throughout the Revolution came to an end after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, and the resultant flood of British manufactured goods that appeared in the United States threatened the livelihood of the indigenous American manufacturers who had sprung up in the 1780s to fill the void. This problem was compounded because the individual states retained control over their own commerce, making it essentially impossible for American diplomats to successfully negotiate trade agreements with foreign nations because the federal government had virtually no way of ensuring that any or all of said states would recognize whatever terms were agreed upon. This lack of economic coordination also complicated attempts to compel nations like Britain to abandon their restrictive trade regulations and led to competition between the states. In response to Britain’s refusal to allow goods to be carried to British ports by anything other than British ships, for instance, the New England states began to once more boycott all British products. This attempt at economic coercion backfired when Connecticut quickly re-opened its ports and gained a sudden monopoly on British commerce. During this same period American trade in the Mediterranean was subject to harassment from pirates based in North Africa. The inability of Congress to enforce its taxation of the various states ensured that a naval expedition intended to confront the brigands wouldn’t be funded, and indeed didn’t materialize until the early 19^th century.

It’s difficult to say whether or not Melancton Smith was entirely aware of the multitude of problems that the United States faced in the 1780s, and which the federal government under the Articles of Confederation was manifestly incapable of confronting. Granted, he’d severed a two year term in the Continental Congress beginning in 1785 and must have become aware over that time of how dysfunctional the federal administration could be. That being said, Smith was primarily a New York politician whose wealth, prestige and interests were very much tied to those of his home state. Since under the Articles of Confederation each of the states, New York included, was responsible for regulating its own commerce, and since Smith was a merchant by trade who was also deeply invested in the New York political scene, he likely would not have been amenable to having the powers enjoyed by the government of New York lessened. Under the proposed constitution individual states would no longer be able to negotiate external commercial agreements on their own, the federal government would assume the responsibility for regulating interstate commerce, and New York merchants, bankers, farmers and artisans would be forced to contribute tax revenue to the central government. However necessary these things were, and they were, they would have lessened the autonomy enjoyed by the government of New York and its citizens. This, I think, Smith found disagreeable in principle, not without reason.

The fact remains, however, that Smith’s characterization in Anti-Federalist No. 85 of the economic prosperity enjoyed by the states under the Articles was factually inaccurate. Farmers would most often those who emerged from the Revolutionary War years significantly in debt. Add to that the inability of the anaemic federal government to negotiate an end to British commerce regulations and the competition that emerged between states over vital markets for their produce, and it is highly doubtful that American agriculture could have been described as flourishing in the 1780s. Artisans and merchants likewise suffered from the sudden influx of cheap British goods, from attacks on American trade in the Mediterranean, and the alarming scarcity of hard currency and resulting inflation that characterized the American economy during the same period. Americans may not have been, “the most deplorable of any people upon earth” in the 1780s, but their situation was far from enviable and needed to be addressed lest the states fly apart and the United States cease to exist as a political entity.

Anti-Federalist No. 85 (A Plebian), Part I: Context

Before I move on in coming weeks to a rather extended project, involving a series of thematically linked discussions on the nature of corporations in the early American republic, I’d like to take the opportunity to sort of wrap up a topic I seem to have spent quite a lot of time on. Though I may not have intended it from the outset, the debate between Federalism and Anti-Federalism over the ratification of the United States Constitution has figured largely in my writings, low these many months. After discussing the efforts of Hamilton, Madison and Jay and examining some of the arguments put forward by the Anti-Federalists, I’d like to put a button on things by taking a look at another of the Anti-Federalist Papers. Specifically I’ll be examining Anti-Federalist No. 85, written under the pseudonym “A Plebian.” Usually the last of the Anti-Federalist Papers found in most printed collections, it attempted to sum up some of the arguments against ratification prior to discussing amendments, debunk some of the declarations made by supporters of ratification of the danger of delay, and point to some of the most commonly agreed-upon flaws to be found in the main text of the Constitution. It is, to my mind, not particularly remarkable in its arguments, language, or influence. Still, I found that when compared with the efforts of Hamilton in particular, who was arguing from the opposite point of view, some very interesting conclusions presented themselves.

The author of Anti-Federalist No. 85, in spite of the self-consciously humble pen name he chose to write under, was a well-heeled New York merchant and land-owner named Melanchthon Smith. Born in 1744 on Long Island in the Province of New York, Smith was home-schooled by his parents and in his adult life became a prominent merchant in Poughkeepsie, the seat of Dutchess County. In 1775 he entered state politics after being elected to the first New York Provincial Congress and helped organize a militia in his home county. There he also served on a three-member surveillance commission tasked with ascertaining the loyalty of various residents to the Patriot cause and monitoring potentially harmful conspiracies. During this same period, 1777/78, he also served as Dutchess County sheriff and enhanced his personal wealth by purchasing several estates that had been seized by the state government from confirmed Loyalists. After the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, in 1785, Smith relocated to New York City where he helped found the anti-slavery New York Manumission Society alongside future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and Governor of New York John Jay. From 1785 to 1787 he served as one of New York’s delegates to the Continental Congress, and in 1788 he was among the 57 delegates sent to the New York ratification convention in Poughkeepsie to debate and vote on the adoption of the proposed constitution. At the time he was considered one of the few prominent land-owners and merchants within the Anti-Federalist ranks, and a staunch supporter of long-time New York Governor George Clinton.

Not a lot to go on, right?

Well, the fact of the matter is that Melancton Smith was among the multitude of state politicians, military officers, merchants and diplomats whose exploits never became the stuff of legend, as with some of their more prominent contemporaries, but whose efforts nevertheless were instrumental to the success of the Patriot cause during the American Revolution. Because Smith never really entered the national stage, serving only two years in Congress prior to the adoption of the Constitution, and because he subsequently died in 1798 he remains relatively obscure. That being said, armed with the admittedly paltry biographical information now available, certain conclusions may be drawn about the kind of man Smith was and perhaps why he was inclined to oppose, in writing, the ratification of the United States Constitution.

First, it’s worth noting that Smith’s professional life was spent almost entirely within the New York political arena. He served in the state legislature and on a county counter-espionage committee, stood as sheriff, and on top of it all was one of the most prominent landowners and merchants in Dutchess County. His two years in Congress, representing the first and only time he stepped out onto the emerging American national stage, were during the last years of the notably dysfunctional federal government under the Articles of Confederation. As the national assembly under the Articles was often plagued by conflicts between the states over land and trade, it might be safe to say that its various delegates tended not to view themselves as serving larger American interests, but as representing only the specific desires of their respective states. Taking all of this into account, I think it would be fair to characterize Smith’s political priorities as being distinctly parochial. Whatever power and influence he wielded, and whatever wealth he had managed to accrue, flowed directly out of the State of New York, its politics, and its prosperity. Unlike Alexander Hamilton, another New Yorker who had served in the Continental Army, John Jay, who had represented the United States on the world stage as a diplomat in Europe, or James Madison, who was instrumental in creating the federally-administered Northwest Territory and in shaping the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights, Smith never had the same chance to develop an appreciation of the United States as a distinct political entity. For him, and for many others in the 1780s and 1790s, the United States of America was chiefly a confederation of smaller political entities. It was to one of these entities that Smith doubtless felt the most loyalty, and whose authority and influence he would not have wanted to see diminished.

Second, the fact of Smith’s association with Governor George Clinton warrants reflection. As I'm sure I mentioned in a previous post some weeks ago, New York politics in the early years of the American republic were highly factional. A handful of families or clans controlled the majority of state offices and constantly jockeyed for position. Clinton, who served as governor between 1777 and 1795 and again from 1801 to 1804, was the leader of one of these factions and had a reputation as being stubborn, confrontational, and a staunch critic of the emerging federal power. That Smith was considered an ally of Clinton indicates that he was a member of the governor’s faction, that he was invested in the state political scene, and that he sympathized with Clinton’s anti-federal sentiments. Indeed, local factional loyalties may have played a large part in situating many of New York’s politically influential during the ratification debate. John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, co-authors of the Federalist Papers, were both members of the (for lack of a better term) anti-Clinton faction, along with Hamilton’s father-in-law, future-Senator Philip Schuyler. Melancton Smith, along with fellow Anti-Federalist author Robert Yates, was a member of the opposing Clinton faction. While I don’t doubt that all of these men held honest ideological or moral reasons for the positions they expressed, I would neither discount the possibility that their support for or criticism of the proposed constitution was partly a transference of existing factional rivalries.

The last point I’d like to put forward has to do with the circumstances in which Smith sat down to write his anti-constitutional missive. The ratification process was just that – a process – and so locating Anti-Federalist No. 85 on the appropriate timeline is central to understanding its purpose and the probable intentions of its author. In many cases the details surrounding the publication of the various Anti-Federalist Papers are fairly well-documented; in addition to known or probable authors, these include the date, city of publication, and name of the relevant newspaper in which the various essays first saw print. No. 85, unfortunately, is not one of those. Though Melancton Smith has been agreed upon as having been the “Plebian” in question, little else is very clear. Fortunately, Mr. Smith was good enough to provide certain details in the work itself that make pinning down the date of his writing and publishing No. 85 a matter of simple deduction.

 In the seventh paragraph of his essay Smith mentions the outcome of the Connecticut and Massachusetts ratifying conventions, which completed their deliberations in January and February of 1788, respectively. Massachusetts was the sixth of the required nine states (2/3 of the total thirteen) to vote in favor of ratification, after Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and the aforementioned Connecticut. It is also known that Smith was present as a delegate at the New York ratifying convention that took place in his hometown of Poughkeepsie and concluded its deliberations in July of the same year. This means that Anti-Federalist No. 85 had to have been written at some point during the spring or summer of 1788. If the tone of Smith’s arguments is any indication, it’s probable that he was writing under the assumption that the adoption of the Constitution was not yet a done deal. New Hampshire was the ninth state to vote in favor of ratification in June, 1788; after that point the Constitution had met the threshold for adoption and the remaining states were left to vote on whether to join the new government or not. In all likelihood, then, Smith wrote Anti-Federalist No. 85 at some point between February and mid-June, 1788.

Why is this important? Well, it’s important because of the way it informs how Smith’s arguments in Anti-Federalist No. 85 might be read. In the early summer of 1788 the proposed constitution was neither fully accepted nor entirely defeated. Placing No. 85 in that period indicates that Smith was neither discussing the Constitution and the various states’ objections to it purely in theory, nor attempting to rally a body of resistance to a thing that had already been accomplished. Rather, Smith was taking part in a debate that was still ongoing. Of the “big four” states – Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York and Virginia – only two had voted to ratify, and  three more states still needed to follow suite before the Constitution could be considered adopted. For Smith and his fellow Anti-Federalists, then, those spring and summer months in 1788 were crucial. The right argument at the right time to the right audience could have turned the tide against the new government, thus fundamentally altering the version of American history that was about to play out. Indeed, if New York or Virginia, wealthy and populous both, had voted against ratification, what then? How could the proposed union hope to function without two such influential states? These were that stakes that Melancton Smith confronted when he sat down to write Anti-Federalist No. 85, and the possibilities that could have unfolded from that moment. His arguments should thus be taken in that light, be they grave or confident, skeptical or imploring. 

Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address, Part V: the Temper of the Moment, contd.

As I mentioned before, Jefferson was so often his own worst enemy. On numerous occasions over the course of his public career he issued forth proclamations or enunciated principles only to violate them himself scant years later. Though he devoted a significant portion of his First Inaugural Address to decrying the partisan conflict that had dominated the previous decade of American history and calling for reconciliation and tolerance, the years that followed his inauguration were not always characterized by that same elevated spirit. Without asking my readers to remember, I point first to the controversy that gave rise to the Marbury v. Madison Supreme Court decision that I wrote about in weeks past. Desperately seeking for a way to frustrate the incoming Jefferson administration, the outgoing Federalists under President John Adams passed the Judiciary Act of 1801 and nominated a number of their fellow partisans to various vacant and newly-created judicial offices. Though I wouldn't say this was entirely in keeping with the best traditions and practices of public service and good government, it was certainly legal and fully within the power of the Federalists to accomplish. Rather than abide by his own declarations of reconciliation and fulfil these appointments when he came into office in early 1801, however, Jefferson endeavoured (through his Secretary of State James Madison) to withhold the necessary commissions until they had expired and the Federalist appointees could be replaced. While this would seem to be a rather innocuous example, since Jefferson wasn’t actively persecuting the appointees but rather declining to act in their favour, the attempted impeachment of Samuel Chase constituted a far less passive attack on the Federalist judiciary.

 A native of Baltimore, former states-rights advocate, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, Samuel Chase had been appointed to the United States Supreme Court by President George Washington in 1796. By all accounts a competent jurist, he was known for being somewhat vocal in his opposition to the principles embraced by Jefferson and his Republican contemporaries. For instance, Justice Chase had made vociferous attacks on certain Republican supporters who had been jailed under the Alien & Sedition Acts, and when the Republican-controlled Congress repealed the Judiciary Act of 1801 (thereby deriving a number of Federalist judges of their offices in spite of theoretically lifetime appointments) he publicly stated his displeasure to a Baltimore grand jury. Confronted after 1803 with a newly empowered judicial branch after the delivery of Chief Justice John Marshall’s decision in Marbury v. Madison, Jefferson was quite eager to lessen the control his Federalist opponents still exercised over the courts. Because federal judges could not be dismissed by the President or either house of Congress unless they were impeached for bad behaviour, Jefferson set his sights on the imprudent Chase. To that end, he wrote a letter to Republican Congressman Joseph H. Nicholson of Maryland in which he asked, "Ought the seditious and official attack [by Chase] on the principles of our Constitution [. . .] to go unpunished?"

The answer, as it happened, was no. Led by Virginia Congressman John Randolph, the Republicans quickly took up the charge and served Justice Chase with eight articles of impeachment. Among other things, the articles alleged that Chase had allowed his political bias to influence how he treated certain defendants and their counsels, and that the resulting judgements he delivered were thus manifestly invalid. Because the trial itself would be conducted by the Republican-controlled Senate and overseen by his own Vice President, Jefferson doubtless believed that Chase’s dismissal was a fait accompli, and that similar proceedings could be put to use in removing other Federalist judges. Unfortunately for Jefferson, however, enough Republican Senators questioned the propriety of bringing a Supreme Court Justice up on charges solely based on the quality of his verdicts, and Chase was fully acquitted on March 1^st, 1805. Ironically it was in part Jefferson’s accusation that Chase was guilty of sedition that had turned many of his fellow Republicans against the impeachment effort. Evidently they felt that punishing a federal office-holder because of his publicly expressed political views was too similar to the Federalists’ efforts under the Alien & Sedition Acts which Jefferson himself had vehemently opposed. Thereafter the principle of judicial independence became firmly entrenched as a cornerstone of American jurisprudence, and Jefferson’s aggressive attempts to lessen Federalist influence in the courts effectively came to an end. There is certainly an argument to be made that Jefferson was merely responding in kind to the Federalist’s rather underhanded attempt to stack the federal judiciary against the new administration. That being said, the speed with which he was willing to contradict himself begs certain questions. Namely, which among the statements Jefferson put forth in his First Inaugural were intended to be upheld and which were merely for effect? 

Another instance of this disparity between word and deed, though one Jefferson was less likely to have foreseen, can also be found in the fourth paragraph. Once more in laying out the principles that his administration was to uphold Jefferson famously stated that the United States should pursue, “peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” Putting aside for the moment his well-documented reputation as a Francophile, this would seem to be in keeping with Jefferson’s Enlightenment-tinged, inward-looking, free-trade bona fides. He was not a war-like man, and though as a veteran diplomat he no doubt understood that at times the threat of hostilities could be a useful tool, his principles inclined him to believe that national conflicts could best be avoided by maintaining cordial, if somewhat distant, relations with an many other countries as possible. And though I have no doubt that he believed he held true to these principles throughout his eight-year presidency, the reality is somewhat more complicated.

As I mentioned in a previous post in this present series, the sequence of wars that unfolded between France and Britain (and later the United Kingdom) over the course of the late-18^th and early 19^th centuries took a serious toll on American commerce. Not only were American merchant vessels seized by both French and British naval patrols, but sailors serving in the American Navy and merchant fleet were apprehended and forcibly inducted (or impressed) into British service. These policies had the dual effect of visiting significant harm upon the American economy, both within commercial New England and the agricultural South and West, at the same time they represented a slander on the dignity and sovereignty of the United States of America. Matters seemed to come to a head in 1807 when the British HMS Leopard fired upon the American USS Chesapeake, boarded her and abducted four sailors that the British claimed were deserters from the Royal Navy. The fact that three of the sailors in question were later proven to be American-born and that the entire incident took place off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia, seemed to demand an aggressive response. The Jefferson Administration, ever cautions of foreign entanglements, answered calls for retaliation with the passage of the Embargo Act of 1807.

The Act attempted to use American trade as a weapon against the imprudent European powers by denying it to them outright. From the time it took effect, no American merchants would be permitted to trade with any other nation, the theory being that American commerce was too valuable to both Britain and France to be cut off entirely without one or both powers suffering deleterious effects. Unfortunately for Jefferson, and really all of his fellow Americans, the Embargo Act proved to be a spectacular and embarrassing failure. Rather than being shocked into respecting American neutrality by the loss of one of their major trading partners, the British simply found markets among the newly independent nations of South America; meanwhile, British merchants took over the routes abandoned by American traders and enjoyed greater profits than they’d ever known. In the United States itself the New England shipbuilding industry nearly collapsed, merchants went bankrupt, and farmers in the South and West were faced with useless surpluses without overseas markets in which to sell their produce. This had the unintended effects of catalyzing American manufacturing, in the absence of a steady flow of British-made goods, and greatly expanding the role and scope of the United States government. Indeed, enforcing the terms of the embargo was a massive undertaking unlike any the federal government had ever anticipated. A complex systems of bonds, licences, customs, and coastal patrols was implemented, the discretionary powers of the president in ordering seizures, detentions or exceptions were greatly increased, and tens of thousands of dollars in fine were levied against those who violated the embargo, or even against those it was though had contemplated doing so. Violations were nonetheless frequent, and customs officials speculated by early spring 1808 that portions of the state of Maine near the border with British New Brunswick were in a condition of open rebellion. All the while Jefferson refused to back down, and if anything dug his heels in deeper.

In his mind, and perhaps in his alone, Jefferson was preserving the principle of free trade by cutting off American commerce entirely. Ultimately harmful and ostensibly hypocritical though this endeavour may have seemed, there was, upon consideration, a sort of twisted logic to his thinking. The reasoning behind Jefferson’s support for free trade was that commerce was the surest means to preserve peace between nations. The stronger the trade ties between two states, and the more money both sides stood to make, the less likely either would be to letting traditional warfare disrupt their profits. When Britain and France refused to abide by this rationale, instead letting strategic, ideological or diplomatic considerations guide their actions, they forced Jefferson to react. Rather than respond in kind, however, and prove that the United States was no better than the European powers by raising fleets and armies and declaring war, Jefferson attempted to stay true to his conviction that trade itself was the most powerful tool in the realm of international relations. It would be difficult to deny that Jefferson’s resultant attempt at commercial warfare was directly contradictory to the call he made in his First Inaugural for, “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations.” He may have avoided taking sides in the ongoing European conflagration, though many of his fellow Americans wished he had, but his embargo was nothing if not antagonistic. That being the case, how did Jefferson himself square his support of the embargo after 1807 with the principles he had expressed in 1801? The answer, I think, has something to do with perspective.

Jefferson tended to take the long view of matters political, diplomatic and economic. His concern was not always with the immediate future, but the long-term best interests of his country and its citizens. For instance, Jefferson believed that if the United States were to survive as a republic it could do so only by devoting itself to limited government, low taxes, and the promotion of agriculture over commerce or manufacturing. In order to achieve these ends, he reasoned, America would need access to land in large quantities. How this land was acquired was of somewhat less significance to him than the fact that it was made available at all. And if certain of his guiding principles were violated along the way (raising taxes to pay for land acquisitions, increasing the authority of the central government to authorize the purchase, etc..) it would have been unlikely to give Jefferson pause so long as his ultimate goal was achieved. Put another way: in order to ensure that the American republic functioned on the basis of limited government in the future, Jefferson was willing to vastly increase its scope and authority in the immediate. Just so, in order to prove the utility of free trade to the rest of the world Jefferson was determined to completely close his nation to international commerce. In the short run it may have seemed that he was abandoning his ideals, but Jefferson doubtless believed that posterity would bear out his wisdom and foresight. One cannot help but wonder, had the embargo succeeded in bringing either the French or British to the negotiating table, how history would have looked on Jefferson’s momentary lapse. Kindly, I’d wager.

Jefferson seemed to have similar ideas about his critics in 1801. If his First Inaugural is any indication, he was at least partially aware that his actions as president might occasionally appear to be imprudent or unprincipled. In the fifth paragraph he wrote, after first admitting that he might at times do wrong through flaws in his own judgement, that, “When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose position will not command a view of the whole ground.” I will say first that it quite frankly amazes me how someone can so deftly maneuver from humility to hauteur in only two sentences. It is as I said above: if Jefferson’s actions were found to be at fault, it was perhaps an error on the observer’s part for lacking the ability to comprehend what the Sage of Monticello was trying to accomplish. This attitude seems to demonstrate both a surprising level of self-awareness of Jefferson’s part as well as a rather breath-taking level of arrogance. He knew how his critics perceived him and he knew why. But he also knew what was best for the country and would be damned if he was about to explain himself, or alter the course he had set.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into Jefferson’s words, though I would hardly be the first. Still, I think the points I've tried to bring to light from out of his First Inaugural Address, the rhetoric and the contradictions, the hypocrisy, the vision, and the arrogance are what make Jefferson such a fascinating topic of study. He was a towering intellectual figure, and possessed of one of the brightest minds of his generation. But he was also a man. He had faults. He could be callous, arrogant, hypocritical; conniving, even. He was the Thomas Jefferson that exists in so many of our minds; the demi-god philosopher who changed the course of human history by the tip of his pen. And he was also the cunning politician whose opponents quickly learned that he was not to be underestimated. He punished his rivals when he was in a position to do so; used power when he had it and railed against its abuses when he didn't. He gave to the United States the essential vocabulary of its citizenship, and set down political and moral principles that would guide subsequent generations of Americans for centuries to follow. But all the same, he bent or broke nearly all of these principles over the course of his public career.

I suppose what I mean to say is that Thomas Jefferson was an American. He was as contradictory, complex and strange as the nation he helped to create, and as essentially, tragically, and endearingly human.

    

    Anyway, that’s how I figure it. See for yourself: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson%27s_First_Inaugural_Address