Constitutional history -- United States -- Sources; Constitutional law -- United States
Such a patient and in such a situation is America at this moment. She
has been sensible of her malady. She has obtained a regular and
unanimous advice from men of her own deliberate choice. And she is
warned by others against following this advice under pain of the most
fatal consequences. Do the monitors deny the reality of her danger? No.
Do they deny the necessity of some speedy and powerful remedy? No. Are
they agreed, are any two of them agreed, in their objections to the
remedy proposed, or in the proper one to be substituted? Let them speak
for themselves. This one tells us that the proposed Constitution ought
to be rejected, because it is not a confederation of the States, but a
government over individuals. Another admits that it ought to be a
government over individuals to a certain extent, but by no means to the
extent proposed. A third does not object to the government over
individuals, or to the extent proposed, but to the want of a bill of
rights. A fourth concurs in the absolute necessity of a bill of rights,
but contends that it ought to be declaratory, not of the personal
rights of individuals, but of the rights reserved to the States in
their political capacity. A fifth is of opinion that a bill of rights
of any sort would be superfluous and misplaced, and that the plan would
be unexceptionable but for the fatal power of regulating the times and
places of election. An objector in a large State exclaims loudly
against the unreasonable equality of representation in the Senate. An
objector in a small State is equally loud against the dangerous
inequality in the House of Representatives. From this quarter, we are
alarmed with the amazing expense, from the number of persons who are to
administer the new government. From another quarter, and sometimes from
the same quarter, on another occasion, the cry is that the Congress
will be but a shadow of a representation, and that the government would
be far less objectionable if the number and the expense were doubled. A
patriot in a State that does not import or export, discerns insuperable
objections against the power of direct taxation. The patriotic
adversary in a State of great exports and imports, is not less
dissatisfied that the whole burden of taxes may be thrown on
consumption. This politician discovers in the Constitution a direct and
irresistible tendency to monarchy; that is equally sure it will end in
aristocracy. Another is puzzled to say which of these shapes it will
ultimately assume, but sees clearly it must be one or other of them;
whilst a fourth is not wanting, who with no less confidence affirms
that the Constitution is so far from having a bias towards either of
these dangers, that the weight on that side will not be sufficient to
keep it upright and firm against its opposite propensities. With
another class of adversaries to the Constitution the language is that
the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments are intermixed in
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