Federalist Papers:

      FEDERALIST LXXXIV:

       Certain General and Miscellaneous Objections to the Constitution Considered and Answered

       Table of Contents

      [To the People of the State of New York:]

      In the course of the foregoing review of the Constitution, I have taken notice of, and endeavored to answer most of the objections which have appeared against it. There, however, remain a few which either did not fall naturally under any particular head, or were forgotten in their proper places. These shall now be discussed; but as the subject has been drawn into great length, I shall so far consult brevity, as to comprise all my observations on these miscellaneous points in a single paper.

      The most considerable of the remaining objections is, that the plan of the Convention contains no Bill of Rights. Among other answers given to this, it has been upon different occasions remarked, that the Constitutions of several of the States are in a similar predicament. I add, that New York is of the number. And yet the opposers of the new system, in this State, who profess an unlimited admiration for its Constitution, are among the most intemperate partisans of a Bill of Rights. To justify their zeal in this matter, they allege two things: one is, that though the Constitution of New York has no Bill of Rights prefixed to it, yet it contains, in the body of it, various provisions in favor of particular privileges and rights, which, in substance, amount to the same thing; the other is, that the Constitution adopts, in their full extent, the common and statute law of Great Britain, by which many other rights, not expressed in it, are equally secured.

      To the first I answer, that the Constitution proposed by the Convention contains, as well as the Constitution of this State, a number of such provisions.

      Independent of those which relate to the structure of the Government, we find the following:–Article 1, Section 3, Clause 7, "Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States; but the party convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment according to law." Section 9, of the same Article, Clause 2, "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." Clause 3, "No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed." Clause 7, "No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States; and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign State." Article 3, Section 2, Clause 3, "The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed." Section 3, of the same Article, "Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open Court." And Clause 3, of the same Section, "The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason; but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attainted."

      It may well be a question, whether these are not, upon the whole, of equal importance with any which are to be found in the Constitution of this State. The establishment of the writ of habeas corpus, the prohibition of ex post facto laws, and of titles of nobility, to which we have no corresponding provisions in our Constitution, are perhaps greater securities to liberty and republicanism than any it contains. The creation of crimes after the commission of the fact, or, in other words, the subjecting of men to punishment for things which, when they were done, were breaches of no law, and the practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny. The observations of the judicious Blackstone,62 in reference to the latter, are well worthy of recital: "To bereave a man of life," (says he,) "or by violence to confiscate his estate without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary Government." And as a remedy for this fatal evil, he is everywhere peculiarly emphatical in his encomiums on the habeas corpus Act, which in one place he calls "the bulwark of the British Constitution."63

      Nothing need be said to illustrate the importance of the prohibition of titles of nobility. This may truly be denominated the corner-stone of Republican Government; for so long as they are excluded, there can never be serious danger that the Government will be any other than that of the People.

      To the second, that is, to the pretended establishment of the common and state law by the Constitution, I answer, that they are expressly made subject "to such alterations and provisions as the Legislature shall from time to time make concerning the same." They are therefore at any moment liable to repeal by the ordinary Legislative power, and of course have no constitutional sanction. The only use of the declaration was to recognize the ancient law, and to remove doubts which might have been occasioned by the Revolution. This consequently can be considered as no part of a declaration of rights; which under our Constitutions must be intended as limitations of the power of the Government itself.

      It has been several times truly remarked, that Bills of Rights are, in their origin, stipulations between kings and their subjects, abridgments of prerogative in favor of privilege, reservations of rights not surrendered to the prince. Such was Magna Charta, obtained by the Barons, sword in hand, from King John. Such were the subsequent confirmations of that charter by succeeding princes. Such was the Petition of Right assented to by Charles I., in the beginning of his reign. Such, also, was the Declaration of Right presented by the Lords and Commons to the Prince of Orange in 1688, and afterwards thrown into the form of an Act of Parliament called the Bill of Rights. It is evident, therefore, that, according to their primitive signification, they have no application to Constitutions professedly founded upon the power of the People, and executed by their immediate representatives and servants. Here, in strictness, the People surrender nothing; and as they retain everything, they have no need of particular reservations. "We, the People of the United States, to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Here is a better recognition of popular rights, than volumes of those aphorisms which make the principal figure in several of our State Bills of Rights, and which would sound much better in a treatise of ethics, than in a Constitution of Government.

      But a minute detail of particular rights is certainly far less applicable to a Constitution like that under consideration, which is merely intended to regulate the general political interests of the Nation, than to a Constitution which has the regulation of every species of personal and private concerns. If, therefore, the loud clamors against the plan of the Convention, on this score, are well founded, no epithets of reprobation will be too strong for the Constitution of this State. But the truth is, that both of them contain all which, in relation to their objects, is reasonably to be desired.

      I go further, and affirm, that Bills of Rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating