Antifederalist No. 40 

ON THE MOTIVATIONS AND AUTHORITY OF THE FOUNDING FATHERS 


Anti-Federalist #40 is a compilation of articles.  



     It was a common saying among many sensible men in Great 
Britain and Ireland, in the time of the war, that they doubted 
whether the great men of America, who had taken an active part in 
favor of independence, were influenced by pure patriotism; that 
it was not the love of their country they had so much at heart, 
as their own private, interest; that a thirst after dominion and 
power, and not to protect the oppressed from the oppressor, was 
the great operative principle that induced these men to oppose 
Britain so strenuously.  This seemingly illiberal sentiment was, 
however, generally denied by the well-hearted and unsuspecting 
friends of American liberty in Europe, who could not suppose that 
men would engage in so noble a cause thro' such base motives.  
But alas!  The truth of the sentiment is now indisputably 
confirmed; facts are stubborn things, and these set the matter 
beyond controversy.  The new constitution and the conduct of its 
despotic advocates, show that these men's doubts were really well 
founded.  Unparalleled duplicity! That men should oppose tyranny 
under a pretence of patriotism, that they might themselves become 
the tyrants. How does such villainy disgrace human nature!  Ah, 
my fellow citizens, you have been strangely deceived indeed; when 
the wealthy of your own country assisted you to expel the foreign 
tyrant, only with a view to substitute themselves in his stead. . 
. 
     But the members of the Federal Convention were men w e been 
all tried in the field of action, say some; they have fought for 
American liberty.  Then the more to their shame be it said; curse 
on the villain who protects virgin innocence only with a view 
that he may himself become the ravisher; so that if the assertion 
were true, it only turns to their disgrace; but as it happens it 
is not truth, or at least only so in part.  This was a scheme 
taken by the despots and their sycophants to bias the public mind 
in favor of the constitution. For the convention was composed of 
a variety of characters: ambitious men, Jesuits, tories, lawyers, 
etc., formed the majority, whose similitude to each other, 
consisted only in their determination to lord it over their 
fellow citizens; like the rays that converging from every 
direction meet in a point, their sentiments and deliberations 
concentered in tyranny alone; they were unanimous in forming a 
government that should raise the fortunes and respectability of 
the well born few, and oppress the plebeians. 
         PHILADELPHIENSIS 



    Does our soil produce no more Washington's?  Is there none 
who would oppose the attempt to establish a government by force? 
Can we not call from the fields, the counters, the bar, and 
mechanics' shops, any more Generals?  Is our soil exhausted?  And 
does any one suppose that the Americans, like the Romans, will 
submit to an army merely because they have conquered a foreign 
enemy? . . . 
             AN AMERICAN 



     I revere the characters of some of the gentlemen that 
composed the convention at Philadelphia, yet I think they were 
human, and subject to imposition and error, as well as the rest 
of mankind.  You lost eight or ten years of your lives and labor 
by the last war, and you were left at last with your debts and 
encumbrances on you, and numbers of you were soon after the close 
of it, sued and harassed for them.  Your persons have been put 
into a loathsome prison, and others of you have had your property 
sold for taxes, and sometimes for one tenth of its former and 
actual value and you now pay very grievous and heavy taxes, 
double and treble what you paid before the war; and should you 
adopt this new government, your taxes will be great, increased to 
support their . . . servants and retainers, who will be 
multiplied upon you to keep you in obedience, and collect their 
duties, taxes, impositions, and excises.  Some of you may say the 
rich men were virtuous in the last war; yes, my countrymen, they 
had reason then to be so!  Our liberty then was in dispute with a 
mighty and powerful tyrant, and it was for their interest to 
promote and carry on the opposition, as long as they could stay 
at home and send the common people into the field to fight their 
battles.  After the war began, they could not with decency 
recede, for the sword and enemy were at the very entrance of 
their gates.  The case is greatly altered now; you conquered the 
enemy, and the rich men now think to subdue you by their wiles 
and arts, or make you, or persuade you, to do it yourselves. 
Their aim, I perceive, is now to destroy that liberty which you 
set up as a reward for the blood and treasure you expended in the 
pursuit of and establishment of it.  They well know that open 
force will not succeed at this time, and have chosen a safer 
method, by offering you a plan of a new Federal Government, 
contrived with great art, and shaded with obscurity, and 
recommended to you to adopt; which if you do, their scheme is 
completed, the yoke is -fixed on your necks, and you will be 
undone, perhaps for ever, and your boasted liberty is but a 
sound, Farewell! Be wise, be watchful, guard yourselves against 
the dangers that are concealed in this plan of a new Federal 
Government. 
         A FARMER AND PLANTER 



     Make the best of this new government-say it is composed of 
any thing but inspiration-you ought to be extremely cautious, 
watchful, jealous of your liberty; for, instead of securing your 
rights, you may lose them forever.  If a wrong step be now made, 
the republic may be lost forever.  If this new government will 
not come up to the expectation of the people, and they shall be 
disappointed, their liberty will be lost, and tyranny must and 
will arise.  I repeat it again, and I beg gentlemen to consider, 
that a wrong step, made now, will plunge us into misery, and our 
republic will be lost.  It will be necessary for this [Virginia 
Ratifying] Convention to have a faithful historical detail of the 
facts that preceded the session of the federal Convention, and 
the reasons that actuated its members in proposing an entire 
alteration of government, and to demonstrate the dangers that 
awaited us.  If they were of such awful magnitude as to warrant a 
proposal so extremely perilous as this, I must assert, that this 
Convention has an absolute right to a thorough discovery of every 
circumstance relative to this great event.  And here I would make 
this inquiry of those worthy characters who composed a part of 
the late federal Convention.  I am sure they were fully impressed 
with the necessity of forming a great consolidated government, 
instead of a confederation.  That this is a consolidated 
government is demonstrably clear; and the danger of such a 
government is, to my mind, very striking.  I have the highest 
veneration for those gentlemen; but, sir, give me leave to 
demand: What right had they to say, We, the people?  My political 
curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public 
welfare, leads me to ask: Who authorized them to speak the 
language of, We, the people, instead of, We, the states?   States 
are the characteristics and the soul of a confederation.  If the 
states be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great, 
consolidated, national government, of the people of all the 
states.  I have the highest respect for those gentlemen who 
formed the Convention, and, were some of them not here, I would 
express some testimonial of esteem for them. America had, on a 
former occasion, put the utmost confidence in them-a confidence 
which was well placed; and I am sure, sir, I would give up any 
thing to them; I would cheerfully confide in them as my 
representatives.  But, sir, on this great occasion, I would 
demand the cause of their conduct.  Even from that illustrious 
man who saved us by his valor, I would have a reason for his 
conduct. . . . That they exceeded their power is perfectly clear. 
. . . The federal Convention ought to have amended the old 
system; for this purpose they were solely delegated; the object 
of their mission extended to no other consideration.  You must, 
therefore, forgive the solicitation of one unworthy member to 
know what danger could have arisen under the present 
Confederation, and what are the causes of this proposal to change 
our government. 
         PATRICK HENRY 



     What then are we to think of the motives and designs of 
those men who are urging the implicit and immediate adoption of 
the proposed government; are they fearful, that if you exercise 
your good sense and discernment, you will discover the masqued 
aristocracy, that they are attempting to smuggle upon you under 
the suspicious garb of republicanism?  When we find that the 
principal agents in this business are the very men who fabricated 
the form of government, it certainly ought to be conclusive 
evidence of their invidious design to deprive us of our 
liberties.  The circumstances attending this matter, are such as 
should in a peculiar manner excite your suspicion; it might not 
be useless to take a review of some of them. 
     In many of the states, particularly in this [Pennsylvania] 
and the northern states, there are aristocratic juntos of the 
well-horn few, who have been zealously endeavoring since the 
establishment of their constitutions, to humble that offensive 
upstart, equal liberty; but all their efforts were unavailing, 
the ill-bred churl obstinately kept his assumed station. . . . 
     A comparison of the authority under which the convention 
acted, and their form of government, will show that they have 
despised their delegated power, and assumed sovereignty; that 
they have entirely annihilated the old confederation, and the 
particular governments of the several States, and instead thereof 
have established one general government that is to pervade the 
union; constituted on the most unequal principles, destitute of 
accountability to its constituents, and as despotic in its 
nature, as the Venetian aristocracy; a government that will give 
full scope to the magnificent designs of the well-horn, a 
government where tyranny may glut its vengeance on the low-born, 
unchecked by an odious bill of rights. . . ; and yet as a blind 
upon the understandings of the people, they have continued the 
forms of the particular governments, and termed the whole a 
confederation of the United States, pursuant to the sentiments of 
that profound, but corrupt politician Machiavel, who advises any 
one who would change the constitution of a state to keep as much 
as possible to the old forms; for then the people seeing the same 
officers, the same formalities, courts of justice and other 
outward appearances, are insensible of the alteration, and 
believe themselves in possession of their old government.  Thus 
Caesar, when he seized the Roman liberties, caused himself to be 
chosen dictator (which was an ancient office), continued the 
senate, the consuls, the tribunes, the censors, and all other 
offices and forms of the commonwealth; and yet changed Rome from 
the most free, to the most tyrannical government in the world. . 
. . 
     The late convention, in the majesty of its assumed 
omnipotence, have not even condescended to submit the plan of the 
new government to the confederation of the people, the true 
source of authority; but have called upon them by their several 
constitutions, to 'assent to and ratify' in toto, what they have 
been pleased to decree; just as the grand monarch of France 
requires the parliament of Paris to register his edicts without 
revision or alteration, which is necessary previous to their 
execution. . . . 
     If you are in doubt about the nature and principles of the 
proposed government, view the conduct of its authors and patrons: 
that affords the best explanation, the most striking comment. 
     The evil genius of darkness presided at its birth, it came 
forth under the veil of mystery, its true features being 
carefully concealed, and every deceptive art has been and is 
practicing to have this spurious brat received as the genuine 
offspring of heaven-born liberty. So fearful are its patrons that 
you should discern the imposition, that they have hurried on its 
adoption, with the greatest precipitation. . . 
     After so recent a triumph over British despots, after such 
torrents of blood and treasure have been spent, after involving 
ourselves in the distresses of an arduous war, and incurring such 
a debt for the express purpose of asserting the rights of 
humanity; it is truly astonishing that a set of men among 
ourselves should have the effrontery to attempt the destruction 
of our liberties.  But in this enlightened age to hope to dupe 
the people by the arts they are practicing is still more 
extraordinary. . . 
     The advocates of this plan have artfully attempted to veil 
over the true nature and principles of it with the names of those 
respectable characters that by consummate cunning and address 
they have prevailed upon to sign it; and what ought to convince 
the people of the deception and excite their apprehensions, is 
that with every advantage which education, the science of 
government and of law, the knowledge of history and superior 
talents and endowments, furnish the authors and advocates of this 
plan with, they have from its publication exerted all their power 
and influence to prevent all discussion of the subject, and when 
this could not be prevented they have constantly avoided the 
ground of argument and recurred to declamation, sophistry and 
personal abuse, but principally relied upon the magic of names. . 
. . Emboldened by the sanction of the august name of a 
Washington, that they have prostituted to their purpose, they 
have presumed to overleap the usual gradations to absolute power, 
and have attempted to seize at once upon the supremacy of 
dominion. 
                CENTINEL 



     . . . Another thing they tell us, that the constitution must 
be good, from the characters which composed the Convention that 
framed it.  It is graced with the names of a Washington and a 
Franklin. Illustrious names, we know-worthy characters in civil 
society.  Yet we cannot suppose them to be infallible guides; 
neither yet that a man must necessarily incur guilt to himself 
merely by dissenting from them in opinion. We cannot think the 
noble general has the same ideas with ourselves, with regard to 
the rules of right and wrong.  We cannot think he acts a very 
consistent part, or did through the whole of the contest with 
Great Britain.  Notwithstanding he wielded the sword in defense 
of American liberty, yet at the same time was, and is to this 
day, living upon the labors of several hundreds of miserable 
Africans, as free born as himself; and some of them very likely, 
descended from parents who, in point of property and dignity in 
their own country, might cope with any man in America.  We do not 
conceive we are to be overborne by the weight of any names, 
however revered.  "ALL MEN ARE  BORN FREE AND EQUAL;...... 
                        THE YEOMANRY OF MASSACHUSETTS