That a national government will add to the dignity and increase the splendor of the United States abroad, can admit of no doubt: it is essentially requisite for both. That it will render government, and officers of government, more dignified at home is equally certain. That these objects are more suited to the manners, if not [the] genius and disposition of our people is, I fear, also true. That it is requisite in order to keep us at peace among ourselves, is doubtful. That it is necessary, to prevent foreigners from dividing us, or interfering in our government, I deny positively; and, after all, I have strong doubts whether all its advantages are not more specious than solid. We are vain, like other nations. We wish to make a noise in the world; and feel hurt that Europeans are not so attentive to America in peace, as they were to America in war. We are also, no doubt, desirous of cutting a figure in history. Should we not reflect, that quiet is happiness? That content and pomp are incompatible? I have either read or heard this truth, which the Americans should never forget: That the silence of historians is the surest record of the happiness of a people. The Swiss have been four hundred years the envy of mankind, and there is yet scarcely an history of their nation. What is history, but a disgusting and painful detail of the butcheries of conquerors, and the woeful calamities of the conquered?--A Maryland Farmer (John Francis Mercer), 1787
Monday, November 23, 2009
The Anti-Federalist
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2 comments:
Beautifully written, and a reminder of what skilled wordsmiths many in that generation were. But I'm quite ambivalent about such sentiments, since, attractive as they are in theory, historically they've served as a shill for all the usual paleocon crap, viz. xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, anglophobia, slaveholding, etc., etc., as well as, since FDR, for corporate power. As I'm sure you are better aware than most, John Francis Mercer was a wealthy planter (ie., almost certainly a slaveowner), "a Maryland farmer" only in the same sense that Jefferson was a noble yeoman. For better or worse, federal power has repeatedly been the best weapon in this country that the weak could wield against the strong.
All true. I really just posted this because we have made such heroes of the authors of the Constitution that we often forget their opponents. I think it is worth remembering that the constitution as we have it is the product of political horse-trading among men of a certain background and experience, that it was controversial at the time, and that there were and are good arguments for other arrangements.
In defense of Mercer, I should add that he was an early and loud proponent of a Bill of Rights.
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