Hi Founder fans, Jason here, and today we are discussing Cato No. 5 in our continuing discussion of the Anti-Federalist Papers and our continuing discussion of the Cato Essays. Now, Cato, as we've mentioned before, was probably George Clinton, Governor of New York, and in this particular instance, he does a quick summation of the issues he's discussed in a previous paper, specifically the presidency itself, which Cato, as we've mentioned, is one of the few anti-federalists to very specifically discuss the presidency and the problems with the chief executive. In this one, he kind of does a quick paragraph wrapping that up before going on to discuss a federalist proposition, basically to assume that America would never have a tyrant.
A lot of the federalists at the time were taking the tone that Americans are just built this way. We would never accept tyranny. We are accustomed to freedom and we would keep things that way. Cato responds with this. Don't assume.
The people of ancient Rome also thought they were a republic and could never have dictatorship, but they did on several occasions. The Americans are really no different than anyone else from history, Cato implies, or I should say explicitly says. Just because we're Americans, just because we're used to freedom and would want it, doesn't mean we will naturally fight for it every time, especially if we accept this constitution, which Cato saw as making it more difficult for the people.
to protect themselves. And this is where he gets into the meat of the particular Cato V, where he discusses Congress, both houses of Congress. He discusses first general elections, noting that, well, we usually, most of the states and most free governments, as they called republics at the time, most free governments have annual elections.
That keeps the politicians on their toes. It makes it easier for the people to get rid of bad politicians, makes politicians who are more merit-ist, meritocrat-ist, have more merit, make their way into these positions than people who are simply there for avarice and trying to accumulate power for themselves. He points out that the House of Representatives is elected biannually, which takes away, it's close, but it still takes away from those annual elections people are accustomed to. Furthermore, the senators are not elected at all.
They are. nowadays. But when the Constitution was written, no, the senators were appointed by the states, making them virtual representatives, as he said. Cato also points out that when Senate or House is not around, the president can make temporary appointments, and he was afraid that those people would then find themselves obligated to do things that the president would approve of, or else they might make the president look bad, that very president that just appointed them. You don't want to do that.
Cato then goes on to the representation. itself, specifically the number of representatives. He says, hey, look, according to the Constitution, the first Constitution designated how many representatives each state would get. And he said, look, New York's going to get six, plus two is eight. And if you look at the whole of Congress, it's less people than just New York State has right now.
How are less people than New York State has in its contemporary government supposed to govern significantly more people across the United States? He then goes on, he kind of concludes very interestingly, he references Brutus, who was another anti-Federalist author we've discussed. While Cato was probably George Clinton, Brutus was probably Robert Yates. Robert Yates having left the Constitutional Convention and gone and talked to George Clinton before things came out.
So they were ready and kind of acting as a team. So it's interesting to see him actually reference and say, if you want a more in-depth study of why the people are too far separated from the government. check out my buddy Brutus. Essentially, paraphrasing, of course, he doesn't say it exactly like that. I believe he's referencing Brutus number three is the one I linked to in my article.
So I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, it's a quick summation of Cato number five. It's interesting.
This one's a little bit more brief because Cato number five essentially wraps up several other anti-Federalist arguments, several of the more common anti-Federalist arguments. As I said, he says, go, you know. It's not even a footnote. It's literally the last sentence. Go look at Brutus.
I'm not going to write any more on it because Brutus already did. So kind of a brief one, not quite as important as some of the earlier ones, but still important when we look at it. So I hope you enjoyed the video.
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