American Aurora

by Richard N. Rosenfeld

  In his private opinion, he had no scruple in declaring, supported as he was by the opinions of so many of the wise & good, that the British Government was the best in the world; and that he doubted whether any thing short of it would do in America … Their house of Lords is a most noble institution. Having nothing to hope for by a change and a sufficient interest by means of their property in being faithful to the national interest, they form a permanent barrier against every pernicious innovation … No temporary Senate will have firmness eno’ to answer the purpose … Gentlemen … suppose seven years a sufficient period … from not duly considering the amazing violence & turbulence of the democratic spirit …

  As to the Executive, it seemed to be admitted that no good one could be established on Republican principles … The English model was the only good one on this subject. The Hereditary interest of the King was so interwoven with that of the Nation and his personal emoluments so great that he was placed above the danger of being corrupted … [O]ne of the weak sides of Republics was their being liable to foreign influence & corruption … Let one branch of the Legislature hold their places for life … Let the Executive also be for life … It will be objected probably that such an Executive will be an elective Monarch … He wd. reply that Monarch is an indefinite term …1510

  Alexander Hamilton’s notes for this speech reveal his preferences:

  British constitution best form …

  [T]wo political divisions—the few and the many …

  [T]hey should be separated …

  [I]f separated, they will need a mutual check.

  This check is a monarch …

  There ought to be a principle in government capable of resisting the popular current …

  The monarch … ought to be hereditary, and to have so much power that it will not be in his interest to risk much to acquire more.1511

  Thomas Jefferson:

  [A colleague] takes great pain to prove … that Hamilton was no monarchist … This may pass with uninformed readers, but not with those who have had it from Hamilton’s own mouth. I am one of those, and but one of many. At my own table, in presence of Mr. Adams … and myself, in a dispute between Mr. Adams and himself, he avowed his preference of monarchy over every other government, and his opinion that the English was the most perfect model of government ever devised by the wit of man, Mr. Adams agreeing “if its corruptions were done away.”1512

  Mr. Adams observed “purge that constitution of its corruption and give to its popular branch equality of representation, and it would be the most perfect constitution ever devised by the wit of man. “Hamilton paused and said “purge it of its corruption and give to its popular branch equality of representation, & it would become an impracticable government: as it stands at present, with all its supposed defects, it is the most perfect government which ever existed.” And this was assuredly the exact line which separated the political creeds of these two gentlemen. The one was for two hereditary branches and an honest elective one: the other for a hereditary king with a house of lords & commons, corrupted to his will and standing between him and the people.1513

  George Washington will choose monarchists Hamilton and Adams to preside at the highest posts in his administration. Alexander Hamilton will lead the Federalist party.

  Friday, June 22, 1787. Today, in Paris, Tom Paine writes Benjamin Franklin:

  I arrived at Paris on the 30th of May, and the next day began delivering the letters you were so kind as to honor me with. My reception here, in consequence of them, has been abundantly cordial and friendly. I have received visits and invitations from all who were in town.1514

  Saturday, June 30, 1787. Today, at the Federal Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin argues the merits of a plural executive (an executive council) rather than a single president:

  The steady Course of public Measures is most probably to be expected from a Number [in an executive council].

  A single Person’s Measures may be good. The Successor differs in Opinion of those Measures, and adopts others; often is ambitious of distinguishing himself by opposing them, and offering new Projects. One is peaceably dispos’d; another may be fond of War, &c. Hence foreign States can never have that Confidence in the Treaties or Friendship of such a Government, as in that which is conducted by a Number.

  The single Head may be Sick; who is to conduct the Public Affairs in that Case? When he dies, who are to conduct till a new election? If a Council, why not continue them?1515

  Ten years from now, Benny Bache will argue:

  In the independent times of the ancient republics, no one thought of giving to a general a supreme command close to the seat of government for four years certain. Yet this and many other high prerogatives, internal and external, are given for this term to the American President … [I]t is sufficient reason for changing the present institution of a solitary president—And what reason is there per contra; what evil in a plural directory, gradually renewed? … The person at present chosen as vice-president would, in this case, no longer as now be an inert person … The executive government would no longer exhibit the fluctuating character of an individual, but approach nearer to the fixed abstract of the American nation.1516

  Wednesday, July 18, 1787. Today, in London, U.S. Minister to Great Britain John Adams sends the second volume of his Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States to the printer.1517 Next Wednesday, John Jay will write him on the success of his first volume.

  Your book circulates and does good. It conveys much information … when the defects of our national government are under consideration, and when the strongest arguments are necessary to remove prejudices …1518

  Wednesday, August 1, 1787. Today, from New York, where he is trying, at his grandfather’s behest, to collect an old foundry debt from Francis Childs (the dissatisfied foundry customer), Benny writes his grandfather:

  My father’s letter informs me also, to my great satisfaction, of the raising [up in Franklin Court] of the Printing Office & Foundry. In all probability we shall succeed … provided we make a few alterations in the several founts, so as to suit them a little better to the english taste … I’ll try to procure a specimen of them that you may judge for yourself of their merit …

  Childs still keeps out of the way. I suspect on purpose to avoid my making any demands on him. I’ll use however my utmost activity to find him out and recover the debt …1519

  Thursday, August 9, 1787. Today, at the Federal Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, James Madison records:

  Mr. Govr. MORRIS moved to insert 14 instead of 4 years citizenship as a qualification for Senators: urging the danger of admitting strangers into our public Councils …

  Doct. FRANKLIN was not against a reasonable time, but should be very sorry to see any thing like illiberality inserted into the Constitution … We found in the course of the Revolution that many strangers served us faithfully and that many natives took part against their Country. When foreigners, after looking about for some other Country in which they can obtain more happiness, give a preference to ours, it is a proof of attachment which ought to excite our confidence & affection.1520

  Friday, August 10, 1787. Today, at the Federal Constitutional Convention, property qualifications for elected officials are discussed. James Madison records:

  Mr. PINCKNEY. The Committee as he had conceived were instructed to report the proper qualifications of property for the members of the Nat. Legislature … He was opposed to the establishment of an undue aristocratic influence in the Constitution, but he thought it essential that the members of the Legislature, the Executive, and the Judges, should be possessed of competent property to make them independent & respectable …

  Doctr. FRANKLIN expressed his dislike of every thing that tended to debase the spirit of the common people … Some of the greatest rogues he was ever acquainted with were the richest rogues. We should remember the character which the Scripture requires in Rulers, that they shoul
d be men hating covetousness. This Constitution will be much read and attended to in Europe, and if it should betray a great partiality to the rich, will not only hurt us in the esteem of the most liberal and enlightened men there but discourage the common people from removing into this Country.1521

  Sunday, August 12, 1787. Today, preparing for his final examination at the University of Pennsylvania,1522 Benny Bache turns eighteen years old. Earlier this month, he wrote his grandfather,

  The Convention I hear is adjourned. [I]t must be no small comfort for you to have a short resting spell. I really think your illness was in great measure owing to the fatigue you suffered while it was sitting, but I hope this respite from that business will fortify your health …1523

  Monday, September 17, 1787. Today, at the Federal Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Ben Franklin delivers a speech:

  I confess that I do not entirely approve of this Constitution …

  I agree to this Constitution, with all its Faults, if they are such, because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well administred …

  The Opinions I have had of its Errors I sacrifice to the Public Good. I have never whisper’d a Syllable of them abroad. Within these Walls they were born, & here they shall die. If every one of us in returning to our Constituents were to report the Objections he has had to it … we might prevent its being generally received and thereby lose all …1524

  As I wrote in my history, Franklin thought the new Constitution,

  though it was not wholly entitled to his admiration, was yet preferable to any hereditary establishment.1525

  Next, as James Madison records,

  [Dr. Franklin] then moved that the Constitution be signed …” … by the unanimous consent of the States present the 17th of Sept. &c …”

  This ambiguous form [“of the States”] had been drawn up … in order to gain the dissenting members and put into the hands of Doctor Franklin that it might have the better chance of success …

  Mr. RANDOLPH then rose and, with an allusion to the observations of Doc. Franklin, apologized for his refusing to sign the Constitution …

  The members then proceeded to sign the instrument.

  Whilst the last members were signing it, Doct. FRANKLIN, looking towards the Presidents Chair at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him that Painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art between a rising and a setting sun … I have, said he, often … looked at that [sun] behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising sun …

  The Constitution being signed by all the members except Mr. Randolph, Mr. Mason, and Mr. Gerry … the Convention dissolved itself by an Adjournment …1526

  George Washington has said virtually nothing at the Federal Constitutional Convention. John Adams will observe,

  Washington got the reputation of being a great man because he kept his mouth shut.1527

  The convention has adopted John Adams’ constitution, not Ben Franklin’s. Ben Franklin, it is said, shed a tear when he gave his acquiescence.1528

  John Adams has, in the United States Senate, an aristocratic branch of government resembling the British House of Lords. The United States Senate admits very few members (only two from each state), who won’t have to answer for their actions very frequently (facing reelection only once each six years) and who are chosen, under the new federal constitution, not by the people but by state legislatures, where propertied state senates and wealthy state governors can generally control the choice. (Even should U.S. senators be elected directly by the people, the U.S. Senate would remain the handmaiden of aristocracy, because statewide elections require great wealth and reputation to reach an electorate whose size and dispersion won’t allow the voters to know the candidates personally.1528a”) Finally, a majority of U.S. senators do not necessarily represent a majority of the people. Like England’s “rotten boroughs,” less populous states have a disproportionate and undemocratic role. John Adams:

  Now, sir, let me ask you, whether you can discover no “resemblance of aristocracy in our form of government”? Are not great, and very great, important and essential powers entrusted to a few, a very few?

  [The very small number of] senators, composed of two senators from each state, are an integral part of the legislature … These [few men] possess an absolute negative on all the laws of the nation. Nor is this all. These few, these very few … have an absolute negative upon the executive authority in the appointment of all officers … They, moreover, have an absolute negative on all treaties … They are also an absolute judicature in all impeachments …

  How are these … senators appointed? Are they appointed by the people? Is the constitution of them democratical? They are chosen by the legislatures of the several states. And who are the legislatures of these separate states? Are they the people? No. They are a selection of the best men among the people, made by the people themselves … Yet there is something more. These legislatures are composed of two bodies, a senate and a house of representatives, each assembly differently constituted, the senate more nearly “resembling aristocracy” than the house. Senators of the United States are chosen, in some states, by a convention of both houses; in others, by separate, independent, but concurrent votes. The senates in the former have great influence, and often turn the vote; in the latter, they have an absolute negative in the choice.1529

  With each state possessing the same Senate vote as every other state, a citizen of one state may have ten times more representation in the United States Senate than the citizen of another state. This is not what Ben Franklin and Tom Paine mean by political “equality.”

  The U.S. President has nearly monarchical power. In fact, the President can veto the decisions of a majority in the Congress. This is not the executive power that French democrats prefer. John Adams:

  The Prince of Orange, William V., in a conversation with which he honored me … was pleased to say … “Sir, you have given yourselves a king under the title of president.”

  Turgot, Rochefoucauld, and Condorcet, Brissot … and Mazzei were all offended that we have given too much eclat to our governors and presidents. It is true, and I rejoice in it, that our presidents, limited as they are, have more power, that is, executive power, than the stadtholders, the doges … or the kings of Lacedæmon or of Poland … [O]ur president’s office has “some resemblance of monarchy,” and God forbid that it should ever be diminished.

  All these monarchical powers … are “deduced” from morality and liberty; but if they had been more deliberately considered and better digested, the morality and liberty would have been better secured, and of longer duration, if the senatorial limitation of them had been omitted.1530

  The President is also to be elected not by the people but by presidential electors who are to be chosen as state legislatures decide. Propertied state senates, wealthy governors, and aristocratic caucuses can determine, therefore, the presidential selection, much as they can determine the choice of U.S. Senators. John Adams explains:

  [T]he electors are balanced against the people in the choice of the president. And here is a complication and refinement of balances, which, for any thing I recollect, is an invention of our own, and peculiar to us.

  The state legislatures can direct the choice of electors by the people at large, or by the people in what districts they please, or by themselves, without consulting the people at all. However, all this complication of machinery … [has] not been sufficient to satisfy the people. They have invented a balance to all balances in their caucuses. We have congressional caucuses, county caucuses, city caucuses, district caucuses … and in these aristocratical caucuses, elections are decided.1531

  The President and Senate are not hereditary, though some might find this preferable. They need not be, as John Adams writes John T
aylor, Virginia’s farmer-philosopher:

  You appear to me, in all your writings to consider hereditary descent as essential to monarchy and aristocracy … But is this correct … ? It may be hereditary, or it may be for life, or it may be for years or only for one year … Monarchy, in this view of it, resembles property. A landed estate may be for years, a year … or any number of years …1532

  The President and U.S. senators will have terms of office twice and thrice as long as members of the House of Representatives (and, “during good behavior,” can be reelected for life).

  Friday, October 5, 1787. Today, an anonymous correspondent writes in a Philadelphia newspaper,

  I am fearful that the principles of government inculcated in Mr. Adams’s treatise [Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States], and enforced in the numerous essays and paragraphs in the newspapers, have misled some well designing members of the late Convention …

  Mr. Adams’s sine qua non of a good government is three balancing powers … Mr. Adams … has not been able to adduce a single instance of such a government; he indeed says that the British constitution is such in theory [only] … The state of society in England is much more favorable to such a scheme of government than that of America. There they have a powerful hereditary nobility, and real distinctions of rank and interests …

  I shall now examine the construction of the proposed general government …

  [W]e see the house of representatives are on the part of the people to balance the senate who I suppose will be composed of the better sort, the well born, &c … The senate … is constituted on the most unequal principles … The term and mode of its appointment will lead to permanency … The President, who would be a mere pageant of state unless he coincides with the views of the Senate, would either become the head of the aristocratic junto in that body or its minion; besides, their influence being the most predominant, could the best secure his reelection to office …