The%20Ratification%20Debates

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The Ratification Debates
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Topics

• The Historical Context
• The Role of the Federalist Papers during
  ratification
• Federalist Justifications for the Constitution

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The Ratification Debates in Historical Context

• The Ratification debates addressed two questions
• Should the Articles of Confederation be replaced?
• If the Articles should be replaced, what should
  be the features of the new constitution?

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Arguments against the Articles of Confederation

• The national government did not have the power to
  enforce its own laws-Congress could not
  effectively regulate trade among states, collect
  taxes, or try individuals who broke national
  laws.
• The federal government was not given sole power
  to coin money causing inflation.
• Government was unresponsive to changing
  circumstances. New laws required supermajorities
  (9 of the 13 states) that were slow and costly to
  form.
• Amendments required unanimity

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The Constitution fixed the Articles, but at
what cost?

• Anti-Federalists argued that the new Constitution
  provided insufficient protection for the rights
  of individuals and states from the powerful new
  federal government.
• Anti-Federalists preferred either
• To scrap the national government entirely, or
• Keep the Articles as they stood.

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What was the basis for Anti-Federalist Opposition?

• In general, the Anti-Federalists viewed the
  Constitution as a threat to five cherished values
• Law
• Political Stability
• The Principles of the Declaration of Independence
• To Federalism
• Anti-Commericalism

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The Constitution and Federalism

• At the time, federalism was the idea that the
  states are primary, that they are equal and that
  they possess the main weight of political power.
  
• The Constitution consolidation of power in the
  national government was inconsistent with
  voluntary cooperation among the states.

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Whats so special about states rights?

• Anti-Federalists believed that effective
  administration could only exist in states with a
  small territory with a homogenous population.
• In large, diverse republics, many significant
  differences in condition, interest, and habit
  have to be ignored for the sake of uniform
  administration.
• A large national government would impose uniform
  rules despite American diversity, resulting in
  hardship and inequity in many parts of the
  country.

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States Protect Liberty 1

• Only a small republic can enjoy the affective
  attachment of the people to the government and
  voluntary obedience to the law.
• Elections are not sufficient to ensure public
  perceptions of governmental accountability.
• In a large republic, the people will not have
  confidence in their legislature because they are
  too far removed from the individuals who govern
  them.

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States Protect Liberty 2

• Small republics ensure representative
  policymaking.
• Representation depends on similarities between
  legislatures and citizens.
• Federal elections presented voters with a choice
  among representatives from the well-known elite,
  or the natural aristocracy. State elections
  ensured the inclusion of the yeomanry.
• The yeomanry looked after the best interest of
  the public at large.

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States Protect Liberty 3

• The Constitution did not include protections for
  jury trials.
• Whereas elections provide representation in
  policymaking, juries ensure representation in
  administration.
• Juries allow the public to stand as guardians of
  each others rights, and to restrain tyrannical
  authorities who might infringe upon those rights.

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The Constitution and natural aristocracy

• All government is aristocratic in some
  respects-government is inherently the rule of the
  few over the many.
• The Constitution, however, prevents the many from
  effective control over the few. The Senate, in
  particular, with 6-year terms, absence of term
  limits, and the widest-ranging policy-making
  powers in the national government, was believed
  to set the stage for the development of an
  aristocracy.

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The Ratification Controversy

• Ratification was closely contested nationally
  during 1787 and 1788
• Any nine of the thirteen states were sufficient
  for ratification
• But rejection by any of the four most prominent
  states-Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, or
  Virginia would have doomed the Constitution

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New York was special

• New York City was the seat of the national
  government during ratification
• New York state had a powerful executive branch.
  The governor would lose power if a strong
  national government formed.
• Alexander Hamilton was from New York and led its
  Federalist faction.

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Hamiltons Problem

• The Anti-Federalists were led by His
  Excellency, Governor George Clinton.
• Clinton had a vested interest in preventing the
  formation of a strong national government.
• Clintons popularity as father of New York made
  him a formidable rival.

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Hamiltons Strategy

• Hamilton focused on behind the scenes political
  manipulation to build support among political
  elites.
• He also proposed a series of essays designed to
  persuade the public of the Constitutions value.
• These essays served as a debaters handbook.

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The Federalist Papers

• A set of essays, written by Hamilton, James
  Madison, and John Jay, and published in New York
  newspapers under the pseudonym Publius.
• During the ratification controversy, these essays
  were circulated nationally.
• The essays linked opposition to the new
  Constitution with hot-headed liberals (Patrick
  Henry) and those with a vested interest in
  maintaining a weak government (George Clinton).

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Four Themes of the Federalist Papers

• An explanation of the blessings of national
  government
• An indictment of the Articles of Confederation
  for failing to provide such a government at the
  national level
• An analysis and defense of the Constitution as an
  instrument of federalism and governance
• An exposition of the costs and benefits of
  freedom.
• ? They are essays designed to persuade

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Federalist 10, Madison

• This essay explains how the Constitution protects
  against a tyranny of the majority, without resort
  to dictatorship.
• The key to understanding Madisons argument is
  that the tyrant is an individual or group who, if
  given power, would harm others in pursuit of
  self-interest.
• A faction is the term to describe an individual
  or group seeking that power.

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Federalist 10. Factions

• There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of
  faction the one, by removing its causes, the
  other, by controlling its effects.
• To control the causes of faction, it would be
  necessary to either destroy liberty or to give
  every citizen the same opinions and interests.
• Because destroying freedom is unacceptable and
  controlling opinions impossible, to cure the
  mischiefs of factions, it is necessary to
  control their effects.

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Federalist 10. Enlightened Statesmen

• It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen
  will be able to adjust these clashing interests
  and render them all subservient to the public
  good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be
  at the helm. Nor, in many cases, can such an
  adjustment be made without taking into view
  indirect and remote considerations, which will
  rarely prevail over the immediate interest which
  one party may find in disregarding the rights of
  another or the good of the whole.

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Federalist 10. Minority Factions

• A minority faction can be controlled through
  elections.
• The minority may clog he administration, it may
  convulse the society but it will be unable to
  execute and mask its violence under the forms of
  the Constitution.

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Federalist 10.Majority Factions

• When a majority is included in a faction, the
  form of popular government, on the other hand,
  enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or
  interest both the public good and the rights of
  other citizens.
• To control such a majority, factions must be
  rendered, by their number and local situation,
  unable to concert and carry into effect schemes
  of oppression.
• An extended republic is better able to control
  factions than a set of smaller republics, because
  it is more difficult to gain a majority.

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Importance of Federalist 10

• Faction Party
• Federalist 10 can be interpreted as an essay on
  how difficult it is to put together a national
  party.
• Gives rise to the notion of parties as umbrella
  organizations, or coalitions of individuals with
  distinct interests and without a common agenda.
• Madisons Behavioral Assumptions
• Note that Madisons assumptions about human
  behavior closely parallel those of rational
  choice theorists.

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Federalist 51, Madison

• Why do we need the separation of powers?
• Because individuals given power will use it for
  personal advantage.
• If men were angels, no government would be
  necessary.

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Federalist 51.

• A constitution must balance two aims sufficient
  capacity for governance and effective control
  over the leadership.
• In framing a government which is to be
  administered by men over men, the greatest
  difficulty lies in this you must first enable
  the government to control the governed and in
  the next place oblige it to control itself. A
  dependence on the people is, no doubt, the
  primary control on the government but experience
  has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary
  precautions.

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Federalist 51, Checks and Balances

• A system of checks and balances was what
  Montesquieu meant, rather than a strict
  separation of powers.
• To function effectively, the system of checks and
  balances requires multiple branches of
  government.
• Each branch must be independent from the others.
• Each branch must sufficient power to hold the
  others in check.

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Federalist 51. Conditions for Independence

• Each department should have a will of its own
  and consequently should be so constituted that
  the members of each should have as little agency
  as possible in the appointment of members of the
  others.
• But, some deviations from this principal could be
  tolerated, especially for the judiciary whose
  lifetime appointments ameliorate any dependency.
  

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Federalist 51.

• But the greatest security against a gradual
  concentration of the several powers in the same
  department consists in giving to those who
  administer each department the necessary
  constitutional means and motives to resist
  encroachments of the others, the provision for
  defense must in this, as in all other cases, be
  made commensurate to the danger of attack.
  Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
  The interest of the man must be connected with
  the constitutional rights of the place.

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Federalist 51. Legislative Power

• In a democracy, legislative authority is
  predominant.
• The division of the Congress into two different
  branches curbs the power of the legislature.
• Each branch has a different constituency-Senators
  answers to their state, the House to their
  district.
• Senators have longer terms in office making them
  less responsive to their constituents, House
  members have shorter terms making them more
  responsive.

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Importance of Federalist 51

• Status Quo Bias System of checks and balances
  protects minorities when out of power and not
  already oppressed however, checks and balances
  also limit opportunities for change.
• Exacerbated by super-majorities needed to achieve
  cloture in the Senate (filibuster)
• Makes Accountability Difficult if multiple
  sources for responsibility, who is accountable
  for good and bad times?
• Responsible parties no ticket-splitting creates
  disciplined national parties and unified partisan
  control of government offer a vehicle to overcome
  system of checks and balances.

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Federalist 51. Executive Power

• The weakness of the executive requires that this
  branch be fortified.
• The veto power strengthens the president in
  relation to the legislature.