The History Book Club discussion

This is the glossary for the Federalist Papers.

Please feel free to add books (with proper citations) that will assist in the study of the Federalist Papers.

No self promotion please.

Additionally any videos, podcasts, audios, courses which would be helpful can also be added.

by Alexander Hamilton

by Sanford Levinson

by Sanford Levinson

Introduction to the Federalist Papers

https://politicalfactions.wordpress.c...

Source: Political Factions

About the Federalist Papers (article)

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanitie...

Source: Khan Academy

This is the group's folder for the US Constitution:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...

This is the group's folder for the Charters of Freedom which also includes a thread on the Articles of Confederation:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...

Lecture Chapters at Yale

Introduction: Creating a Nation [00:00:00]

Difficulties in Ratifying the Constitution: Exchanges between Jefferson and Madison, and Ezra Stiles's Diary [00:02:53]

Debates on Balance of Power between Anti-Federalists and Federalists [00:14:20]

In Defense of the Constitution: "The Federalist" Essays [00:22:32]

The Anti-Federalists' Push for Bill of Rights [00:28:54]

General Consensus on Experimenting with Republican Government and Conclusion [00:36:04]

Lecture 24
- Creating a Nation

Overview

Professor Freeman discusses the national debate over the proposed Constitution, arguing that in many ways, when Americans debated its ratification, they were debating the consequences and meaning of the Revolution. Some feared that a stronger, more centralized government would trample on the rights and liberties that had been won through warfare, pushing the new nation back into tyranny, monarchy, or aristocracy. The Federalist essays represented one particularly ambitious attempt to quash Anti-Federalist criticism of the Constitution. In the end, the Anti-Federalists did have one significant victory, securing a Bill of Rights to be added after the new Constitution had been ratified by the state

Link to Lecture:

https://oyc.yale.edu/history/hist-116...

Assignment

Bailyn, Faces of Revolution, chapter 10

Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, pp. vii-xxxi, lix, #1-10, 15, 21, 33, 70, 84-85

Brown, Major Problems in the Era of the American Revolution, pp. 389-438, 451-81

by Bernard Bailyn

by Richard D. Brown

by Alexander Hamilton

Transcript:

The American Revolution

HIST 116 - Lecture 24 - Creating a Nation
Chapter 1. Introduction: The Three-Fifths Compromise [00:00:00]

Professor Joanne Freeman: On Thursday, I gave the world’s most condensed lecture about the Constitution, and I mentioned three controversies that represented long-standing concerns in Revolutionary America: the question of representation, the problem of slavery, and then the question of a national executive — so that really boils down to the problem of investing power in one man. Now I did manage to discuss all three of those things briefly before the end of the lecture.

I did not have time to discuss one last issue, which I do want to talk about here before I go into the real topic of today’s lecture. I just ran out of time. And it actually combines two of those issues. It’s the combination of the problem of representation and the problem of slavery, and it’s something you’ve all studied in high school, I am sure, and that is the Three-Fifths Compromise. And in a sentence, the Three-Fifths Compromise is the decision to count three-fifths of a state’s slaves in apportioning representatives, presidential electors and direct taxes. So obviously by doing that — and that is a compromise of sorts — it is trying to grapple with the problem of slavery and the question of representation, but obviously that’s a compromise that bolsters Southern political power.

Now the great historian of slavery, Yale professor emeritus David Brion Davis, has this little calculation associated with this issue. Davis writes that in the Continental Congress there had been five states in which slavery was a major institution. So the Southern states in the Continental Congress had about thirty-eight percent of the seats in that Congress. Because of the Three-Fifths Compromise, when the first U.S. Congress opened under the new Constitution, Southern states now had forty-five percent of the seats in the House, so thirty-eight to forty-five is a significant slide. Now that doesn’t stay ingrained that way, because population increases in the North and things change over time, but certainly that’s one way in which you can see the impact of that Three-Fifths Compromise.

Now in a way that Compromise — it’s a great segue into my lecture today — it’s a great example of the larger dynamic of the period that we’re focusing on here toward the end of the course. Because, as we’ve been looking at in the Constitutional Convention — as we’re going to see today when we’re looking at ratification — at the heart of the political developments that we’re looking at in this period is compromise: compromise between North and South; compromise between big states and small states; compromise between people who want to centralize power and people who want strong state governments.

Chapter 2. Difficulties in Ratifying the Constitution: Exchanges between Jefferson and Madison, and Ezra Stiles’s Diary [00:02:53]

So basically what we’re looking at in this period is Americans deciding where and how to invest power, obviously a highly charged decision that would have been impossible to make without a string of compromises. And in a way, as we’re going to be discussing today, this is sort of a fundamental question at the heart of the Revolution and its immediate aftermath. Where should the nation invest power? Where does power go?

So in a way, if you look back to the beginning of the course, think about the Revolution, think about some of the central issues, you could say that the Revolution certainly was about power. Right? It was a rebellion against what many perceived as tyrannical power, and that means a lot of things but to sum that all up in a sentence, you could say that. You could say that the 1770s and then the 1780s show Americans trying to figure out how to rebalance and reorganize power — the power of state — that they strip away the British administration and now they have to figure out where else to place power and how to balance it. And we’ve seen the Articles of Confederation and now the Constitution, which is again part of this ongoing dialogue trying to figure out the balance of power in all sorts of different ways.

And it’s no wonder — if you think about what I’ve already just talked about as far as the Constitution is concerned — it’s no wonder that it demanded a string of difficult and often experimental compromises. Creating the Constitution and — as we’ll see today — ratifying the Constitution was a difficult process. We tend to think of the outcome and we don’t think of the process,

And I’m always reminded of this fact when I read an exchange of letters between Jefferson and Madison, and it’s actually written not long after the Constitution goes into effect. I think it’s written in early 1790, and at that point Jefferson had been overseas, he’d been in France on diplomatic duty, so he’s off in the distance knowing that they’re debating the Constitution in the United States, but he’s on foreign shores, lounging in salons, chatting about philosophical issues with the French. Meanwhile, Madison is in the Constitutional Convention slaving away, and then he’s outside of it sort of hammering away at ratification, so Madison’s clawing over the issue of the Constitution; Jefferson’s kind of looking from afar.

So he writes this letter to Madison early 1790 saying that no generation should be bound to the actions of any previous generation. It’s one of those Jefferson letters in which he’s like: ‘I have an interesting idea, let me share it with you,’ and he starts out with this sort of idea about generations. Each generation is a distinct thing and should never be bound by the one that came before — and it has this famous line. Some of you may have heard it already: “The earth belongs … to the living,” right? — that the living should be controlling things; the dead hand of the past should not have weight in the present.

In typical Jefferson style he then calculates what a generation is. Right? It’s not enough to say generations are distinct. He says, Well, how long is a generation anyway? I will calculate this out. Oh, a generation is nineteen years’ — by Thomas Jefferson. So he decides a generation is nineteen years and then says to Madison, ‘So every nineteen years we need a new Constitution.’ [laughs] Okay. So Jefferson, writing to the slaving-away-Constitution guy, says, ‘Let’s do this every nineteen years. I think that would be much fairer. It wouldn’t bind the present to the past.’

Now when I read that letter and then I read Madison’s response, Madison is really tactful. Madison’s a tactful guy, and he’s tactful in his response, but when you look beneath the surface of Madison’s reply, I always feel like what you see there is this sustained howl of disbelief, like: ‘What!? Yeah, you try that next time, Teej, and then you come back here and tell me you want to do that in nineteen years. [laughter] No.’ So Madison’s not happy about it but he actually is tactful, and what he says to Jefferson is, he praises Jefferson’s, quote, “many interesting reflections.” [laughs] It’s like: ‘Thank you, Mr. Madison’ — and then adds, unfortunately, quote, they are “not in all respects compatible with the course of human affairs,” or in other words, real people don’t act that way [laughs] — like Jefferson, nice idea, not going to work in implementation. That’s not for real life. For real people, it doesn’t work, but cute idea; keep them coming. Like, it’s interesting. We can just keep the conversation going; we’re not doing another Constitution in nineteen years.

So that’s certainly one compromise that Madison is not willing to sign on to, but of course the compromises don’t end with the closing of the Federal Convention. Creating the Constitution is a major accomplishment. Now it has to be ratified. There needed to be nine states to ratify it for it to go into effect, and each state would have its own ratifying convention to decide the issue. Now things would have been difficult enough if that was the only challenge at hand — if all that they were facing was ratification debates in the states — but the fact is, there were a slew of things that could have gone wrong even before we got to actual ratification.

For one thing, the Confederation Congress might just disapprove of the Constitution and refuse to send it on to the states. It was entirely possible that the Congress might have said, ‘You know, you didn’t just amend the Articles. You wrote a new Constitution. I’m sorry. We don’t consider that valid. Nice try. We’re not going to send it on’ — and that would have been a little interesting moment. It’s just as possible that individual states might refuse to consider it for the same reason. And even if some states did consider this Constitution and did decide to ratify it, if large influential states like Virginia or Massachusetts or New York rejected the Constitution, their influence might actually compel other states to follow their example and vote against it.

So all of this is sort of looming out there. It’s unclear if any of this is going to happen, but for those who are really supporting this new Constitution, they really knew that they had a pretty big challenge facing them. If the Constitution made it to the states for ratification, if the states agreed to consider it, then they had to worry about the actual debate over whether this Constitution was a just, trustworthy division of power. Now, the first horrible possibility did not take place, and the Confederation Congress passes on the Constitution to the states for consideration on September 28, 1787, but still, with the question of ratification looming, clearly the fate of the Constitution is left hanging for a good many months.

And I mentioned last time I was going to go back to Ezra Stiles, because his diary is useful and wonderful — and I’m going to go right back here to Ezra Stiles just for a few minutes. Because his diary shows you one man — certainly one elite, highly educated, influential man with very high-placed friends — but still one man who is watching events unfold related to the Constitution, and is trying to figure out what he thinks about them. He’s interested to know what’s happening. He’s not sure what he thinks and he’s trying to figure this out.

So one thing that his diary shows is that certainly he was intensely interested in whatever the heck was going on in Philadelphia. He didn’t know what was going on in Philadelphia, but he really wanted to know. And on June 19, he apparently asked Yale College seniors to debate the following question: “Whether the States acted wisely in send[in]g Delegates to the Gen. Convention now sitting in Philadelphia?” I don’t know what they’re doing, but Yale students, debate amongst yourselves. Do you think that was a good idea? In November of 1787, the question that he poses for Yale College seniors has changed. Now he says, Yale College seniors, debate for yourself: “Whether it is expedient for the States to adopt the new Constitution?”

In late December, some of his curiosity gets satisfied because he actually gets to spend the night with Abraham Baldwin, who had been a delegate in the Convention, so this is his chance. There’s a guy who was there. He’s going to really sort of plug away at Baldwin, find out what really happened. And at the end of the evening this is what Stiles wrote in his diary:

“I have formed this as my Opinion. 1. That it is not the most p[er]fect Constitution yet 2. That it is a very good one, & that it is advisable to adopt it. However, 3. That tho’ much of it will be permanent & lasting, yet much of it will be hereafter altered by future Revisions. And 4. That the best one remains yet to be investigated.”

And then he goes on to add: “When the Convention was proposed I doubted its Expediency. 1. ” — he’s really a guy for lists —

Transcript continued - Yale

“1. Because I doubted whether our wisest Men had yet attained Light eno’ to see & discern the best, & what ought finally to prevail. 2. Neither did I think the People were ripe for the Reception of the best one if it could be investigated. And yet 3. I did not doubt but Time & future Experience would teach, open & lead us to the best one. And tho’ we have got a much better one than I expected, & a very good one, yet my Judgt still remains as before.”

And then he gets very specific, and he says, “I think there is not Power enough yet given to Congress for firm Government.” So he thinks about that on the one hand. At the same time he worries that surrendering too much power to this new government will end up, quote, “prostratg the Sovereignty of the particular States.” On the one hand, he worries that the President might become, quote, “an uncontrollable & absolute Monarch.” On the other hand, he says, “I think — ” — First he says, “I think the last as well guarded as possible” so yeah, he might become a monarch, but I think the Constitution did as well as it could to prevent that from happening, and then goes on to say, “I know not whether it is possible to vest Congress with Laws, Revenues, & Army & Navy, without endangering the Ruin of the interior Powers & Liberties of the States.”

And that’s a long passage for someone to put in his own diary, but what’s interesting about that to me is you can see Stiles going back and forth. He says it’s good but there’s probably a better one; it’s better than I expected, but somehow it’s not good enough; it doesn’t give enough power to Congress, but maybe it gives too much power and the states will be prostrated; maybe the President is too powerful, but if we give some of that power to congress maybe Congress will end up really destroying the states. So you can see him there sort of reasoning through what he thinks about the Constitution, and in one way or another, it’s boiling down to the balance of power; where should power be. He’s not exactly sure where power should be. He knows it’s the issue, but he’s not quite sure how to find his way out. So clearly — and Stiles is an example of this — although the delegates of the Constitutional Convention had agreed on a new form of government, there was certainly not some huge, sweeping national consensus on the best kind of government for the new American nation.

Chapter 3. Debates on Balance of Power between Anti-Federalists and Federalists [00:14:19]

So the ratification debates throughout the states — except for Rhode Island, which is not having a debate — but in the rest of the states, the ones that are actually having big ratification debates, these are really real debates. And often, these debates focused on the question of power. As suggested by Stiles, one big question along these lines was: how do you divide power between the national government and the states? Patrick Henry of Virginia had this to say about the Constitution, even before he got past its first three words. Patrick Henry is upset by the first three words of the Constitution. This doesn’t bode well for the Virginia debate. Henry says,

“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 be agents of this compact, it must be one great consolidated national government.”

Samuel Adams is more concise, but has the same idea. He also — those first three words — He can’t get past the first three words. He says, “As I enter the Building I stumble at the Threshold.” Constitution — We, the people? We, the people? What is that? What does that suggest about this government? They’re both basically asking, what kind of a government is this? It’s not a league of states, a confederation of states. It doesn’t seem to be about the states. It appears to be some kind of new powerful national government linking itself with the American people and potentially dismissing the importance of individual states.

In the minds of men like Henry and Adams, if this was a really federal constitution surely the document should begin with “we, the states” as opposed to “we, the people.” What they’re getting at — Henry and Adams — in those kinds of statements is one of the most unique aspects of the proposed Constitution, and I think in a sense its most brilliant compromise. And that’s the idea of federalism: the idea that both the states and the national government could have large areas of power with the federal courts sort of acting as arbiters about the limits of state and federal power. The real brilliance of federalism is that it suggested that sovereignty could be divided between two levels of government. That was an interesting idea. It was one that many people didn’t believe could actually be put into play, but it’s a brilliant suggestion, a really brilliant compromise.

For a population of people who were worried about the birth of some kind of tyrannical centralized national government, the concept of federalism at least had some potential. On the other hand, the idea of nationalism was a lot more frightening. Right? Nationalism suggests one big national blob and the obliteration of states, or as Stiles put it, the prostration of the states. It’s interesting to note that in the Constitution, the word “national” does not appear — and as a matter of fact, not only is the word “national” not in the original Constitution, but during the debates when someone put it in, somebody else always took it out. Right? No, no, we’re not talking about national. It’s federal. It’s all federal. It’s not the scary big national thing. It’s a federal Constitution. And that’s why, of course, the people who are defending the Constitution call themselves Federalists, not nationalists, and thus the opponents call themselves Anti-Federalists.

So federalism is a really brilliant compromise in this battle over where to invest power, but obviously it did not solve all questions, and for some people it didn’t even solve any of the questions. The ongoing ratification debate was actually really fierce. And since by default we end up sort of all siding with the Federalists, let’s look for a moment at the Anti-Federalists and the sorts of things that they were arguing in these debates throughout all of the states.

For one thing, like everyone else, they are concerned with the placement of power. They worry that this new national executive is going to be a tyrant and eventually a king. They worry that state rights, state boundaries, state constitutions will be violated by a tyrannical national government. They fear that the Constitution’s going to foster the creation of a standing army, which everyone of course believes to be the tool of tyranny. They fear that some kind of overbearing aristocracy is going to take over and repress the common man. They fear a lack of proper representation. They fear that they’re not going to have the right sort of a voice, or any voice, in this new centralized government.

When you read about these fears in their original form — and of course throughout this period and throughout all of these debates they’re writing newspaper essays; they’re writing pamphlets; they’re giving speeches. This is a literal debate in print and in person, and when you read some of these Anti-Federalist essays and pamphlets, you can really see how some of them are directly relatable to the Revolution just fought and hopefully won. I guess in their mind maybe it hadn’t been won yet because it depends on what happens with this government. They’re talking about tyranny. They’re talking about monarchy. They’re talking about violated liberties. They’re talking about aristocracy. They’re talking about unjust representation. You could sort of draw a line and understand where these fears come from.

Just listen to how some Anti-Federalists actually expressed these fears. One writer wrote that the Constitution was, quote, “the most odious system of tyranny that was ever projected.” Patrick Henry, who is always useful for wonderful quotes, in the Virginia Convention says that by giving so much power to a new national government, quote, “the tyranny of Philadelphia [the Federal Convention] may be like the tyranny of George III.” Okay. You can’t draw a more direct link than that. Right? Okay, Constitution, George III, tyranny — directly harkening right back to the Revolution. And for many people these arguments really rang true.

Now of course, in the end the Federalists proved successful, this despite the fact that they really were promoting a pretty radical change of government, and there are a good number of reasons why they’re successful. I’m just going to mention a few here, and one of them in a sense is really obvious but makes a lot of sense that it acts in their favor, and that is: the Federalists are really national-minded, so they’re actually thinking beyond the bounds of their states and it makes them much more likely to be able to create some kind of united publicity campaign to argue on a national level in a way that perhaps Anti-Federalists couldn’t or wouldn’t.

Also one reason why the Federalists prove successful is partly because the Anti-Federalists don’t offer any alternative to the Constitution. They critique what’s there but they don’t offer an alternative suggestion, so the debate is criticism and the Federalists defending and countering, criticism and the Federalists defending and countering. That’s a very particular kind of debate. If the Anti-Federalists had come forward with another suggestion, it would have been a very different kind of debate.

In some ways you might argue that the Federalist victory was something of an Anti-Federalist default. As South Carolina Anti-Federalist Aedanus Burke put it after the fact, “We had no principle of concert or union.” We were sort of all objecting on our own and we didn’t have any unified campaign. Or, as Madison put it, I think in a little bit of an exaggeration, the Anti-Federalists, quote, “had no plan whatever. They looked no farther than to put a negative on the Constitution and return home.” Okay. So maybe that’s a little exaggerated, but in fact there was no obvious concrete alternative presented by the Anti-Federalists and that really was a fundamental weakness in their position.

Chapter 4. In Defense of the Constitution: The Federalist Essays [00:22:33]

This does not mean, however, that there were no good arguments against the Constitution, and the best proof of that is the Federalist essays, which you’re going to be reading this week, because those essays aren’t just explaining the Constitution; they’re defending the Constitution. And they’re defending it against this sea of fears and accusations and all these sort of wild ideas floating around about what might happen or what’s implied or what’s suggested or what’s allowable in this new government.

The Federalist essays were Hamilton’s idea, and Hamilton invited his nationalist buddy, James Madison, to join him in the effort and they also invited John Jay to take part — and John Jay ended up getting sick, so he wrote a few essays and then he dropped out so, as I’m sure you well know, most of them are written by Madison and Hamilton. TheFederalist was not the only printed defense of the Constitution. There were lots of them. There was obviously — As I said, it’s a big print debate, but the Federalist was something that was written with really big ambitions because its authors really essentially were creating a broad, comprehensive, step-by-step defense of the Constitution, and they really hoped that by swaying the state of New York in favor of ratification, maybe they would bring other states like Virginia along in its wake.

Transcript continued - Yale

The essays were all signed “Publius.” The authors all wrote under the same pseudonym because they actually wanted the essays not to seem like the crafty arguments of two really leading nationalists who were going to say anything to get us to sign on to the Constitution. They wanted to suggest that these were just even-handed, rational ideas that were sort of generally out in the public sphere. Now of course among insiders, people figured out who the authors were, even though supposedly no one’s supposed to know. It’s Publius. Who can that be? People figured it out pretty quickly and sometimes the authors helped people along.

And there’s an anecdote about Hamilton — I went digging to see if I could find ultimate verification and I can’t find ultimate verification, but I’m going to offer it anyway because there is a supposed witness to the story, but people aren’t sure whether to believe the witness. At any rate, Hamilton — supposedly the day before his fatal duel with Aaron Burr — paid a call on a friend, a good eighteenth-century name, Egbert Benson. He went to visit Egbert Benson, who was a lawyer, and supposedly one of Benson’s law clerks answered the door, said that he would go find Benson, walked off to find Benson, and as he came back, he said he saw Hamilton in Benson’s library put something in a book and put the book up on the shelf. And the clerk said, ‘Mr. Benson’s not here,’ and Hamilton said, ‘Thank you,’ and left. So of course the guy is like: I wonder what that was? Right? So he goes over to the shelf and he pulls down the book. He wants to see what it is.

And supposedly what it was is a piece of paper in Hamilton’s handwriting in which he’d written all of the Federalistessays that were his. So supposedly, the night before the duel when he’s like: ‘got my checklist of things I’d better do in case I die tomorrow: number one, get credit for Federalist essays. [laughter/laughs] Now it’s unclear whether that actually happened or didn’t happen. The guy — The fellow who saw it in later years said he did see it, and said he saw the piece of paper, and said the piece of paper at some point was given to the New York Public Library, but then nobody quite knows where it is in the New York Public Library. So it’s unclear whether it really happened. People — Some people at the time insisted it really did.

Whether or not it really did, the fact is that actually the people who wrote it did care about it and did care about which ones they wrote, and we don’t entirely know who wrote which in some cases. We know some are Hamilton essays and some are Madison essays, and then there are some where it’s blurrier and historians argue — give one guy credit or the other guy credit over who — And I think that’s partly — well, partly because they were rushing, but also partly because in some cases they probably were working together on some or sharing things.

The humbling thing to remember when you read the Federalist this week — and this actually should really mean something to any student — is that many of them are first drafts. Okay. Those are rough drafts. That just makes me want to cry as a writer. It’s like oh, [laughs] why can’t my rough drafts look like that? These guys were writing for newspapers, so they were in a hurry, sometimes literally dashing something off and getting it to the newspaper immediately. So they’re writing these in a hurry. They don’t have time for a lot of revision. That to me is an amazingly humbling thought.

All told, there were eighty-five Federalist essays. As I said, they’re published in New York newspapers. The thought is they’re going to sway the New York ratification debate, and they appear between October 1787 and May of 1788. And then later, in June of 1788, they get put out in book form. And then obviously they migrate wherever they migrate to. Lots of other people read the Federalist.

Now, as suggested by its title, the Federalist — while it did demonstrate a lot of things about the new Constitution — it did have one overriding argument, and that was: the benefits of federalism. Right? Not nationalism — and they’re sure to stress that throughout all of the essays; we’re not talking about nationalism. Federal — federal — states are still important — the subtext of the calming component of the Federalist essays. A federal government would energize the government without prostrating the states or trampling on the American people; that’s the compromise of federalism.

And, as I mentioned at some point earlier, in an earlier lecture, to demonstrate just how badly this government needed to be energized, the Federalist essays show again and again the disaster that would reign if the Articles of Confederation were allowed to continue. And at some point, I did talk about the sort of ax job that the Federalist essays do on the Articles of Confederation. They really want to, because they have to prove that the Articles are so bad that of course this new Constitution is the perfect thing. It makes sense. You have to move in this direction.

Chapter 5. The Anti-Federalists’ Push for Bill of Rights [00:28:54]

So in New York and elsewhere, the ratification debates wore on, states proceeding at different paces. But there is one thing that emerged from these debates on the part of the Anti-Federalists, and this actually is a specific suggestion on their part, a specific idea about something that has to be there. Basically, throughout the states one thing that Anti-Federalists consistently demanded was some kind of guarantee of personal liberties, some kind of a declaration of rights like those that existed in many state constitutions — something that would protect personal liberties in the same document that seemed to be investing this new government with so much power. So in essence, the Anti-Federalists want a bill of rights.

Now from our vantage point, a bill of rights just seems like an unquestionably good thing. Right? We love our Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is good. Why would the Federalists not want a bill of rights? But the problem is, some Federalists did have problems with this idea of a bill of rights. For one thing, they claimed that the entire Constitution, by providing a well-framed government that had checks and balances and government by election, in a sense you could argue that that document was so framed and the government was so checked and balanced that it was in and of itself a sort of bill of rights; it was a controlled government.

They also said, the federal government has enumerated powers in this document. So in other words, a power that is not given to the government is not owned by the government. Why do we need a bill of rights saying well, we need to protect power of the press? We haven’t given power of the press to the national government, so why do we need suddenly to mention it in a bill of rights? Some Federalists even argued that if we start to write things down — put rights into writing — we might actually imply something bad; we might actually imply — If we try to define the freedom of press, freedom of religion and put it into words, maybe the implication will be that in some way or another the national government actually does have some power over those things. Maybe once we get into the sea of rights, we might lead people to be able to conclude things about that government down the road that we might not want them to conclude.

But the Anti-Federalists had a pretty powerful argument in favor of a bill of rights. It was a multileveled argument, but one part of it was particularly hard to argue with, and that is: any republican government, any small “r” republican government, ought to do everything that it could do to keep its citizens aware of their rights, including something like listing them as amendments to the Constitution. In other words, the Anti-Federalists say, ‘Well, in a republic, the people need to know their rights. They need to have them in writing. So of course we should have a bill of rights so that the American public knows what their rights are.’

In the end, it was only with the promise that a list of rights would be amended and added to the Constitution that it was ultimately ratified. And so one by one, the states debated, and then over time decided to ratify the Constitution. I think again, as with so many things about this period and the Constitution debate, we don’t tend to think of it as a real fight or debate or controversy. We sort of see things churning along and we imagine: ratification of the Constitution equals a bunch of guys in a room signing pieces of paper like: ah, it’s ratified, the end, now let’s have a government.’ But in fact, people were really anxiously watching this — and curious. And are states going to ratify? How many will ratify? Is this going to happen? Won’t it happen? What happens if only half of them ratify? This is something that people all over the United States were watching and wondering what was going to happen.

Here Ezra Stiles helps us out one more time because he put in his diary every time he heard that a state had ratified the Constitution. So in the midst of everything else in his diary, you’ll see — like, on January 9, 1788, he writes that a courier raced from Hartford to New Haven and made the entire trip in a mere hour and six minutes, which — Actually, since it takes — what? — like 45 minutes by car to go to Hartford, an hour and six minutes is pretty good for a horse I think, [laughter] so that guy really raced to announce to New Haven that Connecticut had ratified the Constitution. Right? He puts that down and he clearly was impressed with the speed of the rider.

On February 11, New Haven gets the news that Massachusetts ratified. Stiles puts this in his diary and he adds: Bells were rung throughout the city and cannon were discharged” So now clearly, Connecticut has signed on; they’re watching to see who else is signing on and when someone else does sign on, there’s a celebration. At the end of June, Stiles noted that at about 1:30 in the afternoon — and I love when they note the precise time, because then you know it’s something they believed to be significant. At 1:30 this afternoon, New Haven received the news that New Hampshire had ratified — and that — New Hampshire is the ninth state. So what that means is that now the Constitution could go into effect. And as Stiles described it, “As soon as the News arrived the four Bells in the City were set a Ringing, & the foederal Flag displayed and foederal Discharges of Canon.” What is actually a federal discharge of cannon? I don’t know what a federal — I never — I typed that out without stopping to think what a federal discharge of cannon is. But there was a federal discharge of cannon “— & Rejoycing” — [laughs] general rejoicing in New Haven — like: ‘yay, the Constitution has kicked in; thank you, New Hampshire.’

Meanwhile, throughout this period, Stiles still had Yale College seniors debating constitutional issues. [laughs] If you were not interested in politics at this point at Yale College, you were in deep trouble. He had them debate: “Whether it had been better to refer the new Constitution to the Ratificn by Town Meetings or a Plurality of the personal Votes of all the Freemen of the United States?” Now that’s kind of interesting, actually. That’s kind of a radical thing for him to ask the students to debate. Or whether the President of Congress — the President of Congress? — “the President … ought to be visited with an independent Power of Commanding the American Army?”

Transcript continued - Yale

If you’re curious about what other things Stiles has people debating in addition to random constitutional issues, I just have a little sampling here to give you a sense of what it would have been like to be a senior at Yale College in 1788 and 1789. They debated: “Whether the Breakg up of the Roman Empire by the Goths & Vandals was prejudicial to the Progress of Literature?” [laughter] Can you imagine doing that one day and then the next day: and now [laughs] let’s talk about the President. They debated: “Whether the Scriptures are divinely inspired?”; “Whether good Policy is ever inconsistent with Justice?”; and “Whether all mankd descended from Adam?” Okay. That’s a wide-ranging bunch of things they’re debating. I love the fact that Stiles always puts that in his diary, so it’s actually fascinating just to read through and see what students were set to discuss at a given time.

Chapter 6. General Consensus on Experimenting with Republican Government and Conclusion [00:36:05]

Okay. So we’ve seen a national debate over a new Constitution. We’ve seen a debate taking place between people who by no means had an absolute consensus about what kind of government should be put into place. Given that this was a national debate, what does it show us about the state of the nation at the time? What does it really suggest about the new nation and its principles? Well, certainly for one thing, underneath all of the disagreement and the wrangling and the arguing, there was some consensus. So certainly, both Federalists and Anti-Federalists agreed that a small “r” republican government was the general aim and goal — a government based on popular sovereignty, on the will of the people — a government that placed the ultimate power in the hands of the people. So that’s a general consensus. I’m going to talk in a moment about what that means, but certainly in a general way people could agree on that.

Americans also could generally agree that this was an experiment in government; that it was something unique; that they were experimenting in the possibility of having people sit down and deliberately create a just government grounded on the rights and will of the populace. And to communicate this, to get this across, I’m going to read something. I don’t think I’ve read this before. Have I — I don’t think I’ve read the first paragraph or the first couple sentences from the firstFederalist essay. I went digging back into other lectures and I don’t think I’ve done it yet, and if I have you’re going to have to listen to it twice, but I don’t think I have. And I tend to read these couple sentences in a lot of my classes because I think they really capture this idea about experimentation that’s looming over what they’re doing at the time, this sense that they really are deciding something major, not just in the Constitution that they’re creating but also in the process by which they’re creating it — that the fact that they’re deliberating, debating, and then creating, and then stepping back to allow it to go into effect, that also is something that they see as major.

So this is from within the first paragraph of Federalist No. 1 by Hamilton:

“It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions, on accident and force. … [T]he crisis, at which we are arrived, may with propriety be regarded as the aera in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act, may, … deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.”

Okay. “Boom.” That’s a big statement. He is literally saying: the United States is deciding for all time if you can sit and deliberate and create a just government — or not, and if we do something stupid, the answer would appear to be not — for all time. So this experiment is not just an experiment, but it’s one that to people at the time actually means something. They feel that they’re proving something in this experiment that they’re undertaking. It has real consequences.

Now that said, of course even with the ratification of the Constitution, all kinds of questions are still looming about exactly how this experiment was going to play out, or indeed if it would survive at all. And wrapped up in this question about what’s going to happen with the government is a deeper question about whether the promise of the Revolution is actually going to be fulfilled. The Revolution has all of this promise attached to it. There’s all of this debate about how to bring that kind of promise to life. Here is one try. It’s a constitution. We’re going to put it into effect.

And people now have to step back and see if it’s going to work — and many, many people are absolutely not convinced that it’s going to fulfill all that promise that was unleashed by the Revolution. It’s one thing to assign power in a document, and it’s another thing to really bring that document to life. If you think about our Constitution, it’s a pretty short document; it’s pretty brief. It’s a framework. It doesn’t go into lots of detail. So there’s a lot of things that had to be fleshed out and worked out once that government went into effect.

And in Thursday’s lecture, I’m going to touch on some of that. I’m going to talk a little bit about how this begins to play out in the 1790s and what that suggests about the legacy of the Revolution overall. I will stop there. I will see you on Thursday, our last class.

[end of transcript]

Dr J Rufus Fears - Story of Freedom - (6 of 18) - The Charter of Freedom: Our Constitution

Only five men signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Why? Dr. Fears argues that the American Revolution was fought for limited government and low taxes, but the Constitution is a charter for a strong national government with broad power to tax. Despite the anxieties of men like Patrick Henry, the Constitution has aided the cause of liberty through immense hardship for the last 225 years.

The Story of Freedom in America is a complete, 18-lecture course, free and open to the public. Fears, with his inimitable style and his true wisdom, explores the American experience of freedom from the Revolutionary War to the present day. He tells the stories of struggle, sacrifice, and heroism that created the unique model of American freedom.

This is one segment - I will add the others:

Link: https://youtu.be/Z7TmCXfR7AA

Note: Dr. J. Rufus Fears passed away in 2012

What is a Constitutional Crisis? And Are We In One?

Short answer - no - not yet.

For Constitution Day 2017, the IACH invited University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck to the OU campus for a lecture focused on an incredibly difficult question: is America in a constitutional crisis?

Link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF4WG...

Stephen I. Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) is the A. Dalton Cross Professor in Law at the University of Texas School of Law. His teaching and research focus on federal jurisdiction, constitutional law, national security law, and military justice. A nationally recognized expert on the role of the federal courts in the war on terrorism, Vladeck’s prolific and widely cited scholarship has appeared in an array of legal publications — including the Harvard Law Review and the Yale Law Journal — and his popular writing has been published in forums ranging from the New York Times to BuzzFeed. Vladeck, who is CNN's Supreme Court analyst and a co-author of Aspen Publishers’ leading national security law and counterterrorism law casebooks, has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, frequently represents parties or amici in litigation challenging government counterterrorism policies, and has authored reports on related topics for a wide range of organizations—including the First Amendment Center, the Constitution Project, and the ABA’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security. Together with Professor Bobby Chesney, Vladeck co-hosts the popular "National Security Law Podcast."

This is a brilliant presentation by Bernard Bailyn in 1996 at the Library of Congress on The Federalist Papers. (On the main page of the video segment)

Awesome.

https://www.goodreads.com/videos/1324...

A quick understanding of the Articles of Confederation from Khan Academy:

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanitie...

Source: Khan Academy

What led to the Articles of Confederation being deemed ineffective?

Shay's Rebellion:

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanitie...

Source: Kahn Academy

Brief Overview of The Constitutional Convention:

Two parts - video (short)

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanitie...

and:

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanitie...

Source: Khan Academy

Brief Overview of The US Constitution:

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanitie...

Source: Khan Academy

The Federalist Papers

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanitie...

Source: Khan Academy

The Bill of Rights

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanitie...

Source: Khan Academy

An Introduction to Alexander Hamilton:

https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-c...

Source: Khan Academy

Here is another installment of the Hillsdale Federalist Papers videos:

"The Improved Science of Politics"
Overview

Publius argued that the “science of politics . . . has received great improvement” in his own day. These improvements include separation of powers, legislative checks and balances, judges who serve a life term during good behavior, and what he called “the ENLARGEMENT of the ORBIT” of government. Contrary to the practice of previous republics, Publius argued that a republic had a much greater chance of achieving success if it is spread out over a large or extended territory, rather than a small or contracted one.

Link to Video: https://online.hillsdale.edu/courses/...

And Q&A:
https://online.hillsdale.edu/courses/...

David Hume had an effect on the three Federalist Essayists.


David Hume, oil on canvas by Allan Ramsay, 1766; in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh

Who was he:

David Hume, (born May 7 [April 26, Old Style], 1711, Edinburgh, Scotland—died August 25, 1776, Edinburgh), Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism.

Hume conceived of philosophy as the inductive, experimental science of human nature. Taking the scientific method of the English physicist Sir Isaac Newton as his model and building on the epistemology of the English philosopher John Locke, Hume tried to describe how the mind works in acquiring what is called knowledge. He concluded that no theory of reality is possible; there can be no knowledge of anything beyond experience. Despite the enduring impact of his theory of knowledge, Hume seems to have considered himself chiefly as a moralist.

Remainder of article:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/...

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica


Title page of the first edition of the first volume of David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, London, England, 1739


David Hume, statue in Edinburgh.


Portrait of Scottish philosopher David Hume, by David Martin, 1770; in a private collection

by David Hume

From the course by Yale University
Moral Foundations of Politics

The Federalist Papers

https://www.coursera.org/learn/moral-...

Professor:

Ian Shapiro

Sterling Professor of Political Science and Henry R. Luce Director
The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale

Source: Yale and Coursera

Book mentioned in the lecture as having a great deal of influence as well - but came out much later in American History:

by John Rawls

Note: It is interesting that Hamilton wrote most of the essays but the professor seems to feel that Madison is the "principal author". Not sure what the professor means - possibly the author of those papers that had the greatest degree of impact - not sure. The professor is especially concerned about "factions".

The Federalist Papers and reading them was discussed on the Senate floor three days ago:

See article and video:

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/...

Excerpt:

“Congress is supposed to be a separate, equal branch of government,” he said.

“Read the Constitution. Read the Federalist Papers,” Schumer said.

“One of the main purposes of Congress was to check the power of the executive branch,” he said. “Our Founding Fathers feared an overreaching executive branch, as I know my friend from Nebraska knows, because he cites these things. That responsibility doesn’t fall only on one party. It falls on all of us.”

I wonder if the founding fathers had this in mind:

The great British Brexit robbery: how our democracy was hijacked

https://www.theguardian.com/technolog...

Source: The Guardian

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Hdif...

Ben Shapiro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBGQq...

Source: Youtube

Note: Shapiro indicates that many of the wars with Indians were started by the states who wanted to enlarge their territories and not by the Federal Government.

The Federalist Papers

Mr. Kesler talked about the book he edited The Federalist Papers, published by Mentor Books. The book contains correspondence and personal papers of Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison written in support of the then-proposed Constitution of the United States. He also spoke about how the Constitution is viewed today and what impact it has on American politics. After his remarks he answered questions from the audience

https://www.c-span.org/video/?153995-...

Source: Youtube and C-Span

Why did Federalists and Anti-Federalists disagree about representation?

Gordon Wood:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UlWC...

Source: Youtube, The Choices Program

The Making of the US Constitution

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRnOA...

Gordon Wood of Brown University delivers a talk on the making of the U.S. Constitution on June 12, 2012, at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Wood's presentation was part of "Shaping the American Republic to 1877," a teacher workshop sponsored by Humanities Texas and UTSA.

Source: Humanities Texas, Youtube

Books Mentioned in Talk:

by John Fiske (no photo)

by Charles A. Beard

by Alexander Hamilton

OK, let us get away from any confusion on the case Chisholm v. Georgia and clear this up:

Facts of the case

In 1777, the Executive Council of Georgia authorized the purchase of needed supplies from a South Carolina businessman. After receiving the supplies, Georgia did not deliver payments as promised.

After the merchant's death, the executor of his estate, Alexander Chisholm, took the case to court in an attempt to collect from the state. Georgia maintained that it was a sovereign state not subject to the authority of the federal courts.

Question

Was the state of Georgia subject to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the federal government?

Conclusion

In a 4-to-1 decision, the justices held that "the people of the United States" intended to bind the states by the legislative, executive, and judicial powers of the national government. The Court held that supreme or sovereign power was retained by citizens themselves, not by the "artificial person" of the State of Georgia. The Constitution made clear that controversies between individual states and citizens of other states were under the jurisdiction of federal courts. State conduct was subject to judicial review.

Link: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1789-1850/...

See the case itself:

Link: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/fede...

Note: Jeffrey T - Now that I have verified - I know that I did not say that this had anything to do with the Indian Wars but listed what Jay was involved in as Supreme Court Justice. And this was mentioned as a first and major case heard by the Jay Court.

But I did see your previous post and commented about the remainder of what you had to say. The reason why this was mentioned was in relationship to Jay who wrote these next few Federalist essays.

Also note:

Rulings of the Jay Court

The Jay Court did not issue many major rulings, but Chisholm v. Georgia (1793) stands as the first important ruling of the Supreme Court.

The court held that the state of Georgia could be sued in federal court, establishing an important precedent that the states of the union do not constitute fully sovereign states.

However, the Eleventh Amendent, ratified in 1795, granted states sovereign immunity from suits in federal court by citizens of another state.

About the Jay Court:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Court

From the Encyclopaedia Britannica

https://www.britannica.com/event/Chis...

Note 2 to Jeffrey T:

I think you were thinking of Worcester vs Georgia which ended up before the Supreme Court later - (the Marshall Court)

Here is a video on that one:

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cqXo...

About:

A Georgia court convicted Samuel Worcester of settling in Cherokee Nation territory without obtaining a state license.

Worcester appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned the decision in 1832. The court also laid down guiding principles on the relationship between Native American tribes, states, and the nation.

John Marshall described the Cherokee Nation as “a distinct community” over which “the laws of Georgia have no force… [except] with the assent of the Cherokees themselves…” The ruling thus accorded Native American tribes important elements of sovereignty, which have been reinforced in hundreds of cases since that time.

Yet the ruling did not protect the Cherokees and other Native American tribes from oppression. Perhaps best known to Georgians is the forced removal of Native Americans from the state on the infamous “Trail of Tears.”

This is the Worcester versus Georgia Supreme Court Case:

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1789-1850/... (Oyez)

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/fede... (JUSTIA)

Source(s): Oyez, Justia, Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, State Bar of Georgia

Lobbying the Early Congress Part 4 - Professor Desan outlined the implications of the 1793 Supreme Court case Chisholm v. Georgia on lobbying and the implications on today's politics.

In the case, the Court decided that a citizen of South Carolina could sue another state, Georgia, in a federal court. She examined how the movement of the petition to the legal from the legislative process circumscribed the practice of lobbying. She also took questions from the audience.

Link: https://www.c-span.org/video/?104034-...

Lecturer: Christine Desan



Christine Desan teaches about the international monetary system, the constitutional law of money, constitutional history, political economy, and legal theory. She is the co-founder of Harvard’s Program on the Study of Capitalism, an interdisciplinary project that brings together classes, resources, research funds, and advising aimed at exploring that topic. With its co-director, Prof. Sven Beckert (History), she has taught the Program’s anchoring research seminar, the Workshop on the Political Economy of Modern Capitalism, since 2005. Desan will be a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study during the 2015-2016 academic year and at the Massachusetts Historical Society in the fall of 2016.

Desan’s research explores money as a legal and political project, one that configures the market it sets out to measure. Her approach aims to open economic orthodoxy to question, particularly insofar as it assumes money as a neutral instrument and markets as autonomous phenomena. She has recently published a book called Making Money: Coin, Currency, and the Coming of Capitalism (Oxford University Press, 2014). She is also the editor of Inside Money: Re-Theorizing Liquidity (forthcoming, University of Pennsylvania Press), and co-editor with Sven Beckert of Capitalism in America: New Histories (in progress). Her articles include "Coin Reconsidered: The Political Alchemy of Commodity Money," Theoretical Inquiries in Law 287 (January, 2010), and "Beyond Commodification: Contract and the Credit-Based World of Modern Capitalism," in Transformation of American Law II: Essays for Morton Horwitz (2010).

Desan is on the Board of the Institute for Global Law and Policy, is a faculty member of the Program on American Studies at Harvard University, and has served on the editorial board for the Law and History Review and as an advisory editor of Eighteenth Century Studies. In Brookline, MA, Desan served for 10 years on a town committee that researched and drafted legislation promoting campaign finance reform, and that supervised that reform once it was enacted.

Areas of Interest

Constitutional Law: Constitutional History
Constitutional Law: Monetary History
International Law: International Monetary Systems
Law and Economics: Comparative Institutional Design
Legal Theory
Legal Theory: Political Economy

Source: C-Span

by Christine Desan (no photo)

Here is the libertarian view: (Chisholm versus Georgia) and some other cases which may be of interest - as well as the origin of the Eleventh Amendment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkQQ8...

Note: If the site informs the public of its pespective, I let you know. Still has a great deal of good information and it is good to hear all different interpretations.

Professor Kevin Gutzman, author of James Madison and the Making of America, discusses the Federalists in the 1790s, with special attention to Chisholm v. Georgia, the Alien and Sedition Acts, and the Jeffersonian Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions

Source: Youtube

by Kevin R.C. Gutzman

Chief Justice Interview on the Constitution Chief Justice John Roberts talked about the U.S. Constitution at the Supreme Court.

He talked about his early interest in constitutional law, the role of the constitution in the operation of government, structure of the Constitution and its Amendments, and the process of judicial review.

The interview was part of a C-SPAN Classroom project designed to interest middle and high school students in the Constitution.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?193515-...

Source: C-Span and Youtube

April 30, 1789: First Inaugural Address - President George Washington

Transcript:

Fellow Citizens of the Senate and the House of Representatives:

Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the fourteenth day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years: a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me, by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my Country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens, a distrustful scrutiny into his qualification, could not but overwhelm with dispondence, one, who, inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpractised in the duties of civil administration, ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficencies. In this conflict of emotions, all I dare aver, is, that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appreciation of every circumstance, by which it might be affected. All I dare hope, is, that, if in executing this task I have been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof, of the confidence of my fellow-citizens; and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me; my error will be palliated by the motives which misled me, and its consequences be judged by my Country, with some share of the partiality in which they originated.

Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station; it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official Act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the People of the United States, a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes: and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success, the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own; nor those of my fellow-citizens at large, less than either. No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.

And in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their United Government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most Governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage.

These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me I trust in thinking, that there are none under the influence of which, the proceedings of a new and free Government can more auspiciously commence.

By the article establishing the Executive Department, it is made the duty of the President "to recommend to your consideration, such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."

The circumstances under which I now meet you, will acquit me from entering into that subject, farther than to refer to the Great Constitutional Charter under which you are assembled; and which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given.

It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications, I behold the surest pledges, that as on one side, no local prejudices, or attachments; no seperate views, nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests: so, on another, that the foundations of our National policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; and the pre-eminence of a free Government, be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its Citizens, and command the respect of the world.

I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my Country can inspire: since there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity: Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained: And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it will remain with your judgment to decide, how far an exercise of the occasional power delegated by the Fifth article of the Constitution is rendered expedient at the present juncture by the nature of objections which have been urged against the System, or by the degree of inquietude which has given birth to them.

Instead of undertaking particular recommendations on this subject, in which I could be guided by no lights derived from official opportunities, I shall again give way to my entire confidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public good: For I assure myself that whilst you carefully avoid every alteration which might endanger the benefits of an United and effective Government, or which ought to await the future lessons of experience; a reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen, and a regard for the public harmony, will sufficiently influence your deliberations on the question how far the former can be more impregnably fortified, or the latter be safely and advantageously promoted.

To the preceeding observations I have one to add, which will be most properly addressed to the House of Representatives. It concerns myself, and will therefore be as brief as possible. When I was first honoured with a call into the Service of my Country, then on the eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I contemplated my duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary compensation. From this resolution I have in no instance departed.

And being still under the impressions which produced it, I must decline as inapplicable to myself, any share in the personal emoluments, which may be indispensably included in a permanent provision for the Executive Department; and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the Station in which I am placed, may, during my continuance in it, be limited to such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to require.

Having thus imparted to you my sentiments, as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave; but not without resorting once more to the benign parent of the human race, in humble supplication that since he has been pleased to favour the American people, with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquility, and dispositions for deciding with unparellelled unanimity on a form of Government, for the security of their Union, and the advancement of their happiness; so his divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the success of this Government must depend.

About this speech
April 30, 1789

Source: Miller Center

Washington calls on Congress to avoid local and party partisanship and encourages the adoption of a Bill of Rights, without specifically calling them by name.

The first President demonstrates his reluctance to accept the post, rejects any salary for the execution of his duties, and devotes a considerable part of the speech to his religious beliefs.

This is an interesting video originally on C-Span:

Link: https://www.c-span.org/video/?295458-...

Mark Dimunation, Chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress, discusses the Federalist Papers. The collection of 85 essays by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay were written in 1787-88 to encourage the states to ratify the United States Constitution. To this day, the Federalist Papers continue to be cited in legislative and legal proceedings.

Source: C-Span

Excellent Article:

‘Federalist’ Principles of Governing Are Dead – Consider the Impasse Over ‘The Wall’
Bob Barr |Posted: Jan 02, 2019 12:01 AM



Two hundred and thirty years ago, three of our Founding Fathers authored a series of essays that came to be known as the “Federalist Papers.”

Thomas Jefferson years later characterized these writings as the “best commentary on the principles of government which ever was written.” In other words, “if you want to understand how American government is supposed to function, read the ‘Federalist Papers.’”

Sadly, it appears obvious few, if any, of the key protagonists in today’s political battles between the three branches of our government that were established in that bygone era (which I consider our “Greatest Generation”) have read, much less truly understand the principles embodied in that collection of essays.

Most Americans are at least vaguely familiar with the fact that our federal government is comprised of three branches – Legislative, Executive, and Judicial.

The men who framed our Constitution, however, incorporated into the mechanisms it created many other important principles; including several that were designed expressly to distance our government from that of Great Britain, the country from which we were splitting.

In establishing the position of “President,” for example, our Framers made clear that this person was not to be selected by, or to be a part of, the Legislative Branch. This is distinct from the British model, in which the chief executive is the “Prime Minister”; chosen not by the voters in general election, but by his or her fellow Members of Parliament, and therefore answerable directly to that body.

By contrast, in our country, the president, as the chief executive, is elected by the citizenry at-large (technically, through “electors”), and therefore answerable to the People of the entire country; not to the Legislative Branch.

Conversely, and in another important principle incorporated into the Constitution, Members of the Legislative Branch (the two Houses of Congress) neither answer to nor are to be controlled by the President. Rather, each Member of Congress (whether Representative or Senator) is to reflect and be answerable to the constituents of his or her district or state; not to the President.

While those interests may from time to time coincide, U.S. Representatives and Senators are not serving in that august institution merely to do a president’s bidding.

So, what has changed (other than a profound ignorance of the principles undergirding our constitutional form of government)? Why do Republican Members of Congress by and large consider it their bounden duty to use their powers and responsibilities to do the bidding of a president simply because the person occupying that office is of the same political party as are they? Similarly, why do Democrats operate in the same mode when the White House is occupied by a person with a “D” after their name?

In a word, what has turned our political structure on its head, is the one thing our Founding Fathers disdained and warned us about – party politics. Especially in the closed, two-party system that has constrained politics in America for more than a century and a half, the primary allegiance deemed important to the vast majority of Representatives and Senators now serving, is to the President who happens to be of their same political party. If the president is a Republican, the congressional leaders of that party consider it their obligation to employ their powers to enact his agenda; and failure to toe that line is considered cause for punishment. The Democrats operate in just the same manner.

Thus have the lines between the Executive and Legislative Branches become muddled, if not largely erased; and most Members of Congress now rarely assert a voice or an agenda independent from that of the president. Members not of the president’s party consider it their primary responsibility to oppose the Administration’s agenda; those who share the president’s political affiliation view it as their almost sacred responsibility to do whatever they can to support the agenda of “their” president.

More:
https://townhall.com/columnists/bobba...

Source: Townhall

POLICINSKI: The Growing List Of Threats To The 1st Amendment

https://www.greenevillesun.com/opinio...

Source: The Greenville Sun

Fahd Humayun
January 30, 2019

The fault in our stars

Link: https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/4252...

Source: The News

AOC Thinks Concentrated Wealth Is Incompatible With Democracy. So Did Our Founders.
By Eric Levitz@EricLevitz



In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville produced one of the earliest accounts of the American dream. In his famous study of the Jacksonian U.S., the Frenchman wrote that Americans possessed “the charm of anticipated success” — a ubiquitous optimism that he attributed to our country’s democratic character, and to the “general equality of condition” that prevailed among its “people.”

On Wednesday night, Sean Hannity took de Tocqueville to task. In the Fox News’ host’s telling, general economic equality is not a precondition for the American dream, but rather, an insurmountable obstacle to it — because the American dream is (apparently) to earn more than $10 million year without having to pay a top marginal tax rate higher than 37 percent.

Of course, Hannity did not actually frame his argument as a rebuke of de Tocqueville. His true target was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

After popularizing the idea of a 70 percent top marginal tax rate earlier this month, the freshman congresswoman recently suggested that the mere existence of billionaires was both immoral, and a threat to American democracy. “I do think that a system that allows billionaires to exist when there are parts of Alabama where people are still getting ringworm because they don’t have access to public health is wrong,” Ocasio-Cortez told the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, during an interview on Martin Luther King Day. One day later, the congresswoman approvingly quoted an op-ed by the economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez, which argued that the purpose of high taxes on the wealthy wasn’t merely to generate revenue, but rather, to safeguard “democracy against oligarchy.”

Hannity’s not buying it. The Fox News host informed his audience Wednesday that Ocasio-Cortez had “called the American dream immoral,” and that she wants to “empower the government to confiscate” said dream. “Better hide your nice things,” Hannity advised his audience (whom he ostensibly believes to be composed primarily of billionaires), “because here come the excess police.”

Remainder of article:

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/0...

Source: The New Yorker

Brett Kavanaugh lists his favorite Federalist Papers
by Pete Kasperowicz
| September 05, 2018 03:47 PM

The Washington Examiner

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Wednesday ran through a list of his favorite Federalist Papers, the essays written in 1788 by some the nation's Founding Fathers in a bid to ratify the Constitution.

Link: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ne...

Source: The Washington Examiner

Will The Federalist Papers Shed Light on Judge Kavanaugh? Or Vice Versa?
August 07, 2018 by James P. Freeman


Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, center, serves macaroni and cheese to the homeless as he volunteers with Catholic Charities, Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Like an approaching summer squall over the placid horizon, the confirmation hearings in the U.S. Senate loom large for Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination. As a spirited dialogue — debate? — will likely envelop the Judiciary Committee’s public evaluation of his background and qualifications, Americans are likely to hear about competing theories of constitutional interpretation.

There may be references to “original meaning,” “textualist,” and “living tradition,” among others. But if everyday Americans are lucky they will also hear references to “The Federalist Papers.”

Remainder of article:

https://www.insidesources.com/will-fe...

Source: InsideSources

Khan Academy

https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-c...

Source: Khan Academy

Carole Owens: Selling the Constitution all over again

https://www.berkshireeagle.com/storie...

Source: The Berkshire Eagle

Episode 69: The Federalist Papers
October 27, 2017

On this episode: What are the Federalist Papers? Who wrote them? Who uses them? And why should you read them?

Michael Gerhardt, professor from UNC and scholar-in-residence at the National Constitution Center, not only explains these invaluable documents to us, he breaks down some of the more notable essays.

More:
https://www.civics101podcast.org/civi...
http://www.law.unc.edu/faculty/direct...

Source: Civics 101

I agree with this I really do - what do the others of you think about this? Keep the filibuster and stop the nuclear option - we need to pass bills that reflect the populace of America and not a limited view - bipartisanship is important - and of course reflection and putting the country first over a political party.

Conservatives Need to Love the Filibuster Again
It matters. It really does.
by CHARLES SYKES FEBRUARY 4, 2019 4:01 AM


Huey Long, after his record-breaking filibuster in 1935

Link: https://thebulwark.com/conservatives-...

Source: The Bulwark

Feel free to add any additional sources, books, podcasts, videos or other media that pertains to the Federalist Papers.

Remember there is no self promotion.

Mike wrote:

These times have driven me back to the Federalist for a re-grounding in the ideas and arguments made in and about our Constitution. No 65 offers insight into how impeachments will be judged in the Senate.

"They (courts of impeachment) are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt." -- Hamilton, Alexander. The Federalist Papers, No. 65.

Congressional impeachments happen because a “public man” engaged in “the administration of public affairs”—is accused of violating the public trust. Nothing more, nothing less.

Second, we might say that Hamilton had a fantastic crystal ball—or, that he was expressing what was then and is now, common sense. For the Senate, “resting entirely on the basis of elections,” will be “too often the leaders or the tools of the most cunning or the most numerous faction, and on this account, can hardly be expected to possess the requisite neutrality towards those whose conduct may be the subject of scrutiny.” Common sense.

In the end, Hamilton chooses optimism, asserting “where else than in the Senate could have been found a tribunal sufficiently dignified, or sufficiently independent? What other body would be likely to feel confidence enough in its own situation to preserve, unawed and uninfluenced, the necessary impartiality between an individual accused, and the representatives of the people, his accusers?” Hamilton was optimistic. Just like us. And in these times he would be disappointed. Just like us.