5341. MONARCHY, The Federal Convention and.—
The want of some authority
which should procure justice to the public creditors,
and an observance of treaties with foreign
nations, produced * * * the call of a convention
of the States at Annapolis. Although,
at this meeting, a difference of opinion was
evident on the question of a republican or kingly
government, yet, so generally through the States
was the sentiment in favor of the former, that
the friends of the latter confined themselves to
a course of obstruction only, and delay, to
everything proposed. They hoped, that nothing
being done, and all things going from bad to
worse, a kingly government might be usurped,
and submitted to by the people, as better than
anarchy and wars, internal and external, the
certain consequences of the present want of a
general government. The effect of their man
œuvres, with the defective attendance of deputies
from the States, resulted in the measure of
calling a more general convention, to be held
at Philadelphia. At this, the same party exhibited
the same practices, and with the same
views of preventing a government of concord,
which they foresaw would be republican, and
of forcing through anarchy their way to monarchy.
But the mass of that convention was too
honest, too wise, and too steady, to be baffled
or misled by their manœuvres. One of these
was a form of government proposed by Colonel
Hamilton, which would have been in fact a
compromise between the two parties of royalism
and republicanism. According to this,
the Executive and one branch of the Legislature
were to be during good behavior, i. e. for
life, and the governors of the States were to
be named by these two prominent organs. This,
however, was rejected; on which Hamilton left
the Convention, as desperate, and never returned
again, until near its conclusion. These
opinions and efforts, secret or avowed, of the
advocates for monarchy, had begotten great jealousy
through the States generally; and this jealousy
it was which excited the strong opposition
to the conventional Constitution; a jealousy
which yielded at last only to a general determination
to establish certain amendments as barriers
against a government either monarchical
or consolidated. [331]
—
The Anas. Washington ed. ix, 89.
Ford ed., i, 158.
(1818)
