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  PAMPHLETS
  on the
  CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES,

  PUBLISHED DURING
  ITS DISCUSSION BY THE PEOPLE
  1787-1788.

  EDITED
  WITH NOTES AND A BIBLIOGRAPHY

  BY

  PAUL LEICESTER FORD.

  BROOKLYN, N. Y.:
  1888.




PREFACE.

The English speaking people have been a race of pamphleteers. Whenever
a question--religious, political, military or personal--has interested
the general public, it has occasioned a war of pamphlets, which,
however partisan and transitory, were in a manner photographs of the
public opinion, and as such have been used and valued by students and
publicists.

The rarity and consequent difficulty of reaching this class of
literature has been, however, a great obstacle to its use as sources
of history. The name of pamphlet tells the purpose of these little
publications. Written hurriedly, to effect a purpose for which there
is not enough time or matter for a more elaborate volume, they are
thrown by after a brief circulation and before a decade has passed, the
edition has disappeared, and if any are still in existence, they are
only to be found in the few public and private libraries which have
taken the trouble to secure these fugitive leaflets.

The recognized value of these tractates in England has led to very
extensive republications; and the _Harleian Miscellany_, the _Somers
Tracts_, the issues of the Roxburghe, Bannatyne, Maitland, Chetham,
Camden and Percy societies and the reprints of Halliwell, Collier, and
M'Culloch, not to mention many minor collections, have placed several
thousand of them within the reach of every one. But in America few
attempts have been made to collect this kind of literature--Peter Force
reprinted a series of pamphlets on the early settlement of the United
States and a work of similar scope on Canada, containing reprints
of the so called "Jesuit Relations" was printed under the patronage
of the Canadian government. John Wingate Thornton and Frank Moore
have collected a number of the patriotic sermons preached before and
during the Revolutionary war. Franklin B. Hough republished a series
of the funeral sermons and eulogies on the death of Washington, and
James Spear Loring did the same for the orations delivered in Boston
from 1770 to 1852. Samuel G. Drake reprinted a collection of tracts
relating to King Philip's war, Joseph Sabin issued a series relating
to the propagation of the gospel among the New England Indians, and
William H. Whitmore edited, for the Prince Society, a number relating
to the governorship of Sir Edmund Andros--but these are the only
attempts worth mentioning to systematically gather these leaflets of
our history, and which have singularly neglected those bearing on
politics and government, in which we have so largely originated the
true theories and methods.

When the student or historian comes to examine the earlier pamphlet
literature of our country he encounters the greatest difficulty in
their use. The lack of communication between the colonies or states,
with its consequent localization of the pamphlet; the small edition
caused by the high price of paper, which at that time was the costly
element in the production of books; the little value attached by each
generation to the pamphlets of its own time; the subsequent wars,
with the destruction and high price of old paper that came with them,
and the general disregard of historical material that existed for
many years after the stirring times that occasioned these arguments,
have all tended to make these tracts almost impossible to consult;
and any one desiring to examine the original editions of the thirteen
pamphlets contained in this volume would be compelled to visit the
public libraries in the cities of Washington, Philadelphia, New York,
Albany and Boston, while it would take a life time of patient searching
and waiting to collect them from the second-hand booksellers and
auction-rooms, at prices that few would care to pay.

As the rarity of these pamphlets has caused their neglect, so also has
their anonymous publication. It was a time of literary masks, and
we often find, like the knights of old, that when their masks were
removed, they had concealed our ablest statesmen, one of whom wrote of
his anonymous pamphlet, "If the reasoning in the pamphlet you allude to
is just, it will have its effect on candid and discerning minds;--if
weak and inconclusive, my name cannot render it otherwise," but it is
certain, whatever the effect at the moment, that more attention and
care would have been given these works by succeeding generations had
they borne the name of one of the makers of our nation, rather than the
pseudonymous mask which gave no clue to its authorship.

In America, we are too apt to forget the losing side of a question.
Few to-day know of the intense struggle that took place over the
ratification of our constitution, or realize that the adoption of a
government which has worked so successfully, met with the strongest
opposition from such men as Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, George
Mason, George Clinton, Samuel Chase, Elbridge Gerry, Albert Gallatin,
James Monroe and others, while many equally famous were either neutral
or gave it but lukewarm support. If the great fear and prediction of
these men--that the general government would entirely subvert the state
governments, with a consequent loss of personal freedom--has not been
realized, it will nevertheless be seen in the following pages that many
of their objections were embodied in the future amendments, and the
disregard of others has occasioned some of our most serious national
questions. If this collection presents a greater number of federal
than anti-federal arguments, it is only in the proportion in which the
latter was overborne by the former, both in men and writings.

Of all these partisan writings _The Federalist_ has hitherto been
almost the only known argument of those which for nine months kept
the printers busy and the people in a turmoil, though the twenty-nine
editions of that work attest the value and interest of that class of
writings. That these essays equal that great series is not claimed, but
I believe, nevertheless, that they, by their simpler and more popular
treatment of the question, exerted quite as much influence as that
"judicious and ingenious writer," who was "not well calculated for the
common people," and therefore deserve in this centennial year a place
on the shelf of the publicist or student, with that "political classic"
of Hamilton, Madison and Jay.

 PAUL LEICESTER FORD.

 97 CLARK STREET,
 BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.


ERRATA.

   Page 274, line 1, for mine read mind.
    "   275,  "  14,  "  cause read clause.
    "   277,  "   8,  "  Richard Harry Lee read Richard Henry Lee.
    "   396,  "  28,  "  la substitute /
    "   407,  "  38,  "  substitute /
    "   409,  "  31,  "  propounded read proposed.
    "   409,  "  36,  "  Pilsner read Pelsue.
    "   412,  "  21,  "  J. Lloyd read T. Lloyd.
    "   424,  "  21, insert / Philadelphia: after "A Citizen of
                                Philadelphia."
    "   434,  "  27, for McClung read McClurg.





CONTENTS.

                                                                  _Page._

  GERRY, ELBRIDGE. Observations on the New Constitution, and on the
    Federal and State Conventions. By a Columbian Patriot               1

  WEBSTER, NOAH. An Examination into the leading principles of the
    Federal Constitution. By a Citizen of America                      25

  JAY, JOHN. An Address to the People of the State of New York,
    on the subject of the Constitution. By a Citizen of New York       67

  SMITH, MELANCTHON. Address to the People of the State of New York.
    By a Plebeian                                                      88

  WEBSTER, PELATIAH. The Weakness of Brutus exposed: or some
    remarks in vindication of the Constitution. By a Citizen of
    Philadelphia                                                      117

  COXE, TENCH. An Examination of the Constitution of the United
    States of America. By an American Citizen                         134

  WILSON, JAMES. Speech on the Federal Constitution, delivered in
    Philadelphia                                                      155

  DICKINSON, JOHN. Letters of Fabius on the Federal Constitution.     163

  HANSON, ALEXANDER CONTEE. Remarks on the Proposed Plan of a
    Federal Government. By Aristides                                  217

  RANDOLPH, EDMUND. Letter on the Federal Constitution                259

  LEE, RICHARD HENRY. Observations of the System of Government
    proposed by the late Convention. By a Federal Farmer              277

  MASON, GEORGE. Objections to the Federal Constitution 327

  IREDELL, JAMES. Observations on George Mason's Objections to the
    Federal Constitution. By Marcus                                   333

  RAMSAY, DAVID. An Address to the Freemen of South Carolina on the
    Federal Constitution. By Civis                                    371

  Bibliography of the Constitution, 1787-1788                         381

  Reference List to the history and literature of the Constitution,
    1787-88.                                                          427

  Index                                                               443




Observations / On the new Constitution, and on the Federal / and State
Conventions. / By a Columbian Patriot. / Sic transit gloria Americana.
/ [Boston: 1788.]

  12 mo., pp. 19.

  Written by Elbridge Gerry, member of the Philadelphia Convention
  from Massachusetts, and one of the number who refused to sign the
  Constitution, for reasons given in his letter to the presiding
  officers of the Massachusetts legislature (Elliot I, 494). Gerry
  made himself conspicuous in the contest in Massachusetts over the
  ratification, and though not elected to the State Convention, was
  requested by them to attend and answer questions. His life, by James
  T. Austin, (Boston, 1828), makes no mention of this pamphlet.

  "E. G. has come out as a _Columbian Patriot_--a pitiful performance.
  The author sinks daily in public esteem, and his bantling goes
  unnoticed."--Rufus King to John Alsop, March 2d, 1788.

  The first edition of this pamphlet was printed without a title page,
  or imprint, and an examination of the Massachusetts newspapers shows
  it was never for sale; making it probable that it was printed for
  Gerry, and not for general circulation. Greenleaf reprinted it in
  New York, for the [Anti] Federal Committee, who distributed sixteen
  hundred and thirty copies to the local county committees of that
  State.

  "We have received yours by a Columbian Patriot--a well composed piece
  but in a style too sublime and florid for the common people in this
  part of the country."--Albany Committee to N. Y. Committee, April
  12th, 1788.

  P. L. F.


Mankind may amuse themselves with theoretick systems of liberty, and
trace its social and moral effects on sciences, virtue, industry and
every improvement of which the human mind is capable; but we can
only discern its true value by the practical and wretched effects
of slavery; and thus dreadfully will they be realized, when the
inhabitants of the Eastern States are dragging out a miserable
existence, _only_ on the gleanings of their fields; and the Southern,
blessed with a softer and more fertile climate, are languishing in
hopeless poverty; and when asked, what is become of the flower of their
crop, and the rich produce of their farms--they may answer in the
hapless stile of the Man of _La Mancha_,--"The steward of my Lord has
seized and sent it to _Madrid_."----Or, in the more literal language of
truth, The _exigencies_ of government require that the collectors of
the revenue should transmit it to the _Federal City_.

Animated with the firmest zeal for the interest of this country, the
peace and union of the American States, and the freedom and happiness
of a people who have made the most costly sacrifices in the cause
of liberty,--who have braved the power of Britain, weathered the
convulsions of war, and waded thro' the blood of friends and foes to
establish their independence and to support the freedom of the human
mind; I cannot silently [2] witness this degradation without calling
on them, before they are compelled to blush at their own servitude,
and to turn back their languid eyes on their lost liberties--to
consider, that the character of nations generally changes at the
moment of revolution.----And when patriotism is discountenanced and
publick virtue becomes the ridicule of the sycophant--when every man
of liberality, firmness and penetration who cannot lick the hand
stretched out to oppress, is deemed an enemy to the State--then is the
gulph of despotism set open, and the grades to slavery, though rapid,
are scarce perceptible--then genius drags heavily its iron chain
--science is neglected, and real merit flies to the shades for security
from reproach--the mind becomes enervated, and the national character
sinks to a kind of apathy with only energy sufficient to curse the
breast that gave it milk, and as an elegant writer observes, "To bewail
every new birth as an increase of misery, under a government where the
mind is necessarily debased, and talents are seduced to become the
panegyrists of usurpation and tyranny." He adds, "that even sedition
is not the most indubitable enemy to the publick welfare; but that
its most dreadful foe is despotism which always changes the character
of nations for the worse, and is productive of nothing but vice, that
the tyrant no longer excites to the pursuits of glory or virtue; it
is not talents, it is baseness and servility that he cherishes, and
the weight of arbitrary power destroys the spring of emulation."(1)
If such is the influence of government on the character and manners,
and undoubtedly the observation is just, must we not subscribe to the
opinion of the celebrated _Abbe Mable_? "That there are disagreeable
seasons in the unhappy situation of human affairs, when policy requires
both the intention and the power of doing mischief to be punished; and
when the senate proscribed the memory of _Caesar_ they ought to have
put _Anthony_ to death, and extinguished the hopes of _Octavius_."
Self defence is a primary law of nature, which no subsequent law of
society can abolish; this primaeval principle, the immediate gift of
the Creator, obliges every one to remonstrate against the strides of
ambition, and a wanton lust of domination, and to resist the first
approaches of tyranny, which at this day threaten to sweep away
the rights for which the brave sons of America have fought with an
heroism scarcely paralleled even in ancient republicks. [3] It may be
repeated, they have purchased it with their blood, and have gloried
in their independence with a dignity of spirit, which has made them
the admiration of philosophy, the pride of America, and the wonder of
Europe. It has been observed, with great propriety, that "the virtues
and vices of a people when a revolution happens in their government,
are the measure of the liberty or slavery they ought to expect--An
heroic love for the publick good, a profound reverence for the laws,
a contempt of riches, and a noble haughtiness of soul, are the only
foundations of a free government."(2) Do not their dignified principles
still exist among us? Or are they extinguished in the breasts of
Americans, whose fields have been so recently crimsoned to repel the
potent arm of a foreign Monarch, who had planted his engines of slavery
in every city, with design to erase the vestiges of freedom in this his
last asylum. It is yet to be hoped, for the honour of human nature,
that no combinations either foreign or domestick have thus darkned
this Western hemisphere.--On these shores freedom has planted her
standard, diped in the purple tide that flowed from the veins of her
martyred heroes; and here every uncorrupted American yet hopes to see
it supported by the vigour, the justice, the wisdom and unanimity of
the people, in spite of the deep-laid plots, the secret intrigues, or
the bold effrontery of those interested and avaricious adventurers for
place, who intoxicated with the ideas of distinction and preferment
have prostrated every worthy principle beneath the shrine of ambition.
Yet these are the men who tell us republicanism is dwindled into
theory--that we are incapable of enjoying our liberties--and that we
must have a master.----Let us retrospect the days of our adversity,
and recollect who were then our friends; do we find them among the
sticklers for aristocratick authority? No, they were generally the same
men who now wish to save us from the distractions of anarchy on the one
hand, and the jaws of tyranny on the other; where then were the class
who now come forth importunately urging that our political salvation
depends on the adoption of a system at which freedom spurns?--Were not
some of them hidden in the corners of obscurity, and others wrapping
themselves in the bosom of our enemies for safety? Some of them
were in the arms of infancy; and others speculating for fortune, by
sporting with public money; while a few, a very few of them [4] were
magnanimously defending their country, and raising a character, which I
pray heaven may never be sullied by aiding measures derogatory to their
former exertions. But the revolutions in principle which time produces
among mankind, frequently exhibits the most mortifying instances
of human weakness; and this alone can account for the extraordinary
appearance of a few names, once distinguished in the honourable walks
of patriotism, but now found in the list of the Massachusetts assent to
the ratification of a Constitution, which, by the undefined meaning of
some parts, and the ambiguities of expression in others, is dangerously
adapted to the purposes of an immediate _aristocratic tyranny_; that
from the difficulty, if not impracticability of its operation, must
soon terminate in the most _uncontrouled despotism_.

All writers on government agree, and the feelings of the human mind
witness the truth of these political axioms, that man is born free and
possessed of certain unalienable rights--that government is instituted
for the protection, safety and happiness of the people, and not for
the profit, honour, or private interest of any man, family, or class
of men----That the origin of all power is in the people, and that
they have an incontestible right to check the creatures of their own
creation, vested with certain powers to guard the life, liberty and
property of the community: And if certain selected bodies of men,
deputed on these principles, determine contrary to the wishes and
expectations of their constituents, the people have an undoubted right
to reject their decisions, to call for a revision of their conduct, to
depute others in their room, or if they think proper, to demand further
time for deliberation on matters of the greatest moment: it therefore
is an unwarrantable stretch of authority or influence, if any methods
are taken to preclude this peaceful and reasonable mode of enquiry
and decision. And it is with inexpressible anxiety, that many of the
best friends of the Union of the States--to the peaceable and equal
participation of the rights of nature, and to the glory and dignity of
this country, behold the insiduous arts, and the strenuous efforts of
the partisans of arbitrary power, by their vague definitions of the
best established truths, endeavoring to envelope the mind in darkness
the concomitant of slavery, and to lock the strong chains of domestic
despotism on a country, which by the most glorious and successful
struggles is but newly emancipated from the spectre of foreign
dominion.---- [5] But there are certain seasons in the course of human
affairs, when Genius, Virtue, and Patriotism, seems to nod over the
vices of the times, and perhaps never more remarkably, than at the
present period; or we should not see such a passive disposition prevail
in some, who we must candidly suppose, have liberal and enlarged
sentiments; while a supple multitude are paying a blind and idolatrous
homage to the opinions of those who by the most precipitate steps are
treading down their dear bought privileges; and who are endeavouring
by all the arts of insinuation, and influence, to betray the people
of the United States, into an acceptance of a most complicated system
of government; marked on the one side with the _dark_, _secret_ and
_profound intrigues_, of the statesman, long practised in the purlieus
of despotism; and on the other, with the ideal projects of _young
ambition_, with its wings just expanded to soar to a summit, which
imagination has painted in such gawdy colours as to intoxicate the
_inexperienced votary_, and to send _him_ rambling from State to State,
to collect materials to construct the ladder of preferment.

But as a variety of objections to the _heterogeneous phantom_, have
been repeatedly laid before the public, by men of the best abilities
and intentions; I will not expatiate long on a Republican _form_ of
government, founded on the principles of monarchy--a democratick branch
with the _features_ of aristocracy--and the extravagance of nobility
pervading the minds of many of the candidates for office, with the
poverty of peasantry hanging heavily on them, and insurmountable, from
their taste for expence, unless a general provision should be made
in the arrangement of the civil list, which may enable them with the
champions of their cause to "_sail down the new pactolean channel_."
Some gentlemen, with laboured zeal, have spent much time in urging the
necessity of government, from the embarrassments of trade--the want
of respectability abroad and confidence of the public engagements at
home:--These are obvious truths which no one denies; and there are few
who do not unite in the general wish for the restoration of public
faith, the revival of commerce, arts, agriculture, and industry,
under a lenient, peaceable and energetick government: But the most
sagacious advocates for the party have not by fair discusion; and
rational argumentation, evinced the necessity of adopting this many
headed monster; of such motley mixture, that its enemies cannot trace a
feature of Democratick or Republican [6] extract; nor have its friends
the courage to denominate a Monarchy, an Aristocracy, or an Oligarchy,
and the favoured bantling must have passed through the short period of
its existence without a name, had not Mr. _Wilson_, in the fertility of
his genius, suggested the happy epithet of a _Federal Republic_.--But
I leave the field of general censure on the secresy of its birth, the
rapidity of its growth, and the fatal consequences of suffering it
to live to the age of maturity, and will particularize some of the
most