Antifederalist No. 70 

THE POWERS AND DANGEROUS POTENTIALS OF HIS ELECTED MAJESTY 



"AN OLD WHIG's" essay from  The New-York Journal of December 11, 
1787. 


     .... In the first place the office of president of the 
United States appears to me to be clothed with such powers as are 
dangerous.  To be the fountain of all honors in the United 
States-commander in chief of the army, navy, and militia; with 
the power of making treaties and of granting pardons; and to be 
vested with an authority to put a negative upon all laws, unless 
two thirds of both houses shall persist in enacting it, and put 
their names down upon calling the yeas and nays for that purpose-
is in reality to be a king, as much a king as the king of Great 
Britain, and a king too of the worst kind: an elective king.  If 
such powers as these are to be trusted in the hands of any man, 
they ought, for the sake of preserving the peace of the 
community, at once to be made hereditary.  Much as I abhor kingly 
government, yet I venture to pronounce, where kings are admitted 
to rule they should most certainly be vested with hereditary 
power.  The election of a king whether it be in America or 
Poland, will be a scene of horror and confusion; and I am 
perfectly serious when I declare, that, as a friend to my 
country, I shall despair of any happiness in the United States 
until this office is either reduced to a lower pitch of power, or 
made perpetual and hereditary.  When I say that our future 
president will be as much a king as the king of Great Britain, I 
only ask of my readers to look into the constitution of that 
country, and then tell me what important prerogative the king of 
Great Britain is entitled to which does not also belong to the 
president during his continuance in office.  The king of Great 
Britain, it is true, can create nobility which our president 
cannot; but our president will have the power of making all the 
great men, which comes to the same thing.  All the difference is, 
that we shall be embroiled in contention about the choice of the 
man, while they are at peace under the security of an hereditary 
succession.  To be tumbled headlong from the pinnacle of 
greatness and be reduced to a shadow of departed royalty, is a 
shock almost too great for human nature to endure.  It will cost 
a man many struggles to resign such eminent powers, and ere long, 
we shall find some one who will be very unwilling to part with 
them.  Let us suppose this man to be a favorite with his army, 
and that they are unwilling to part with their beloved commander 
in chief-or to make the thing familiar, let us suppose a future 
president and commander in chief adored by his army and the 
militia to as great a degree as our late illustrious commander in 
chief; and we have only to suppose one thing more, that this man 
is without the virtue, the moderation and love of liberty which 
possessed the mind of our late general-and this country will be 
involved at once in war and tyranny. So far is it from its being 
improbable that the man who shall hereafter be in a situation to 
make the attempt to perpetuate his own power, should want the 
virtues of General Washington, that it is perhaps a chance of one 
hundred millions to one that the next age will not furnish an 
example of so disinterested a use of great power.  We may also 
suppose, without trespassing upon the bounds of probability, that 
this man may not have the means of supporting, in private life, 
the dignity of his former station; that like Caesar, he may be at 
once ambitious and poor, and deeply involved in debt.  Such a man 
would die a thousand deaths rather than sink from the heights of 
splendor and power, into obscurity and wretchedness.  We are 
certainly about giving our president too much or too little; and 
in the course of less than twenty years we shall find that we 
have given him enough to enable him to take all.  It would be 
infinitely more prudent to give him at once as much as would 
content him, so that we might be able to retain the rest in 
peace, for if once power is seized by violence, not the least 
fragment of liberty will survive the shock.  I would therefore 
advise my countrymen seriously to ask themselves this question: 
Whether they are prepared to receive a king?  If they are, to say 
so at once, and make the kingly office hereditary; to frame a 
constitution that should set bounds to his power, and, as far as 
possible, secure the liberty of the subject.  If we are not 
prepared to receive a king, let us call another convention to 
revise the proposed constitution, and form it anew on the 
principles of a confederacy of free republics; but by no means, 
under pretense of a republic, to lay the foundation for a 
military government, which is the worst of all tyrannies. 
                                AN OLD WHIG