Hi Founder fans, Jason here. Today we are concluding our discussion on the Anti-Federalist Papers of Cato. Today's discussion will be a summary of all seven Anti-Federalist Papers by this particular author. If this is your first time at the channel, I've spent the last several weeks doing in-depth dives, deep dives, into all of these separate papers, so feel free to go back and watch that, but this will be a general overview.
Now, Cato was probably George Clinton, then Governor of New York, and a major Anti-Federalist. While we're not certain who the anonymous author actually was, chances are, and historians primarily agree, it was most likely George Clinton. Now, these papers were published between September 26, 1787 and January 3, 1788. September 26 is just about two weeks after the Constitution was signed, let alone published and sent to the states on September 17th. So Cato was ready and waiting because George Clinton had two of his friends, Robert Yates and John Lansing.
at the Constitutional Convention, and they left early because they did not like what was going on, and went and told their friend George to be ready for a fight. That being said, in the first Anti-Federalist paper written by Cato, he essentially summarizes the entire situation, and more or less tells the people, you're smart. This is a really important, momentous decision that will affect not only you, but your children and children's children.
So you should really take the time to reflect. on this new Constitution before you decide you want it. And, as I said, Clinton said, you're smart. You can figure out if it's good or bad. I'm going to help you out over a series of papers, but you can figure it out.
Additionally, don't be persuaded because certain names you saw at the Constitutional Convention. Wink, wink, George Washington. Yeah, we all love George Washington for his work during the Revolution, but just because he was at the Constitutional Convention does not make it a perfect document. So don't let that be what makes up your mind.
Now, in the second paper, things get a little off topic. You see, not only did Cato begin publishing anti-Federalist papers in New York City, many people began publishing anti-Federalist papers all over the United States, but primarily in New York City. And the guy you might know, Alexander Hamilton, publishes a paper in the Constitution's defense.
Now, this is not the Federalist papers. Hamilton published it anonymously under the name Caesar. who in ancient Roman times was an opponent of Cato.
Now, Hamilton is very aggressive and really shakes his finger and yells at the Anti-Federalists for opposing this constitution. He literally says you should take it and like it, which is not really the way you sell a new powerful government to people. And so therefore, in Cato number two, this Anti-Federalist stops what he's doing and responds directly to Caesar. Well, not directly to Caesar, to the, he responds to the people regarding Caesar saying, look, this is, these are the people who want you to take on this new, very powerful government.
You see how aggressive they are? You see how arrogant they are? You see how they look down on you?
Are you sure you want to trust the government that they are trying to sell you? Now, at the end of this paper, Cato says, I will not be distracted again, no matter what the Federalists say. From here on out, I will continue to publish about. the Constitution and the Constitution alone.
And he does this. And what's interesting is Hamilton seems to take note. He writes one more paper of Caesar before going over and hanging out with John Jay and James Madison to write the Federalist, or as we know it today, the Federalist Papers, and they take a much more reserved tone, having seen the backlash received after the aggressive papers of Caesar. From here, uh, Cato goes on to discuss a fairly commonplace talking point, the idea that the United States was just too vast a landmass and too populated for a republic to work. This was a very commonly held belief at the time.
Now, the Federalists in the Federalist Papers go at great length to try and disprove this idea, although at the time, to be fair, there were no gigantic republics around. It was theoretical. And it was an experiment, as it has famously been called.
Moving on to number four, Keanu attacks the office of the presidency in particular, and he's one of the only anti-federalists to really attack the presidency itself. He points out that, first of all, the mode of elections is very vague, and the electoral college can be, seemingly from his perspective, not necessarily tampered with, but taken advantage of by people in power, by continuing their power, and making friends. with other people who are electors, who are also powerful people. He then goes on to the most important part of number four, which is, would he, he doesn't, I call it a high court, but he alludes to it.
He calls it by several names. He does call it a court, but what we would know when we think of monarchies of Europe, the high court, the aristocracy. And he says, because not only does the Senate and the president cross over in powers a little bit, but the president has a lot of power to appoint people temporarily. And when the Senate is out of session to essentially do whatever he wants. namely create a cabinet as we know it now, but what they feared it would become would be a high court where Cato literally calls them minions, where the president could, but he referenced directly also secretaries of different departments.
And he thinks these people would essentially become an aristocracy to a president who at the time could theoretically have served for life. And he is afraid that the organization of the presidency. along with the organization of the Senate and the absence, for great deals of times, of the Senate, would lead to an aristocracy in the United States.
In Cato number five, he moves on to discuss the... Certain Federalists, the Federalists, would argue that, oh, you know, there's all this talk, the Anti-Federalists are throwing out fears of tyranny at you, and you don't have to worry about that. Americans are naturally inherently a free people, so we could never have tyranny here.
He argues that you should never, Cato argues, you should never assume things. That is a pretty big assumption that just because we're free now doesn't mean someone won't come along and try and be tyrannical in the future. And then he goes on to criticize the mode of electing people to Congress, the distance which people could be forced to travel, things of that nature. elections for Congress are a fairly commonplace anti-Federalist talking point.
Second to last, paper number six, Cato goes on to discuss the apportionment of taxes, and this is arguably his most important point. Many of the things Cato says are not necessarily unique to him, but he's one of the few times that someone really discusses the apportionment of taxes. He goes on to the idea that the Federalists are promoting, the Federalists are discussing, that the most of the revenue for the federal or national government will come from impost duties, or taxes on imported goods.
Cato points out that if you raise taxes on... First of all, this is going to be a very expensive government to run, so you'd have to raise a lot of money through these imports. When you put these high import taxes on goods that people want, the prices will have to go up. Then, the people won't really be able to afford these goods they need, and therefore, the merchants who are paying these import taxes can't sell their goods.
Therefore, they will have to raise the price of these goods, meaning that the people themselves have even less of a chance of affording these products. Cato essentially argues that it would be extremely difficult for people either to raise enough money, That's essentially it. To raise enough money with impost to pay for this federal government. And the burden will fall on the common citizens themselves. First of all, because they won't have access to goods because they'll be so expensive.
And additionally, when the government needs more revenue, they will use these taxing laws they now have to tax the people directly. And that tax will essentially bankrupt everyday individual Americans. He goes on to...
actually say that the best thing that they could do to raise money would be property taxes, which is funny because that's not even something they were doing in New York where he was governor. But he points out the best thing to do is the wealthy landowners, the only people who could vote at the time, they're the ones who should be paying for the government and we should tax large property owners. He also has a small part in this paper, which is kind of strange right at the beginning, where he's talking about the...
who can vote. He talks about the three-fifths clause. While he doesn't really bring up the slavery part of it, what he points out is it's all persons, and he questions why women and children are counted when they can't vote.
And just to be clear, he does say some pretty sexist things in there, so not the best look for an otherwise really great paper. with a lot of important financial points. It is difficult to get through the financial parts sometimes, but they're necessary. And this Cato No. 6 is probably the most important paper Cato wrote from my perspective over the last several months, reading them and reviewing them, both in article format and right here on YouTube.
Lastly, Cato number the seventh. He concludes his papers with a criticism of Congress's ability to determine the time, place, and manner in which elections are held. Again, this is another common anti-federalist stomping ground and something he had discussed a little bit in a previous paper, but he points out, hey, why can Congress decide where the states can have their elections? Because in the Constitution, the time, place, and manner of elections are left up to the states unless Congress needs to get involved.
And his question is, why would Congress need to get involved unless they were going to do something ridiculous? Like say everyone in one state has to go all the way to the northern part in a very small town where no one lives. That's where all elections are going to be held in your state.
Obviously, Cato thinks that would be extreme, but he's worried about it. Why does Congress have the ability to step in now? The Federalist argument was that, well, what if a state doesn't want to play along and they just don't have elections and therefore don't send representatives? To which Cato says, you're going to be making the laws for us and we're just going to choose not to participate.
Why would anyone not participate in making their own laws if they have the opportunity to? He then concludes this paper by saying, I'm pretty much done here. If you guys please pay attention, vote for... whoever you think will represent you best.
Again, what he was telling the voting public, which was only really land-owning wealthy white males at the time, was to vote for representatives in their ratification convention. Interestingly enough, New York did vote mostly anti-federalist for the ratification convention, but for whatever reason, the author of these papers, George Clinton was governor, sets up the date for the following summer. Instead of saying, let's meet real soon, at which case... the Constitution probably wouldn't have passed in New York, and then other states also would have seen New York and not ratified. He waits till the summer, and by the time they're in convention, New Hampshire ratifies, the Constitution becomes law, and New York then is essentially forced to joining the team.
All in all, Cato is not the most influential of all the anti-Federalist papers. It is one of the most well-known, and it has some of the most important talking points, and definitely, well, assumedly comes from the most important anti-federalists in the country. I would argue George Clinton was the most important anti-federalist in the country. Most historians would argue that George Clinton was the author of the Cato anti-federalist papers. So it's extraordinarily important.
His friend Brutus, who was probably Robert Yates, who we mentioned earlier, was at the Constitutional Convention and left early to go tell his friend George Clinton, I don't like what's going on here. Brutus is probably the most important anti-Federalist, but Cato does a lot of good things. Notably, just to recap, he criticized the office of the presidency directly, fearing it could lead to a monarchy, which not many other anti-Federalists did. And in number six, he goes over the apportionment of taxes and how the burden of paying for the national government would fall on individual citizens.
So I hope you enjoyed this video, learned a lot. Again, we covered seven papers, squished them all together. If you want more detail...
See the previous seven anti-federalist videos I've made about each paper. Thank you so much for watching I hope you enjoyed it. If you're new here hit like and definitely subscribe Well, if you're new or you've been here hit like but if you're new here subscribe I put up videos about the American Revolution seven days a week usually focusing on a different American founder and tomorrow I'll be back with I'll get it out.
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