Ameritopia_ The Unmaking of America - Mark R. Levin [60]
Wilson discussed the various forms of government from which the delegates could construct the American system. He concluded, “The extent of territory, the diversity of climate and soil, the number, and greatness, and connection of lakes and rivers, with which the United States are intersected and almost surrounded, all indicate an enlarged government to be fit and advantageous for them. The principles and dispositions of their citizens indicate that in this government, liberty shall reign triumphant. Such indeed have been the general opinions and wishes entertained since the era of independence. If those opinions and wishes are as well-founded as they have been in general, the late Convention were justified in proposing to their constituents, one confederate republic as the best system of a national government for the United States.”14
The Anti-Federalists at the Pennsylvania Convention responded, in part, by addressing Wilson’s invocation of Montesquieu. “WE Dissent, first, because it is the opinion of the most celebrated writers on government, and confirmed by uniform experience, that a very extensive territory cannot be governed on the principles of freedom, otherwise than by a confederation of republics, possessing all the power of internal government; but united in the management of their general, and foreign concerns. If any doubt could have been entertained of the truth of the foregoing principle, it has been fully removed by the concession of Mr. [James] Wilson, one of the majority on this question, and who was one of the deputies in the late general convention.… [T]he powers vested in Congress by this constitution, must necessarily annihilate and absorb the legislative, executive, and judicial powers of the several states, and produce from their ruins one consolidated government, which from the nature of things will be an iron-handed despotism, as nothing short of the supremacy of despotic sway could connect and govern these United States under one government.…”15
The Anti-Federalists insisted that as configured under the Constitution, the states could not defend their sovereignty against a federal government fortified with such enormous power. “We apprehend that two coordinate sovereignties would be a solecism in politics. That therefore as there is no line of distinction drawn between the general, and state governments; as the sphere of their jurisdiction is undefined, it would be contrary to the nature of things, that both should exist together, one or the other would necessarily triumph in the fullness of dominion. However the contest could not be of long continuance, as the state governments are divested of every means of defense, and will be obliged by ‘the supreme law of the land’ to yield at discretion.”16 The Anti-Federalists pointed out that explicit recognition of state authority provided in the Articles of Confederation was missing in the Constitution. “The new constitution, consistently with the plan of consolidation, contains no reservation of the rights and privileges of the state governments, which was made in the confederation of the year 1778, by article the 2nd. ‘That each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.’”17
Sounding very much like Montesquieu, an Anti-Federalist writing under the alias Cato—and believed to be George Clinton of New York—noted, “The recital, or premises on which this new form of government is erected, declares a consolidation or union of all the thirteen parts, or