Patrick Henry, an anti-federalist who in 1788 was urging his fellow citizens, do not ratify this new United States Constitution. It's going to create a big, gigantic bureaucracy, and it's not going to lead to virtuous governance. He's arguing, he's telling the people, Mr. Chairman, I am much obliged to the very worthy gentleman for his encomium.
I wish I was possessed with talents. or possessed of anything that might enable me to elucidate this great subject. I am not free from suspicion. I am apt to entertain doubts.
I rose yesterday to ask a question which arose in my own mind. Says when I asked that question, I thought the meaning of my interrogation was obvious. The fate of this question and of America may depend on this. Have they said we, the states?
Have they made a proposal of a compact between states? If they had, this would be a confederation. It is otherwise most clearly a consolidated government. The question turns, sir, on that poor little thing, the expression, we the people, instead of the states of America. I need not take much pains to show that the principles of this system are extremely pernicious.
impolitic and dangerous saying that this new constitution is going to gobble up all of the independent states that have their own constitutions and their own way of governing themselves and make them the people take all of the various parts and throw them into the same bucket he says if we do that there will be problems he says is this new form a monarchy Like England? Is it a compact between prince and people, with checks on the former to secure the liberty of the latter? Is this a confederacy like Holland, an association of a number of independent states, each of which retain its individual sovereignty? It is not a democracy wherein people retain all of their rights securely. Had these principles been adhered to, we should not have been brought to this alarming transition from a confederacy to a consolidated government.
If we would have followed these other concepts, we wouldn't even be having this debate. He writes, we have no detail of these great considerations which, in my opinion, ought to have abounded before we should recur to a government of this kind. We already left a big consolidated government. He says, here is a revolution as radical as that which separated us from Great Britain. It is radical in this transition.
Our rights and privileges are endangered, and the sovereignty of the states will be relinquished. And cannot we plainly see that this is actually the case? The rights of conscience, trial by jury, liberty of the press, all your immunities and franchises, all pretensions to human rights and privileges are rendered insecure, if not lost, by this change.
So loudly talked of some, and inconsiderately by others. Is this tame relinquishment of rights worthy of free men? Is it worthy of that manly fortitude that ought to characterize Republicans?
Henry writes, where is the danger? If, sir, there was any, I would recur to the American spirit to defend us. What's the danger if we don't pass this Constitution? Might it be possible that we'll figure this out here in America?
That spirit which has enabled us to surmount the greatest difficulties. To that illustrious spirit I address my most fervent prayer. to prevent our adopting a system destructive to liberty.
Let not gentlemen be told that it is not safe to reject this government. Wherefore is it not safe? We are told there are dangers, but those dangers are ideal. They cannot be demonstrated.
To encourage us to adopt this, they tell us that there is a plain, easy way of getting amendments. When I come to contemplate this part, I suppose that I am mad, or that my countrymen are so. And what Patrick Henry does here is he goes through this in great detail. Here he is actually quoting this.
The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem it. And he's actually going to be quoting from the Constitution. And he spends a great amount of time in this essay taking the Constitution piece by piece, referencing it, and then challenging it. We fast forward when he does this.
He says, in that government. One in which all of these rules and checks and balances and all of these limitations on people's power, all of the different sections that I just detailed, he writes, in that government, a punishment certain and inevitable is provided. But in this, in these punishments and these checks, he says there is no real actual punishment for the grossest Mal-administration. These people you put in charge, they may go without punishment, though they commit the most outrageous violation on our immunities.
He says, that paper, that constitution may tell me that they'll be punished. I ask, by what law? They must make the law, for there is no existing law to do it.
What? Will they make a law to punish themselves? This serves my greatest objection to the Constitution, that there is no true responsibility and that the preservation of our liberty depends on a single chance of men being virtuous enough to make laws to punish themselves.
Will men and women in charge punish themselves when they violate our liberties? Will they hold themselves accountable? Do they have the virtue and the integrity to do that? Look around.
What do you think? I'll see you on the next one.