GHIST 225: US History Kevin R. Hardwick Spring 2012 LECTURE 09 The First American Constitutions

1. GHIST 225: US History Kevin R. Hardwick Spring 2012 LECTURE 09 The First American Constitutions

2. GHIST 225: US History Kevin R. Hardwick Spring 2012 Part One: The Revolutionary State Constitutions Part Two: The Articles of Confederation

3. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia “To get rid of the magic supposed to be in the word CONSTITUTION, let us translate it into its definition as given by those who think it above the power of the law; and let us suppose the convention instead of saying, “we the ordinary legislature, establish a CONSTITUTION,” had said instead, “we the ordinary legislature, establish an act ABOVE THE POWER OF THE ORDINARY LEGISLATURE.” Does not this expose the absurdity of the attempt?”

4. State Bills of Rights (eg. The Virginia Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason) • Traditional English rights: • due process rights • trial by jury • Representative Government • Taxation by representatives on behalf of the people • American innovations: • explicit commitment to social contract theory • the right to revolution • explicit affirmation of popular sovereignty

5. The state constitutions emphasized: • separation of powers • rotation of offices • frequent elections

6. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia: “All the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judiciary, result to the legislative body. The concentrating these in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one. 173 despots would surely be as oppressive as one. . . . An ELECTIVE DESPOTISM was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without effectually being checked and restrained by the others.”

7. Benjamin Rush: Simple democracy is a “monster of nature,” which “contains a tyrant in his bowels.” How do democracies perish? “All history shows us that the people soon grow weary of the folly and tyranny of one another. They prefer one to many masters. They prefer a Julius Ceasar to a Senate, and a Cromwell to a perpetual parliament.”

8. Benjamin Rush: Demagoguery: “I see the dowry of the widow and the portion of the orphans unjustly taken from them, in order to gratify the avarice of some demogogue who rules the Assembly by his eloquence and arts.”

9. Articles of Confederation: Each state had a single vote  Granted Congress the authority to: --handle diplomatic missions, --requisition men and arms from the states, --mint and borrow money, --regulate Indian affairs.

10. Articles of Confederation: Article Two: “Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.”

11. Alexander Hamilton, Letter to James Duane, 1780 (criticizing the draft that a year later was ratified): The primary source of weakness in the Articles was: an excess of the spirit of liberty which has made the particular states show a jealousy of all power not in their own hands; and this jealousy has led them to exercise a right of judging in the last resort of the measures recommended by Congress, and of acting according to their own opinions of their propriety or necessity.

12. Alexander Hamilton, Letter to James Duane, 1780 (criticizing the draft that a year later was ratified): The confederation itself is defective and requires to be altered; it is neither fit for war, nor peace. The idea of an uncontrolable sovereignty in each state, over its internal police, will defeat the other powers given to Congress, and make our union feeble and precarious. There are instances without number, where acts necessary for the general good, and which rise out of the powers given to Congress must interfere with the internal police of the states, and there are as many instances in which the particular states by arrangements of internal police can effectually though indirectly counteract the arrangements of Congress.

13. Alexander Hamilton, Letter to James Duane, 1780 (criticizing the draft that a year later was ratified): In our case, that of an empire composed of confederated states each with a government completely organised within itself, having all the means to draw its subjects to a close dependence on itself--the danger is . . . that the common sovereign will not have power sufficient to unite the different members together, and direct the common forces to the interest and happiness of the whole.

14. Articles of Confederation: Article XIII: “The Articles of this confederation shall be inviolably observed by every state, and the union shall be perpetual.”

15. James Madison, Vices of the Political System (1787): “As far as the Union of the States is to be regarded as a league of sovereign powers, and not as a political constitution by virtue of which they are become one sovereign power, so far it seems to follow from the doctrine of compacts, that a breach of any of the articles of the confederation by any of the parties to it, absolves the other parties from their respective obligations, and gives them a right if they choose to exert it, of dissolving the Union altogether.”

16. James Wilson, opening speech to the Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention, 1 December 1787: “In order to keep republics together they must have a strong binding force, which must be either external or internal. The situation of this country shows, that no foreign force can press us together, the bonds of our union ought therefore to indissolubly strong.”