The Moral Liberal

American Debate

In a series of papers published in 1801, Fisher Ames unleashes one of the Federalist’s most scathing attacks on the Anti-Federalist’s unbridled democratic principles. Ames does so by drawing their principles to their logical conclusions—illustrating his conclusions with the unprincipled actions of the European democrats and their American supporters and apologists.

EQUALITY. NO. III.

Fisher Ames. New England Palladium, November, 1801.

Fisher Ames.

ALL democrats maintain, that the people have an inherent, unalienable right to power: there is nothing so fixed, that they may not change it; nothing so sacred, that their voice, which is the voice of God, would not unsanctify and consign to destruction: it is not only true, that no king, or parliament, or generation past can bind the people; but they cannot even bind themselves: the will of the majority is not only law, but right: having an unlimited right to act as they please, whatever they please to act is a rule. Thus, virtue itself, thus, publick faith, thus, common honesty, are no more than arbitrary rules, which the people have, as yet, abstained from rescinding; and when a confiscating or paper money majority in congress should ordain otherwise, they would be no longer rules. Hence, the worshippers of this idol ascribe to it attributes inconsistent with all our ideas of the Supreme Being himself, to whom we deem it equally impious and absurd to impute injustice. Hence, they argue, that a publick debt is a burden to be thrown off, whenever the people grow weary of it; and hence, they, somewhat inconsistently, pretend, that the very people cannot make a constitution, authorizing any restraint upon malicious lying against the government. So that, according to them, neither religion, nor morals, nor policy, nor the people themselves can erect any barrier against the reasonable or the capricious exercise of their power. Yet, what these cannot do, the spirit of sedition can; this is more sacred than religion or justice, and dearer than the general good itself. For it is evident, that, if we will have the unrestricted liberty of lying against our magistrates, and laws, and government, we can have no other liberty; and the clamorous jacobins have decided, that such liberty, without any other, is better than every other kind of liberty without it.

Is it true, however, (if it be not rebellion to inquire) that this uncontrolled power of the people is their right, and that it is absolutely essential to their liberty? All our individual rights are to be exercised with due regard to the rights of others; they are tied fast by restrictions, and are to be exercised within certain reasonable limits. How is it, then, that the democrats find a right in the whole people so much more extensive, than what belongs to any one of their number? In other cases, the extremes of any principle are so many departures from principle. Why is it, then, that they muke popular right to consist wholly in extremes, and that so absolutely, that, without such boundless pretensions, they say it could not subsist at all? Checks on the people themselves are not merely clogs, but chains. They are usurpations, which should be abolished, even if in practice they prove useful; for, they will tell you, precedent sanctions and introduces tyranny. Neither Commodus nor Caligula were ever so flattered with regard to the extent of their power, and the impiety of setting bounds to it, as any people who listen to demagogues.

The writings of Thomas Paine, and the democratick newspapers will evince, that this representation of their doctrine is not caricatured: it is not more extravagant than they represent it themselves. They often, indeed, affirm, that they are not admirers of a mere democracy: they know it will prove licentious: they are in favour of an energetick government.

It is both more satisfactory and more safe, to trust to the conduct of a party, than their professions. What says the conduct of the party? Either the power of the people in the United States is absolutely uncontrolled, or the executive authority, the senate, and the courts of law, are the branches constituted to check it. Now, is it not notorious, that one great complaint of the jacobins against the federalists is, that the latter are friendly to the executive department. They are, on the contrary, the friends of the people, and on all occasions bold and eager to enlarge their privileges and influence in the government. It is not amiss to notice, though it is somewhat of a digression, that, of late, the jacobins vindicate, in their own president, an extent of executive power and patronage, such as neither Washington, nor Adams, nor their friends, ever thought of claiming, or exercising. They say it is right, that the president should displace all federalists, and thus all officers become his creatures and dependents. Thus, a standing army of corruption is to be formed, to be drawn out in array on every election. When the British treaty was depending, these men contended, that no treaty was binding, after being ratified by the president and senate, until the immediate representatives of the people had approved it. This was Mr. Gallatin’s disorganizing and unconstitutional doctrine. Yet every democrat extols Mr. Jefferson for delivering up the Berceau, and carrying the French treaty into full effect, before congress has even met to consider it. Even this house of representatives, that was thus to be supreme over the supreme treaty-making power, was nevertheless to be subject to a power superiour to itself. The people of any district could instruct their members, and such instructions bind him against the plain dictates of his honour and conscience: he must be a rebel to the people, if he will not be perjured.

Besides, the remonstrances of any description of citizens are so many expressions of the will of the sovereign, and being his will, ought to become law. Thus congress is to be, in all its branches, somewhat less than a mother jacobin club, which has ever been allowed to prescribe rules of conduct to its affiliated clubs. The senate is as little spared in this plan of apportionment of power by the democrats: they uniformly denominate this body the dark divan, the conclave, the aristocratick branch of the government. The famous Virginia amendments, proposed, when democracy was in its zenith, to render this branch null, and to make it less a barrier against licentiousness than its convenient instrument. Let every thinking man read those amendments with attention, and he will see, that to reform our government was not the object, but to subvert it.

In point of theory, notions somewhat more correct have prevailed in regard to the judiciary. Yet, even on this point, at this moment, the democratick gazettes assure us, that their majority will abolish the new judiciary by repealing the law. Thus, the judges are to hold their offices during good behaviour: they cannot be removed at pleasure; but, as they stand upon the law, that very foundation, the democrats tell us, can be torn up. So that one great barrier of the constitution, erected to answer the ends of justice and publick safety, when either government or the people themselves “feel power and forget right,” may be subverted indirectly, though not directly: the democrats cannot get over it; but they say they will get round it. Instead of stopping the flood of democratick licentiousness, this dam is to be the first obstacle that is swept away.

Let the considerate friends of rational liberty decide then from facts, from the most authentick and solemn transactions of the democratick party, whether there be any check, limitation, or control, that they would impose on the people; or any now existing, that they would not first weaken and then abolish. If the sober citizens really wish for a simple democracy, and that the power of the people shall be arbitrary and uncontrollable, then let them weigh the consequences well, before they consent to the tremendous changes that the federal government must undergo, before it will be fit for a democracy. Let them consider the sacrifices of liberty, as well as order, of blood, as well as treasure, that this sort of government never fails to exact; and if, on due reflection, they choose these consequences, then let them elect, and let them follow in arms, the men who are so much infatuated to bring them about; for “infuriated man will seek his long lost liberty through desolation and carnage.” If, however, they prefer the constitution, as it was made, and as it has been honestly administered, they will cling to the old cause and the old friends of federal republicanism, which they have tried in trying times, and, of course, know how to value and to trust.