Antifederalist No. 18-20

WHAT DOES HISTORY TEACH? (PART II)



"A NEWPORT MAN," wrote this wit which appeared in The Newport 
Mercury, March 17, 1788. 


      . . . - I perceive in your last [issue a] piece signed "A 
Rhode-Island Man," it seems wrote with an air of confidence and 
triumph; he speaks of reason and reasoning-I wish he had known or 
practised some of that reasoning he so much pretends to; his 
essay had been much shorter.  We are told in this piece, as well 
as others on the same side, that an ability given to British 
subjects to recover their debts in this country will be one of 
the blessings of a new government, by inducing the British to 
abandon the frontiers, or be left without excuse.  But the 
British have no other reason for holding the posts, after the 
time named in the treaty for their evacuation, than the last 
reason of Kings, that is, their guns.  And giving them the 
treasure of the United States is a very unlikely means of 
removing that.  If the British subject met with legal impediments 
to the recovery of his debts in this country, for [the] British 
government to have put the same stop on our citizens would have 
been a proper, an ample retaliation.  But there is nothing within 
the compass of possibility of which I am not perfectly sure, that 
I am more fully persuaded of than I am, that the British will 
never relinquish the posts in question until compelled by force; 
because no nation pays less regard to the faith of treaties than 
the British.  Witness their conduct to the French in 1755, when 
they took a very great number of men of war and merchant ships 
before war was declared, because the French had built some forts 
on the south side of an imaginary line in the wilds of America; 
and again, the violation of the articles by which the people of 
Boston resigned their arms; and the violation of the capitulation 
of Charles Town.  Again we are told that Congress has no credit 
with foreigners, because they have no power to fulfill their 
engagements.  And this we are told, with a boldness exceeded by 
nothing but its falsehood, perhaps in the same paper that 
announces to the world the loan of a million of Holland gilders-
if I mistake not the sum; a sum equal to 250,000 Spanish Dollars-
and all this done by the procurement of that very Congress whose 
insignificancy and want of power had been constantly proclaimed 
for two or three years before.  The Dutch are the most cautious 
people on earth, and it is reasonable to suppose they were 
abundantly persuaded of the permanency and efficacy of our 
government by their risking so much money on it. 
     We are told that so long as we withhold this power from 
Congress we shall be a weak, despised people.  We were long 
contending for Independence, and now we are in a passion to be 
rid of it.  But let us attempt to reason on this subject, and see 
to which side that will lead us. Reason is truly defined, in all 
cases short of mathematical demonstration, to be a supposing that 
the like causes will produce the like effects.  Let us proceed by 
this rule.  The Swiss Cantons for a hundred years have remained 
separate Independent States, consequently without any controlling 
power.  Even the little Republic of St. Marino, containing 
perhaps but little more ground than the town of Newport, and 
about five thousand inhabitants, surrounded by powerful and 
ambitious neighbors, has kept its freedom and independence these 
thirteen hundred years, and is mentioned by travellers as a very 
enlightened and happy people.  If these small republics, in the 
neighborhood of the warlike and intriguing Courts of Paris, 
Vienna, and Berlin, have kept their freedom and original form of 
government, is it not reasonable to suppose that the same good 
sense and love of freedom, on this side the Atlantic, will secure 
us from all attempt within and without.  And the only internal 
discord that has happened in Switzerland was on a religious 
account, and a supreme controlling power is no security against 
this, as appears by what happened in Ireland in the time of 
Charles the First, and in France in the time of Henry the Fourth.  
It seems rational in a case of this importance to consult the 
opinion of the ablest men, and to whom can we better appeal than 
to J. J. Rousseau, a republican by birth and education-one of the 
most exalted geniuses and one of the greatest writers of his age, 
or perhaps any age; a man the most disinterested and benevolent 
towards mankind; a man the most industrious in the acquisition of 
knowledge and information, by travel, conversation, reading, and 
thinking; and one who has wrote a Volume on Government entitled 
the Social Contract, wherein he inculcates, that the people 
should examine and determine every public act themselves.  His 
words are, that "every law that the people have not ratified in 
person, is void; it is no law. The people of England think they 
are free. They are much mistaken.  They are never so but during 
the election of members of Parliament.  As soon as they are 
elected, they are slaves, they are nothing.  And by the use they 
make of their liberty during the short moments they possess it, 
they well deserve to lose it." This is far from advising that 
thirty thousand souls should resign their judgments and wishes 
entirely to one man for two years-to a man, who, perhaps, may go 
from home sincere and patriotic but by the time he has dined in 
pomp for a week with the wealthy citizens of New York or 
Philadelphia, will have lost all his rigid ideas of economy and 
equality.  He becomes fascinated with the elegancies and luxuries 
of wealth. . . . Objects and intimations like these soon change 
the champion for the people to an advocate for power; and the 
people, finding themselves thus basely betrayed, cry that virtue 
is but a name.  We are not sure that men have more virtue at this 
time and place than they had in England in the time of George the 
Second.  Let anyone look into the history of those times, and see 
with what boldness men changed sides and deserted the people in 
pursuit of profit and power.  If to take up the cross and 
renounce the pomps and vanities of this sinful world is a hard 
lesson for divines, 'tis much harder for politicians. A 
Cincinnatus, a Cato, a Fabricius, and a Washington, are rarely to 
be found.  We are told that the Trustees of our powers and 
freedom, being mostly married men, and all of them inhabitants 
and proprietors of the country, is an ample security against an 
abuse of power.  Whether human nature be less corrupt than 
formerly I will not determine-but this I know: that Julius 
Caesar, Oliver Cromwell, and the nobles of Venice, were natives 
and inhabitants of the countries whose power they usurped and 
drenched in blood. 
     Again, our country is compared to a ship of which we are all 
passengers, and, from thence 'tis gravely concluded that no 
officer can ever betray or abuse his trust.  But that men will 
sacrifice the public to their private interest, is a saying too 
well known to need repeating. And the instances of designed 
shipwrecks, and ships run away with by a combination of masters, 
supercargoes, and part owners, is so great that nothing can equal 
them but those instances in which pretended patriots and 
politicians have raised themselves and families to power and 
greatness, by destroying that freedom and those laws they were 
chosen to defend. 
     If it were necessary to cite more precedents to prove that 
the people ought not to trust or remove their power any further 
from them, the little Republic of Lucca may be mentioned-which, 
surrounded by the Dukedom of Tuscany, has existed under its 
present constitution about five hundred years, and as Mr. Addison 
says, is for the extent of its dominion the richest and best 
peopled of all the States of Italy.  And he says further that 
"the whole administration of the government passes into different 
hands every two months." This is very far from confirming the 
doctrine of choosing those officers for two years who were before 
chosen for one.  The want of a decisive, efficient power is much 
talked of by the discontented, and that we are in danger of being 
conquered by the intrigues of European powers.  But it has 
already been shown that we have delegated a more decisive power 
to our Congress than is granted by the Republic Swiss Cantons to 
their General Diet.  These Republics have enjoyed peace some 
hundreds of years; while those governments which possess this 
decisive, efficient power, so much aimed at, are as often as 
twenty or thirty years, drawing their men from the plough and 
loom to be shot at and cut each other's throats for the honor of 
their respective nations.  And by how much further we are from 
Europe than the Swiss Cantons with their allies, and Lucca and 
St. Marino are from France, Prussia, and Austria, by so much less 
are we in danger of being conquered than those republics which 
have existed, some earlier than others, but the youngest of them 
one hundred and thirty years, without being conquered.  As for 
the United Provinces of Holland, they are but nominal Republics; 
their Stadtholder, very much like our intended President, making 
them in reality a monarchy, and subject to all its calamities.  
But supposing that the present constitution, penned by the ablest 
men, four or five years in completion, and its adoption 
considered as the happiest event-supposing, I say, the present 
Constitution destroyed, can a new one be ratified with more 
solemnity, agreed to in stronger or more binding terms?  What 
security can be given that in seven years hence, another 
Convention shall not be called to frame a third Constitution?  
And as ancient Greece counted by olympiads, and monarchies by 
their Kings' reigns, we shall date in the first, second, or third 
year, of the seventh, eighth, or ninth Constitution. 
    In treating this subject I have not presumed to advise, and 
have intruded but few comments.  I have mentioned the state of 
those countries which most resemble our own and leave to the 
natural sense of the reader to make his own conclusions.  The 
malcontents, the lovers of novelty, delight much in allegory.  
Should I be indulged a few words in that way, I should not 
compare the new Constitution to a house.  I should fetch my 
simile from the country and compare it to Siberian Wheat 
(otherwise called Siberian cheat) which is known to have been the 
most praised, the most dear, the most worthless, and most short-
lived thing that was ever adopted. But if the free men of this 
continent are weary of that power and freedom they have so dearly 
bought and so shortly enjoyed-the power of judging and 
determining what laws are most wholesome; what taxes are 
requisite and sufficient-I say, if the people are tired of these 
privileges, now is the time to part with them forever. Much more 
might be said to show the bitterness and mischief contained in 
this gilded pill, but being fond of brevity, I shall rely on the 
good sense of the public to keep themselves out of the trap, and 
sign myself in plain English. 

                          A NEWPORT MAN