Jacquerie,
I appreciate your Herculean efforts at producing this series of articles on FR. I try to read them all, but sometimes, other obligations will not allow it.
Huck,
I have always enjoyed reading your posts whenever I come across them, and I am a huge Robert Yates fan.
I guess my view is that I think the founders “did the best they could with what they had”. The constitution, though inspired, is imperfect; it was written by men, who are imperfect in their very nature.
I do believe these men were wrong when they set out to replace The Articles instead of amend them, as was their original purpose.
I hope to see and read both of you when you post here because both of your commentaries are enlightening to me.
I am awe inspired by the history of these men and those times.
My Georgia roots go back to colonial times when most of the area was frontier. Brought here as indentured servants, paupers, and convicts from England, when they had served their time and become free men, they did not want or need or tolerate anybody, anywhere, anytime who would lord over them or tell them what to do. They recognized no man nor government as having any authority over them. Their blood runs in my veins, so I guess I am a rabid-super-radical-anti-federalist.
I think Georgia was “too new” to have even been included in all of these discussions. Georgia was then more like a territory than a colony. The colony had only created the parishes along the coast in 1758 and the rest of the colony remained as Indian frontier, much of it even into the 1840’s.
Georgia did not send a delegate to the First Continental Congress; and technically, Georgia did not send a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. Lyman Hall arrived at the Second Congress as a delegate from St. John’s Parish of the Colony of Georgia, but not as a delegate from Georgia.
Button Gwinnett; Lyman Hall; George Walton; William Pierce; and those like them were the wealthy city-folk aristocrats who most Georgians would turn their heads slightly to the side and spit when their names were spoken. Now imagine someone telling those guys that “somebody” was going to Philadelphia and write some words down on a piece of paper that would dictate rules for them all to live by...
Nice to hear from you.
The various state credentials given to their delegates dictated their duties and latitude of decision making.
Amendments to the Articles regarding its main deficiencies as to commerce, taxes were proposed and defeated soon after the war. Despite several attempts, the Articles were never amended. In contrast, our Constitution was amended ten times shortly after it was put into practice.
As you said, you haven't had time to read all of the previous posts. I ask you to remember the Convention imposed nothing, but only recommended a new government. State conventions composed of representatives of the people ratified the Constitution. As for legitimacy, the Articles of Confederation, as far as I know, with the exception of NH, were ratified by State Legislatures.
No Herculean efforts here. I started reading the debates some months ago, took a few notes, the notes grew . . .
That's a funny case too. See, here's where it gets frustrating to me. The fact that I am antifederalist in my thinking allows me to see the Constitution for what it is, which, rather than making me side with the Confederates, makes me side with the Union. The states were bound into the new, consolidated system. The secessionists, imo, were dead wrong. (Nevermind that their Constitution was not a confederacy).
That doesn't mean I admire the Constitution. I know it's radical to say, but I don't. I see it as a proven failure. Too liberal. But, it is what it is.
That's why I scoff at the 10th amendment people. The 10th amendment is a worthless statement. It changes absolutely nothing. It clarifies nothing. It states a general principle, without answering any particulars.
Did you know earlier drafts of the 10th said "expressly delegated" powers? It got shot down. The antifeds were trying to get that through, but it would have radically altered the intent of the Constitution , which was to EXPAND national power at the expense of state power.
Had it passed, McCulloch v Maryland comes out differently. Maybe Washington sides with Jefferson over Hamilton re: the first bank of the US.But it was not to be, and that was on purpose. It was no accident.
I understand your reverence for these men and times, but I say embrace iconoclasm. It's liberating to take them down from their pedestals and critique them in cold, hard light, based solely on the results.
Anyway, my mom's side is from AL and MS. I lived in Bama for a while, but I'm pretty much a Yankee. I don't hassle anyone. I love liberty above all else politically speaking. Everything else is apple sauce. I enjoyed your post with the details regarding family and history, and it's good to hear from someone else who is swayed by antifederalist thinking.