Federalist vs. Anti-Federalist: ALL Essays and Articles in One Edition. Patrick Henry
Читать онлайн книгу.
Treasurer, assistants, clerks, &c. These officers are indispensable under any system, and will suffice under the new as well as the old. As to Ambassadors and other ministers and agents in foreign countries, the proposed Constitution can make no other difference, than to render their characters, where they reside, more respectable, and their services more useful. As to persons to be employed in the collection of the revenues, it is unquestionably true that these will form a very considerable addition to the number of Fœderal officers; but it will not follow, that this will occasion an increase of public expense. It will be in most cases nothing more than an exchange of State for National officers. In the collection of all duties, for instance, the persons employed will be wholly of the latter description. The States individually will stand in no need of any for this purpose. What difference can it make in point of expense, to pay officers of the customs appointed by the State or by the United States? There is no good reason to suppose, that either the number or the salaries of the latter, will be greater than those of the former.
Where then are we to seek for those additional articles of expense, which are to swell the account to the enormous size that has been represented to us? The chief item which occurs to me, respects the support of the Judges of the United States. I do not add the President, because there is now a President of Congress, whose expenses may not be far, if anything, short of those which will be incurred on account of the President of the United States. The support of the Judges will clearly be an extra expense, but to what extent will depend on the particular plan which may be adopted in regard to this matter. But upon no reasonable plan can it amount to a sum which will be an object of material consequence.
Let us now see what there is to counterbalance any extra expense that may attend the establishment of the proposed Government. The first thing which presents itself is, that a great part of the business which now keeps Congress sitting through the year, will be transacted by the President. Even the management of foreign negotiations will naturally devolve upon him, according to general principles concerted with the Senate, and subject to their final concurrence. Hence it is evident, that a portion of the year will suffice for the session of both the Senate and the House of Representatives: we may suppose about a fourth for the latter, and a third, or perhaps half, for the former. The extra business of treaties and appointments may give this extra occupation to the Senate. From this circumstance we may infer, that until the House of Representatives shall be increased greatly beyond its present number, there will be a considerable saving of expense from the difference between the constant session of the present, and the temporary session of the future Congress.
But there is another circumstance, of great importance in the view of economy. The business of the United States has hitherto occupied the State Legislatures, as well as Congress. The latter has made requisitions which the former have had to provide for. Hence it has happened, that the sessions of the State Legislatures have been protracted greatly beyond what was necessary for the execution of the mere local business of the States. More than half their time has been frequently employed in matters which related to the United States. Now the members who compose the legislatures of the several States amount to two thousand and upwards; which number has hitherto performed what under the new system will be done in the first instance by sixty-five persons, and probably at no future period by above a fourth or a fifth of that number. The Congress under the proposed Government will do all the business of the United States themselves, without the intervention of the State Legislatures, who thenceforth will have only to attend to the affairs of their particular States, and will not have to sit in any proportion as long as they have heretofore done. This difference, in the time of the sessions of the State Legislatures, will be clear gain, and will alone form an article of saving, which may be regarded as an equivalent for any additional objects of expense that may be occasioned by the adoption of the new system.
The result from these observations is, that the sources of additional expense from the establishment of the proposed Constitution, are much fewer than may have been imagined; that they are counterbalanced by considerable objects of saving; and that while it is questionable on which side the scale will preponderate, it is certain that a Government less expensive would be incompetent to the purposes of the Union.
PUBLIUS.
Anti-Federalist Papers:
ANTI-FEDERALIST:
John Dewitt II
(Massachusetts, October 27, 1787)
To the Free Citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
In my last address upon the proceedings of the Federal Convention I endeavored to convince you of the importance of the subject, that it required a cool, dispassionate examination, and a thorough investigation, previous to its adoption that it was not a mere revision and amendment of our first Confederation, but a compleat System for the future government of the United States, and I may now add in preference to, and in exclusion of, all others heretofore adopted. It is not temporary, but in its nature, perpetual. It is not designed that you shall be annually called, either to revise, correct, or renew it; but, that your posterity shall grow up under, and be governed by it, as well as ourselves. It is not so capable of alterations as you would at the first reading suppose; and I venture to assert, it never can be, unless by force of arms. The fifth article in the proceedings, it is true, expressly provides for an alteration under certain conditions, whenever "it shall be ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by Congress." Notwithstanding which, such are the "heterogeneous materials from which this System was formed," such is the difference of interest, different manners, and different local prejudices, in the different parts of the United States, that to obtain that majority of three fourths to any one single alteration, essentially affecting this or any other State, amounts to an absolute impossibility. The conduct of the Delegates in dissolving the Convention, plainly speaks this language, and no other. Their sentiments in their Letter to his Excellency the President of Congress are That this Constitution was the result of a spirit of amity that the parties came together disposed to concede as much as possible each to the other that mutual concessions and compromises did, in fact, take place, and all those which could, consistent with the peculiarity of their political situation. Their dissolution enforces the same sentiment, by confining you to the alternative of taking or refusing their doings in the gross. In this view, who is there to be found among us, who can seriously assert, that this Constitution, after ratification and being practiced upon, will be so easy of alteration? Where is the probability that a future Convention, in any future day, will be found possessed of a greater spirit of amity and mutual concession than the present? Where is the probability that three fourths of the States in that Convention, or three fourths of the Legislatures of the different States, whose interests differ scarcely in nothing short of every thing, will be so very ready or willing materially to change any part of this System, which shall be to the emolument of an individual State only? No, my fellow-citizens, as you are now obliged to take it in the whole, so you must hereafter administer it in whole, without the prospect of change, unless by again reverting to, a state of Nature, which will be ever opposed with success by those who approve of the Government in being.
That the want of a Bill of Rights to accompany this proposed System, is a solid objection to it, provided there is nothing exceptionable in the System itself, I do not assert. If, however, there is at any time, a propriety in having one, it would not have been amiss here. A people, entering into society, surrender such a part of their natural rights, as shall be necessary for the existence of that society. They are so precious in themselves, that they would never be parted with, did not the preservation of the remainder require it. They are entrusted in the hands of those, who are very willing to receive them, who are naturally fond of exercising of them, and whose passions are always striving to make a bad use of them. They are conveyed by a written compact, expressing those which are given up, and the mode in which those reserved shall be secured. Language is so easy of explanation, and so difficult is it by words to convey exact ideas, that the party to be governed cannot be too explicit. The line cannot be drawn with too much precision and accuracy. The necessity of this