Antifederalist Society (Chapter 3)

The speaker is addressing the Anti-Federalist Society and discussing the history and background of the Anti-Federalists. They highlight the lack of adequate history on the Constitution and the Anti-Federalists' efforts to preserve the Articles of Confederation. They explain how the term "Anti-Federalist" was imposed upon them by their opponents, the Federalists. The speaker also discusses the different viewpoints within Anti-Federalism, including those who preferred a weak central government and those who emphasized democratic control. They mention the struggle for local self-rule and individual freedom from government control. The speaker concludes by highlighting the importance of understanding these perspectives in relation to authority and liberty. Well, welcome back everyone to the Anti-Federalist Society, Chapter 3. I'm thankful that all of you came back, but I probably made a bit of a mistake. As the old saying goes, I should have started at the beginning about the Anti-Federalists, but I believe that Chapters 1 and 2 have been to the point in many instances. But, again, I think it is really imperative that I go ahead and throw in some foundational material here for our third chapter. Now, as I may have said earlier, I want everyone to know that I do quite a bit of my research primarily on this subject, from their writings, of course, but also about their history. I get a lot of my information and have over the years, especially from none other than Merrill Jensen and his work on the founding era and also of the Anti-Federalists, and his student, Jackson Turner Maine, who also is quite knowledgeable in his work on the Anti-Federalists. So, much of my knowledge, much of what I am sharing with you came from those two gentlemen as to background and history and what have you. And then, of course, we'll get into the actual writings of the Anti-Federalists as we move forward. Now, it is quite curious, I think, in many respects, that after all that has been written on the subject of the Constitution and the founding era by so many people, it's kind of strange that there's still no adequate history of the Constitution, of its making, and of its ratification. Now, the aforementioned Merrill Jensen's The New Nation is one of my favorite books, but it furnishes quite a bit of the background. But in many respects, it stops somewhat short, especially about the Constitutional Convention, and other general histories of the period either are out of date or never were much good in the beginning. The lack of monographs is so serious that a satisfactory book can hardly be written in today's world. There are a few good histories of these individual state politics, which is vital to understanding this, and fewer even of the economic developments, and fewer still of social and cultural matters within the colonies themselves. Now, there are some reliable studies of the ideas of individuals in this, but no general investigation of the Federalist political thought has been made, but we're certainly trying to remedy that here. So, this group became known as the Anti-Federalists, but it should be clear, and it's not, that they were not Anti-Federalists at all. In actuality, they were working as hard as they possibly could to preserve the Articles of Confederation, and the name Anti-Federalist, far from being their own choice, was imposed upon them by their opponents, those we call Federalists, who were in fact actually Monarchists. As I've said before, Monarchist in drag, I guess that's fairly accurate. Well, the attachment to them, meaning the Anti-Federalists of this moniker, denotes the reverse of their actual beliefs, and which, you know, implies that they were mere obstructionists, without any positive alternatives to the Constitution, which is utterly, and historically, false. But, unfortunately, the Anti-Federalists lost. The victors took what name they chose, and fastened onto those who opposed them, the name Anti-Federalist. Since the victory was a lasting one, and has prevailed for 236 years, the name and the stigma against them, obviously, has endured. It was a great piece of misdirection by the Federalists to create their opponents, and to give them this derogatory term. Originally, the word Federal meant anyone who supported the Confederation. Several years before the Constitution was promulgated, the men who wanted a very strong central government, or a monarchy, who might more probably be called Nationalists, they began to appropriate the term Federal to themselves. To them, the men of Federal principles approved of Federal measures, which meant those that increased the weight and authority, or extended the influence of the Confederated Congress. The word Anti-Federal, by contrast, implied hostility to that Congress, which is totally false. According to this definition, the Anti-Federalist was opposed to any effort to strengthen the government, and was, therefore, unpatriotic. Aha! The patriotism virus. Eventually, the term became a general word of opprobrium, applied by the Nationalists, or the Federalists, or the monarchists, to anyone who opposed their motives. So, David Humphreys was known to refer to the opponents as Anti-Federalists and advocates for mobs and conventions. Well, folks, Mr. Humphreys' remark came in a letter to George Washington on November the 16th of 1786. Now, these letters are just the very goldmine of understanding what happened during that time frame. And if you wanted to see how they came about, this Federalist, and what their definition of Federalist was, you can also find that pretty well covered in a letter from James Madison to James Monroe on August the 7th of 1785. Now, the one question I think that would come up here is, was hanging this phrase Anti-Federalist, or this name, was this actually, did it cause the Anti-Federalist damage? Did it achieve its accomplished purpose? Well, we're still calling them Anti-Federalists to today, aren't we? Does it work today when we bring that up? I think it does. Well, it was suggested that these Anti-Federalists were against a federal government, which is, you know, totally false. And the negative form applied that an Anti was nothing but an obstructor of progress, political progress. So the Anti-Federalists indignantly rejected the name, insisting that the proponents of the Constitution really deserved the appellation Anti-Federalist. And they tried to recover for themselves the more accurate designation of Federalist. As an example, in the American Herald of Boston on December the 10th of 1787 appeared the following, and I quote, So, when the Anti-Federalists selected their various pseudonyms for their work, like the Federal Farmer, or Sentinel, or, you know, Brutus, Richard Henry Lee chose a Federal Farmer as his pen name, and no fewer than eight other Anti-Federalist writers used the word as part of their nom de plume. Numerous writers and speakers insisted that the Federalists did not believe in Federalism, but that the Anti-Federalists did. While the Anti-Federalists, writing as a countryman, remarked that the use of the term was the way some great men had to deceive the common people and prevent their knowing what they were about. Unquote. Man, how accurate is that? And then when John Lamb and others organized a committee in New York to oppose the Constitution, they called it the Federal Republican Committee. Indeed, a principal objection to the Constitution was that it set up a national, not a federal, government. But, unfortunately, the Anti-Federalists lost back then, and today they are still Anti-Federalists in the writings and the work of so many historians. Now, Anti-Federalism was not a simple philosophy of government. It was actually a combination, a mixture of two somewhat different points of view, adhered to by two different groups of people. It was first the doctrine of those who preferred a weak central government. Well, that belief attracted many prominent thinkers, most frequently from what we would call in today's world the agricultural interest. And these men provided the Anti-Federalists with their probably best educated leaders. The origins of this group of men and a lady thought far back in colonial and English political history. And so this theory became especially relevant during the last years before independence and the period of Constitution-making when fundamental principles of government had to be defined. From the broadest point of view, the issue was whether authority or liberty should be emphasized. And, folks, that's something we have to look at today, and you have to admit, the Anti-Federalists wanted a government that would protect the rights of the people. The Federalists wanted a government which would provide the central government with increased superiority over all of the states and over all of the colonies. That is why, naturally, the letter from George Washington to John Jay just a month before the convention began, So, looking at this, you know, once the authority of the King George Parliament and the Redcoats had been defeated, many were satisfied with the degree of liberty that they had obtained, and they were willing to reconstruct a strong central government at home. But others continued the struggle for local self-rule and individual freedom from government restraints and control. In an equally general way, the former view was defended by those who desired a political system which would protect property and maintain order in society, while the opposite was held by those who feared oppression. The former wished to exert power, the latter feared the effects of it. And that's exactly it. The Federalists wanted power, the Anti-Federalists didn't want them to have it. But if we could look at another ingredient of Anti-Federalism, was this came from the smaller property owners, subsistence farmers, you know, and what some would call the small farmers. All of the socioeconomic groups had their peculiar, often conflicting interests, which they attempted to further through political action, just as we do today. Because the small property holders were a majority in the 13 colonies, totally, they wanted a government dominated by the many, rather than the few, for the wealthy aristocracy. And they therefore favored what were called democratic ideas. Therefore, as we look at it, the Federalists included two major elements. Those who emphasized the desirability of a weak central government, and those who encouraged democratic control of whatever government they had. The Democrats, if we could call them that, at this juncture, accepted the doctrine of weak government, but the advocates of weak government did not always believe in democracy. One of the oddities of history here, folks. Strictly speaking, Anti-Federalism came into existence only when the Constitution was made public, and it lasted until opposition to the adoption ceased. But it is clear, or it should be, that the origins of these Anti-Federalist ideas must be determined and must be looked at a long time prior to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. We must go farther back into the history of those individual colonies to actually really understand this. And that's why I mentioned just a few minutes ago the problem here with the fact there just isn't any really great studies out there on the colonies. And I've looked into this on many occasions and found that to be probably one of the big problems in today's world, and one of the reasons why everyone fall all over themselves about the founding father, Federalist. Well, if we are to ever understand why the Constitution created such an intense hate and where that hate came from, it will be absolutely imperative that we describe the social structure in 1787 and a little prior to that. Second, to point out some of the most important political ideas which the Anti-Federalists adopted. So before actually jumping into the Constitution itself, we should look at the earlier attempts to revise the Articles of Confederation in which both sides rehearsed their arguments in preparation for that big event. Well, let's take a look, folks, at the United States, if we call them that, the United Colonies, or just the colonies if you prefer, and look at what made up these colonies in the 1780s and their division into sections, subsections, colonies, what have you, each with a distinctive social structure. They each had their own economy, and most of them had their own political objectives. From Maine to Georgia, by way of Vermont, the Wyoming Valley, the Allegheny District, and the Watery River, stretched the frontier, except where great landholders with their tenants and slaves pursued the retreating supply of topsoil. Frontier society did not include extremes of wealth and poverty. There was a very young class structure, but it was there anyway. And property was, in comparison with other sections, equally distributed, and from the bottom to the top was but a short step of hard work and dedication. The men of the frontier wanted to always keep it that way. And thus, the first Kentucky Convention, meeting in the winter of 1784 and 1785, declared, and I quote, "...any individual or company or body of men to possess such large tracts of country in their own right as may at a future day give them undue influence." Unquote. Wow. Now, that was quoted in Thomas Perkins Abernathy's Western Lands and the American Revolution, a book which was published in 1937. So, along the frontier, expansion was the essential need. Expansion of geographical area, of available capital, of facilities for transportation, and of political organizations. Now, I would be remiss at this point to not bring up the fact that the Federalists wanted to control this expansion. They didn't want the individual states to be able to sell off this surplus land and bring in the money to the individual states. The Federalist wanted that money to come into the central government, as opposed to going to the states where the property actually existed. I think it's really important here that we also understand that in this expansion area in the 1780s, there were two very, very critical points to understand. And those were the quality of the land, the quality of the soil, the ability to raise crops, and the transportation of those surplus for market. And I know, you know, probably this is something we probably should have studied in third, fourth, and fifth grade, but we haven't. In other words, if the soil was fertile and easily worked, a surplus could be produced. If this surplus could be marketed, farming on a commercial basis was indeed possible. But if the soil was not fertile, or if transportation facilities were nonexistent or poor, it was more difficult to raise produce for market, and the farmer was limited to a near subsistence level. Okay, we'll make what we can eat, we'll make what we need to feed our animals and what have you, and we'll just get by. But that did not create any income or any extra money for the people who were these farmers. One or the other of these inhibiting factors was present over quite vast areas at the time. In most of New England, for example, the soil precluded raising a surplus. It just wasn't fertile. In most of North Carolina, a lack of transportation facilities rendered what surplus they did have of little to no value. In the higher country, between the river valleys, there existed a society of subsistence, or subsistence plus farmers. A frontier in what we could phrase, and what Arthur Maine phrased as, arrested development. There, just like on the frontier itself, there was no wealthy class, because there was little chance to accumulate wealth. Property was widely distributed, and although it was easy to acquire land, upward and socially mobile people were limited by the ceiling which the aforementioned soil and transportation placed upon them. Those who achieved riches usually lived on the valley lands, not the upland country. Here, farming was profitable, and the subsistence farmer could become a wealthy planter. He could, that is, so long as the region was undergoing development. For after a period during which wealth was accumulated rapidly, large estates were thus formed, and then the newcomer was confronted with expensive land, which he could perhaps rent, but absolutely could not afford to purchase. In contrast with the social structure of the frontier and uplands, the society of the valleys was characterized by greater class separation and distinctions. The emergence of this aristocracy of wealth was balanced by the growth of a far larger lower class. And between these groups, the small property holders were proportionately smaller, although agriculture was still the central theme for its commercial use. For the prosperity, then, depended upon selling the surplus either overseas or to a nearby city or town. These towns and cities developed still another type of a class structure. But this society is not of such importance as we look into the Anti-Federalists, because, to really put it appropriately, folks, Anti-Federalism was rural. Now, when we get into that, we can go all the way back into English history, and we can look at the country and the court and examine those differences, which will give us a fantastic picture of what we experience even today. Look at almost every state in the Union now. Look at almost, well, I could say all of them, I believe, see the same dynamic. Is that the large metropolitan areas contain the number of people that is needed to control the state government. And the people who are out there in the rural areas have a vote in this system, but there is no way in the world that the agricultural parts of this country will ever control the industrial parts of the country by voting. It's just never going to happen. So this whole mind-boggling idea of being represented, government with consent of the governed, is entirely nothing but a pipe dream. Now, when we talk about these class divisions, I guess we could look to one of the premier Anti-Federalists, in my opinion, Patrick Henry, and in his writings, he referred to the class structure. And he said that the society consisted of the well-born, the middle, and the lower ranks. Well, there is, and there was, no clear dividing line between the first two. The term well-born implied a hereditary aristocracy, and it is true that by the 1780s such a thing did exist in America. But its basis was built around wealth, property, not necessarily birth, but it was the major factor in determining class structure. Phrases such as the rich, men of wealth and ability, men of sense and property, described the upper class as the revolutionary generation saw it. Now, John Jay of New York defined this class as, and I quote, Now, during this time frame, such men were frequently just called gentlemen, a word which usually implied superior wealth as well as superior status and power. As the phrase gentlemen of property suggests. However, wealth was essential in order to acquire the attributes of a gentleman, to dress fashionably, to become well-educated, to patronize the arts, to purchase whatever luxuries they desired, and conduct themselves in society as gentlemen, just like they were supposed to do. The distinction between gentlemen and other sorts of men existed everywhere to some degree. Now, John Adams pretended that it was a phenomenon known only outside of New England. In 1775, he wrote to Joseph Hawley from Philadelphia, and I quote, There's that New England superiority, I guess. But Hawley could have said him right. For a decade earlier, Hawley himself had pleaded that a writ was defective because it designated the defendant as a yeoman when he was really a gentleman. It is undoubtedly true that the upper class was larger and more conspicuous in the South than in most parts of the North. There were obviously great variations among the well-to-do. There were persons of different degrees of wealth and, above all, of varying interest. What was important to one was not important to the other, you know, much like today. But the greater and lesser planners, debtors and creditors, merchants in towns and in cities, speculators and landlords, lawyers and ship owners, river gods, as some were called, and manor lords, as others were called, each had particular economic and political aspirations. They did not always agree with each other. Yet they did share similar attitudes toward property and politics. In 1787, the year of the Constitution, gentlemen of property provided the Anti-Federalists with many of their ablest leaders. But the great majority gave the Federalists vigorous support because they saw them almost as, you know, fellow travelers, if we will. Now, everyone but the gentleman and the wealthy were sometimes, well, most always just lumped together and identified as the common man or the lower class. And as a rule, a distinction was made between them as to who had property and those who didn't. The former were referred to as the middle or the middling classes or sorts or ranks, and the latter were designated as lower or inferior. The number of men who belonged to this latter group varied from only 25 or 30 percent of the total in rural New England to well over 50 percent of the ones in the South. Their political influence was as slight as was their prestige, if we could so state. Now, very significant here was the middle class. And yes, there was a middle class back then, from which the Anti-Federalists drew their greatest strength. The majority of white Americans, and by far the largest number of voters, were farmers who owned their land and who lived at a subsistence plus level. It is difficult to generalize about their economic status, but two major groups can and should be distinguished. First, many lived on the good soil of the river valleys in well-established communities where transportation facilities made marketing relatively easy. You had the consumers right there. Such farmers were fairly well-to-do. They might contract debts in order to improve their property or, like the rich, to purchase luxurious items. But they were generally totally solvent. Their prosperity depended upon commerce, and they were interested in stability. Hence, they were often called, you know, politically with the mercantile interest and the conservative elements of society, more or less the status quo. But on the other hand, many farmers were poor. Taking North Carolina as an example, a few surviving tax records, which can be located, reveal that the median amount of cash in hand held by a landowner was 17 pounds. This at a time when large quantities of paper money had been issued. One of the best farms in Rhode Island made a profit of only 31 1⁄2 pounds in 1785, while another made just over 5 1⁄2 pounds. The income of farmers in Worcestershire County, Massachusetts, during the Depression year of 1786, was about nine dollars or nine pounds. So, the great variation in farm value is suggested by the fact that the legislature of Connecticut estimated that the annual income from land ranged from 7 cents to $1.67 per acre. Many farmers must have been living near the margin with very little income other than just what was necessary for their subsistence, so that they were obliged to obtain necessities either by barter or by credit. They had little left over for taxes and were especially vulnerable if there was a depression or a scarcity of money in any fashion. It would appear that a large proportion of the farmers, especially of the type just mentioned, were primarily in debt. To acquire a farm often demanded a fairly large capital investment. Even 100 acres would cost not far from 50 pounds to 100 pounds in the South, and much more than that in the North. Unless one sought out poor, discarded, or isolated land, and then, if you purchased that, you have basically just declared yourself in permanent debt. The purchase of essential farm animals, equipment, and necessary supplies could raise the cost even higher. Since wages of that time were not high enough to enable laborers to save such a sum through their work, the number of landless men and of tenant farmers increased rapidly, while those who owned land often had to borrow in order to pay for it. Now, suits for debt were just absolutely off the charts in many of these areas, as were the complaints concerning these debts. The situation was most serious during the period of money shortages right after the Revolution. In other words, they were suffering from the hands of Robert Morris and the First National Bank. During the 1780s, there were riots among debtors in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, where paper money laws were passed or strongly supported in every state. Debt was the factor which motivated farmers to take an interest in politics. Now, they were also vitally concerned about tax policy and the payment of the state debts. Seeking to transfer their tax burden to different shoulders, farmers and other small property holders opposed poll taxes and heavy taxes on their land. They tried to reduce government expenses and official salaries in order to keep their taxes low. To ease the burden of discharging public debts, they variously tried to delay payment, to depreciate the value of public securities, to levy taxes payable in securities, or to pay the interest in paper money or in certificates created for that purpose. When these taxes were levied, they preferred payment in kind, and in depression years, they tried to postpone payment of the whole or part of their tax. Unwilling to grant Congress as much money as it asked, they adopted various expedients to lower the amount to be paid, and they tried to avoid any form of payment which would require state taxes to be collected in what we call hard money. It would not be fair to say that they refused to support their government, but a considerable gap sometimes separated what the government thought was needed and what the farmers were willing to pay. The isolation of many of these farmers, their lack of formal education, and the limited horizons of their experience also made them unwilling to surrender local advantages for what anyone could refer to as the general good. This solution appeared to the farmers' financial problems, and it was, indeed, paper money. It could be issued to pay the expenses of government, discharge public debts, and reduce the hardships of paying taxes. Private debts could also be more easily paid. As a debtor, these farmers hoped that the judicial process might be made more favorable to them. Now, the farmer demanded the more convenient location of courts, lower court costs and lawyer fees, laws obliging creditors to accept property at a fair value, the abolition of imprisonment for debt, and laws delaying the recovery of debt. Such measures as these occasionally attracted the support of larger property holders, especially during the years of 1784 to 1786, when the complexity of the debts involving both rich and poor were the principal support still came from the small farmers. So, a little bit more about these small farmers. And like all other economic and social groups, these farmers tried to increase their political power in order to achieve their objectives. Not any different during time, I do not think. Almost every group has done that. In doing so, these farmers could draw upon their experience as, you know, their colonials and their revolution, and they could also select out of the great body of the world's political literature, those doctrines which they found to themselves to be the most useful. Now, these doctrines, although their origins were doubtless unknown to the rank and file of Americans because of their education, were there, but these doctrines revolved around their common property. And had been made familiar first during the pre-revolutionary years when they were incorporated into sermons, pamphlets, and newspaper articles, and then extended into their first period of constitution-making after the achievement of independence. Different aspects of this experience and different parts of this literature appeal to almost all groups. Future Federalists or Monarchists, as well as future Anti-Federalists, accepted the great body of English political thought incorporated into what was known as the Whig tradition, which emphasized individual liberty and the ultimate authority of the people. The Anti-Federalists advanced much further toward democratic political ideals than did the Federalists, so that the background of their thought could be found in what, you know, is called the left wing of Whigism. Yeah, I've seen that written before. Two works in particular are relevant to their ideas. Now, folks, this is a critical part, and it's good to understand. Cato's letters, the joint products of Thomas Gordon and John Pritchard, spelling that name T-R-E-N-C-H-A-R-D, were written during 1720 to 1723, and they had passed through a number of English editions by the time of the Revolution. Although it was never published in America, it was widely read in the colonies and became a favorite textbook of patriots. The writers who adopted Cato as their nom de plumes were probably thinking as often of the British authors as of the Roman original. The other major source of Anti-Federalist thought was James Byrd, B-U-R-G-H-S, Political Disquisitions. An American edition, which was published in 1775, was encouraged by some 75 prominent Americans. The basic concept stressed in both of these works was the evil effect of uncontrolled power. Gordon and Pritchard observed that, and I quote, The people must retain power in their own hands, grant it outsparingly, and then only under the strictest supervision. The people can never be too jealous of their liberty, Warren Byrd, and I quote, Cato also believed that, and I quote, Now there's quite a concept. The mistrust of power was characteristic of American political thought during this time of our history. Long before the doctrine was applied to the Constitution, it was frequently expressed by men who became Anti-Federalists. As a couple of examples here, Samuel Adams asserted that, and I quote, Therefore, and I quote again, Hughes of New York City, himself an Anti-Federalist, warned, and I quote, Property or prerogative, whether it be by intrigue, mistake, or chance, they scarcely ever relinquish their claim, even if founded in inequity itself. The power to govern must therefore be retained by the people, who alone can be trusted to know their own will, and who, as Cato believed, generally, if not always, judge well. Since all men are equal, there is no reason to grant power to the great men or the wealthy aristocracy, who indeed are most apt to always be the oppressors. Democritus, I think I pronounced that right, warned the Massachusetts voters that even if the well-educated and well-to-do had good intentions, they had been taught to look upon their inferiors as their property, so that they would have very little compassion towards them. Only those could be trusted who earned their living by honest industry, and who were men in middling circumstances. Well, there was still another condition which was necessary to ensure that the government would express the popular will. Such a government, wrote Cato, required a relatively equal division of property, since dominion follows property. An equality of a state will give an equality of power, and an equality of power is a commonwealth, or a democracy, whereas very great riches and private men destroy amongst the commons that balance of property and power, which is absolutely necessary to a democracy. If property is thus equally divided, there is no hindering a popular form of government unless sudden violence takes away all liberty, and to preserve itself alters the distribution of property again. Well, years before this, James Harrington had written that where an equality of a state existed, there must always be equality of power. This doctrine contained radical implications which very few followed to its logical conclusion. Yet the relationship between power and property was observed in America, and among the anti-federalists, there were at least some who attacked any trend toward the inequality of wealth as being dangerous to democracy. They recognized, as Thomas Mason wrote in 1783, that power is the constant, the necessary attendant on property. Connecticut, as Captain Welton observed, had a government that was popular or democratical, which God had given as the best system, and for this purpose an equal distribution of property was necessary. It followed that where property was widely distributed, a democratic or popular government was most agreeable. Joseph Reed in Pennsylvania and Joseph Warren in Massachusetts were two who noted that a democracy would be congenial to Americans only so long as an excessive concentration of wealth was avoided. In order to guard against the tyranny of power and to preserve popular rule among the people, the men entrusted with power had to be kept responsive to public opinion. If they were allowed to act independently, history proved that the results were always evil, and the former colonials did not have to look far into the past to see this. The revolutionary generation need only to recall events out of their own experiences, the behavior of the royal governors or of officials appointed by them, the failure of counselors and even of elective officers to heed the people's will, the corruption of power, the oppression of a strong government had been vital to the crown. Immediate dangers to those who waged the revolution because of them. And provided, I'm sorry, how could responsibility ever be maintained? Well, frequent and regular elections were certainly essential to that goal. In England and in many colonies, elections had been held only at long intervals and might be delayed by the executive power itself, so that when an important new issue arose, the vote of the legislatures did not always reflect public opinion. It was therefore recognized that to preserve popular rule, elections must be held annually. And a quote, where annual elections end, slavery begins, unquote, Berg had declared. And the Pennsylvania Democrat, William Finley, agreed. And here's his quote. Annual elections are an annual recognition of the sovereignty of the people, unquote. In addition, there was the danger that an official might remain in office so long that he ceased to sympathize with the people. I think that might be true today, folks. Rotation in office or term limits, as we call them today, according to Cato, was essentially necessary to a free government. It is indeed the thing itself and constitutes, animates, and informs it as much as the soul institutes the man. It is a thing sacred and inviolable. Wherever liberty is thought sacred. This principle was forcibly expressed by the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, which required a rotation in office in order that the danger of establishing an inconvenient aristocracy will be effectually prevented, unquote. The Anti-Federalists, like most Americans, believed that if the government were truly to represent the people, the principal power would have to remain in the people. There was, however, some disagreement as to whether a branch of government could be all-powerful or restrained by a co-equal upper house and executive. Cato had favored a political system of three parts, the magistracy to prevent confusion, the people to prevent oppression, and the senate, consisting of men distinguished for their fortunes and abilities. Such an arrangement was made familiar by many other writers, including John Locke. On the other hand, Berg argued that there ought to be no checks whatever on the people's representatives by the king or the lords. Certainly the trend in America had consistently been toward the elevation of the lower house at the expense of the upper house and the executive. The citizens of Asheville, Massachusetts, represent the extreme. They wish no governor except God, as they said, and under him a state's general. They envisioned the state legislature as a unicameral body. Annually elected, any acts pertaining to the towns were to be approved by those towns. Even the judiciary was to be under local control, for each town was to choose its own judges. The anti-federal thought did not always insist on the complete elimination of the senate, as in this instance, but it did require a readjustment of power in favor of the more democratic lower house. A reduction in the executive authority was almost universally demanded after 1776 because of a reaction against the royal governors. These anti-federalists also wanted to reduce the high property qualifications for holding office. Arguing against any special requirement for the election of the governor, the town of Petersham, Massachusetts, soon to be a Shazite center and then anti-federal, resolved, and I quote, Riches and dignity neither make the head wiser nor the heart better. The overgrown rich we consider the most dangerous to the liberties of a free state, unquote. Orange County in the North Carolina uplands, various little New Hampshire towns, and other spokesmen of democracy demanded that the suffrage be extended with no poll tax. The inhabitants of Westminster, Massachusetts, accepted this point of view when in 1778, they resolved, and I quote, The oftener power returns into the hands of the people, the better, and when for the good of the whole, the power is delegated, it ought to be done by the whole. Where can the power be lodged so safe as in the hands of the people, and who can delegate it so well as they, or who has the boldness without blushing to say that the people are not suitable to put in their own officers? If so, why do we waste our blood and our treasure to obtain that which when obtained we are unfit to enjoy? For if but a selected few only are fit to appoint our rulers, they, why were we uneasy under King George? Unquote. Amazing, isn't it, folks, how that the ideals of the people, you know, all those years ago, almost 300 years ago, isn't it amazing at how those thoughts that they had about maintaining liberty and freedom are much the same as the segment of society today? And I willingly admit it's a small section, but it's still there. People do care about their liberty. Just wish as many cared about their liberty as cared about elections and entertainment, but hopefully time will be on our side. Although I'm not totally sure of that, I promise you. So anyway, here we go. And we finished chapter three. And I really look forward to completing this series because I think it's going to be something that we can actually learn from, because it's history that's been deprived of us for so long in our lifetimes. And I think there should be a developing taste or a desire to know the truth. Well, let's hope so. Anyway, folks, thanks so very much for tuning in here to my Substack account and the Anti-Federalist Society, chapter three. And I hope that you will be able, if you deem it appropriate, to subscribe to my Substack as a paid subscriber. And if you can't and you can't afford it, there's always the free side. It won't contain as many things, but it's still some information that you can't get in other places. So thanks, everyone. God bless. And we'll see you with our next chapter. God bless. Thank you.