I’ve been reading a lot of political arguments and discussions lately, probably much more than is really healthy for me. There are those individuals, of course, for whom politics is life, but I can only take so much before my mind starts turning to mush. I am not saying people shouldn’t take the time and be aware of what the government is doing, or any other issues affecting their life. It’s just sometimes it becomes something so all-consuming the rest of life suffers.
Anyway, enough of that and on to what my title is about. The title is a paraphrase of a quote by Winston Churchill, ‘history is written by the victors’. I am going to describe a situation where it appears to me the ‘winning side’ wrote history (at least what is taught) to almost remove the existence or arguments of the ‘losing side’.
During some of these political discussions or arguments I’ve read, people have used the ‘founding fathers’ to bolster their argument. Sometimes they will even quote passages from ‘The Federalist Papers’. After a while, I became intrigued with the writers, the writing of this document, and the time when they were written. One thing I could not remember was whether or not there were writings from the ‘other side’.
I went through my mental files (and boy are they disorganized) to try and remember what I was taught about this timeframe in school. This is what I could remember: The Federalist Papers were written in the two years following the Constitutional Convention as the states were voting whether or not to ratify the new Constitution. I remembered Alexander Hamilton and James Madison as two of the writers.
I started doing some further research to see if my memory was correct. I found out John Jay was the third contributing author. Also, I didn’t’ remember the Federalist Papers were published in book form as well as in newspapers. One item of note is conventional wisdom puts Alexander Hamilton writing the majority of the 85 Federalist Papers (the sole author of 51, and a co-author of 3 more).
I took note of how dissent was presented or not through the different sources I used. In many instances the discussion regarding ratification is in generalities. The most detailed discussion of dissent I found described the opponents of the Constitution as concerned about individual liberty, which eventually led to the Bill of Rights. This was presented as a ‘winning by losing’ sort of thing.
One interesting item I discovered during my research through the many sites and documents was that Patrick Henry did not participate in the Constitutional Convention. Yes, Patrick Henry of ‘give me liberty or give me death’ fame. He was chosen to represent Virginia in the Constitutional Convention, but refused to participate. He did not believe in the convention’s purpose, which he saw as creating a government which would shift power (and in his opinion the freedom) away from the individual states to a strong central government. Patrick Henry viewed the structure of this new central government as similar to the one they just revolted against (Great Britain).
I discovered there were documents written against ratification, which were published in newspapers. The writers were not as organized as those writing the Federalist Papers. The result of this is there are now some disagreements as to what should be and should not be included as ‘Anti-Federalist’. They weren’t identified or collectively organized as ‘Anti-Federalist Papers’ until well after the ratification of the Constitution, when scholars began to collect, organize, and publish them in books.
What do these papers contain? I’ve skimmed through them (for those who are curious, or devoted enough, a seven-volume collection called ‘The Complete Anti-Federalist’ is available in print form and here is a link to a site where they are organized to coincide with the Federalist Papers). The primary focus and concern of the writers is the potential tyranny they see under the powers delineated (and some not) in the ‘proposed constitution’ through a consolidation of power in a single federal government. They saw issues with all three proposed branches of the national government, and did not believe the ‘check and balance’ mechanism built in as sufficient to prevent abuse and tyranny.
Looking through the different papers, I wonder what their thoughts would be to see the government as it is today. Would they believe their concerns were vindicated? Would they not believe how the country is currently governed? I could only speculate, and I won’t do that. I’ve been wrong far too many times and just don’t feel like sticking my neck out. Besides, I speculated last month on the Presidential election. That’s it for the year.
Why was it difficult to find out what the issues were when the Constitution was written and different arguments and points presented then? My theory is, those who supported our current Constitution wrote ‘history’ in such a way as to minimize the conflict and put their position in the best possible light. I’m not saying it was something done with malicious forethought.
