Antifederalist No. 26

THE USE OF COERCION BY THE NEW GOVERNMENT
                                 (PART 1)



"A FARMER AND PLANTER" had his work printed in The Maryland 
Journal, and Baltimore Advertiser, April 1, 1788. 


     The time is nearly at hand, when you are called upon to 
render up that glorious liberty you obtained, by resisting the 
tyranny and oppression of George the Third, King of England, and 
his ministers. The first Monday in April is the day appointed by 
our assembly, for you to meet and choose delegates in each 
county, to take into consideration the new Federal Government, 
and either adopt or refuse it. Let me entreat you, my fellows, to 
consider well what you are about.  Read the said constitution, 
and consider it well before you act.  I have done so, and can 
find that we are to receive but little good, and a great deal of 
evil. Aristocracy, or government in the hands of a very few 
nobles, or RICH MEN, is therein concealed in the most artful 
wrote plan that ever was formed to entrap a free people.  The 
contrivers of it have so completely entrapped you, and laid their 
plans so sure and secretly, that they have only left you to do 
one of two things-that is either to receive or refuse it.  And in 
order to bring you into their snare, you may daily read new 
pieces published in the newspapers, in favor of this new 
government; and should a writer dare to publish any piece against 
it, he is immediately abused and vilified.  
     Look round you and observe well the RICH MEN, who are to be 
your only rulers, lords and masters in future!  Are they not all 
for it?  Yes!  Ought not this to put you on your guard?  Does not 
riches beget power, and power, oppression and tyranny? 
     I am told that four of the richest men in Ann-Arundel County 
[Maryland], have offered themselves candidates to serve in the 
convention, who are all in favor of the new Federal Government.  
Let me beg of you to reflect a moment on the danger you run. If 
you choose these men, or others like them, they certainly will do 
everything in their power to adopt the new government.  Should 
they succeed, your liberty is gone forever; and you will then be 
nothing better than a strong ass crouching down between two 
burdens.  The new form of government gives Congress liberty at 
any time, by their laws, to alter the state laws, and the time, 
places and manner of holding elections for representatives.  By 
this clause they may command, by their laws, the people of 
Maryland to go to Georgia, and the people of Georgia to go to 
Boston, to choose their representatives.  Congress, or our future 
lords and masters, are to have power to lay and collect taxes, 
duties, imposts, and excises.  Excise is a new thing in America, 
and few country farmers and planters know the meaning of it.  But 
it is not so in Old England, where I have seen the effects of it, 
and felt the smart.  It is there a duty, or tax, laid upon almost 
every necessary of life and convenience, and a great number of 
other articles.  The excise on salt in the year 1762, to the best 
of my recollection, in England, was 4s. sterling per bushel, for 
all that was made use of in families; and the price of salt per 
bushel about 6s. sterling, and the excise 4s.6d. on every gallon 
of rum made use of.  If a private family make their own soap, 
candles, beer, cider, etc., they pay an excise duty on them.  And 
if they neglect calling in an excise officer at the time of 
making these things, they are liable to grievous fines and 
forfeitures, besides a long train of evils and inconveniences 
attending this detestable excise-to enumerate particularly would 
fill a volume.  The excise officers have power to enter your 
houses at all times, by night or day, and if you refuse them 
entrance, they can, under pretense of searching for exciseable 
goods, that the duty has not been paid on, break open your doors, 
chests, trunks, desks, boxes, and rummage your houses from bottom 
to top.  Nay, they often search the clothes, petticoats and 
pockets of ladies or gentlemen (particularly when they are coming 
from on board an East-India ship), and if they find any the least 
article that you cannot prove the duty to be paid on, seize it 
and carry it away with them; who are the very scum and refuse of 
mankind, who value not their oaths, and will break them for a 
shilling.  This is their true character in England, and I speak 
from experience, for I have had the opportunity of putting their 
virtue to the test, and saw two of them break their oath for one 
guinea, and a third for one shilling's worth of punch.  What do 
you think of a law to let loose such a set of vile officers among 
you!  Do you expect the Congress excise-officers will be any 
better-if God, in his anger, should think it proper to punish us 
for our ignorance, and sins of ingratitude to him, after carrying 
us through the late war, and giving us liberty, and now so tamely 
to give it up by adopting this aristocratical government? 
     Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among 
the several states which may be included within this union 
according to their respective numbers.  This seems to imply, that 
we shall be taxed by the poll again, which is contrary to our 
Bill of Rights.  But it is possible that the rich men, who are 
the great land holders, will tax us in this manner, which will 
exempt them from paying assessments on their great bodies of land 
in the old and new parts of the United States; many of them 
having but few taxable by the poll.  Our great Lords and Masters 
are to lay taxes, raise and support armies, provide a navy, and 
may appropriate money for two years, call forth the militia to 
execute their laws, suppress insurrections, and the President is 
to have the command of the militia. Now, my countrymen, I would 
ask you, why are all these things directed and put into their 
power?  Why, I conceive, they are to keep you in a good humor; 
and if you should, at any time, think you are imposed upon by 
Congress and your great Lords and Masters, and refuse or delay to 
pay your taxes, or do anything that they shall think proper to 
order you to do, they can, and I have not a doubt but they will, 
send the militia of Pennsylvania, Boston, or any other state or 
place, to cut your throats, ravage and destroy your plantations, 
drive away your cattle and horses, abuse your wives, kill your 
infants, and ravish your daughters, and live in free quarters, 
until you get into a good humor, and pay all that they may think 
proper to ask of you, and you become good and faithful servants 
and slaves.(1) Such things have been done, and I have no doubt 
will be done again, if you consent to the adoption of this new 
Federal Government.  You labored under many hardships while the 
British tyrannized over you!  You fought, conquered and gained 
your liberty-then keep it, I pray you, as a precious jewel.  
Trust it not out of your own hands; be assured, if you do, you 
will never more regain it.  The train is laid, the match is on 
fire, and they only wait for yourselves to put it to the train, 
to blow up all your liberty and commonwealth governments, and 
introduce aristocracy and monarchy, and despotism will follow of 
course in a few years. Four-years President will be in time a 
King for life; and after him, his son, or he that has the 
greatest power among them, will be King also.  View your danger, 
and find out good men to represent you in convention-men of your 
own profession and station in life; men who will not adopt this 
destructive and diabolical form of a federal government.  There 
are many among you that will not be led by the nose by rich men, 
and would scorn a bribe.  Rich men can live easy under any 
government, be it ever so tyrannical.  They come in for a great 
share of the tyranny, because they are the ministers of tyrants, 
and always engross the places of honor and profit, while the 
greater part of the common people are led by the nose, and played 
about by these very men, for the destruction of themselves and 
their class. Be wise, be virtuous, and catch the precious moment 
as it passes, to refuse this newfangled federal government, and 
extricate yourselves and posterity from tyranny, oppression, 
aristocratical or monarchical government. . . . 
                     A FARMER AND PLANTER 

(1) See the history of the confederate Grecian states-also the 
history of England, for the massacre of the people in the valley 
of Glenco, in the time of William the Third. [Note by "A Farmer 
and Planter".]