Back to Study Library
Compete in the Presidential 1776 Award Contest, including the Online Assessment which opens February 22, 2026. Register now(opens in new tab)
Compete in the Presidential 1776 Award Contest, including the Online Assessment which opens February 22, 2026. Register now(opens in new tab)
Mercy Otis Warren
ON THE
NEW CONSTITUTION
AND ON THE
FOEDERAL AND STATE CONVENTIONS
By a Columbian Patriot
Sic transit gloria Americana
By Mercy Otis Warren (1728–1814)
MANKIND may amuse themselves with theoretic systems of liberty, and trace its social and moral effects on sciences, virtue, industry, and every improvement of which the human mind is capable; but we can only discern its true value by the practical and wretched effects of slavery; and thus dreadfully will they be realized when the inhabitants of the Eastern States are dragging out a miserable existence only on the gleanings of their fields; and the Southern, blessed with a softer and more fertile climate, are languishing in hopeless poverty; and when asked, what is become of the flower of their crop, and the rich produce of their farms—they may answer in the hapless stile of the Man of La Mancha—"The steward of my Lord has seized and sent it to Madrid."—Or, in the moral literal language of truth—the exigencies of government require, that the collectors of the revenue should transmit it to the Federal City.
Animated with the firmest zeal for the interest of this country, the peace and union of the American States, and the freedom and happiness of a people who have made the most costly sacrifices in the cause of liberty—who have braved the power of Britain, weathered the convulsions of war, and waded through the blood of friends and foes to establish their independence, and to support the freedom of the human mind, I cannot silently witness this degradation without calling on them, before they are compelled to blush at their own servitude, and to turn back their languid eyes on their lost liberties—to consider, that the character of nations generally changes at the moment of revolution. And when patriotism is discountenanced, and public virtue becomes the ridicule of the sycophant—when every man of liberality, firmness, and penetration, who cannot lick the hand stretched out to oppress, is deemed an enemy to the State—then is the gulph of despotism set open, and the grades to slavery, though rapid, are scarce perceptible—then genius drags heavily its iron chain—science is neglected, and real merit flies to the shades for security from reproach—the mind becomes enervated, and the national character sinks to a kind of apathy, with only energy sufficient to curse the breast that gave it milk, and as an elegant writer observes, "To bewail every new birth as an encrease of misery, under a government where the mind is necessarily debased, and talents are seduced to become the panegyrists of usurpation and tyranny." He adds, "That even sedition is not the most indubitable enemy to the public welfare; but that its most dreadful foe is despotism, which always changes the character of nations for the worse, and is productive of nothing but vice; that the tyrant no longer excites to the pursuits of glory or virtue; it is not talents, it is baseness and servility that he cherishes, and the weight of arbitrary power destroys the spring of emulation."
If such is the influence of government on the character and manners, and undoubtedly the observation is just, must we not subscribe to the opinion of the celebrated Abbe Mable? "That there are disagreeable seasons in the unhappy situation of human affairs, when policy requires both the intention and the power of doing mischief to be punished; and that when the senate proscribed the memory of Caesar they ought to have put Anthony to death, and extinguished the hopes of Octavius." Self defence is a primary law of nature, which no subsequent law of society can abolish; this primoeval principle, the immediate gift of the Creator, obliges every one to remonstrate against the strides of ambition, and a wanton lust of domination, and to resist the first approaches of tyranny, which at this day threaten to sweep away the rights for which the brave sons of America have fought with an heroism scarcely paralleled even in ancient republics. It may be repeated, they have purchased it with their blood, and have gloried in their independence with a dignity of spirit which has made them the admiration of philosophy, the pride of America, and the wonder of Europe. It has been observed, with great propriety, that the virtues and vices of a people, when a revolution happens in their government, are the measure of the liberty or slavery they ought to expect. An heroic love for the public good, a profound reverence for the laws, a contempt of riches, and a noble haughtiness of soul, are the only foundations of a free government.
Do not these dignified principles still exist among us? Or are they extinguished in the breasts of Americans, whose fields have been so recently crimsoned to repel the potent arm of a foreign Monarch, who had planted his ensigns of slavery in every city, with design to erase the vestiges of freedom in this his last asylum. It is yet to be hoped, for the honour of human nature, that no combinations, either foreign or domestic, have thus darkened this Western hemisphere. On these shores freedom has planted her standard, dipped in the purple tide that flowed from the veins of her martyred heroes; and here every uncorrupted American yet hopes to see it supported by the vigour, the justice, the wisdom, and unanimity of the people, in spite of the deep-laid plots, the secret intrigues, or the bold effrontery of those interested and avaricious adventurers for place, who, intoxicated with ideas of distinction and preferment, have prostrated every worthy principle beneath the shrine of ambition. Yet these are the men who tell us, republicanism is dwindled into theory—that we are incapable of enjoying our liberties—and that we must have a master.
Let us retrospect the days of our adversity, and recollect who were then our friends; do we find them among the sticklers for aristocratic authority? No—they were generally the same men who now wish to save us from the distractions of anarchy on the one hand, and the jaws of tyranny on the other; where then were the class who now come forth importunately urging that our political salvation depends on the adoption of a system at which freedom spurns? Were not some of them hidden in the corners or obscurity, and others wrapping themselves in the bosom of our enemies for safety? Some of them were in the arms of infancy, and others speculating for fortune, by sporting with public money, while a few, a very few of them were magnanimously defending their country, and raising a character which I pray heaven may never be sullied by aiding measures derogatory to their former exertions.
But the revolutions in principle which time produces among mankind, frequently exhibit the most mortifying instances of human weakness; and this alone can account for the extraordinary appearance of a few names, once distinguished in the honorable walks of patriotism, but now found on the list of the Massachusetts assent to the ratification of a Constitution, which, by the undefined meaning of some parts, and the ambiguities of expression in others, is dangerously adapted to the purposes of an immediate aristocratic tyranny; that from the difficulty, if not impracticability of its operation, must soon terminate in the most uncontrouled despotism.
All writers on government agree, and the feelings of the human mind witnesses the truth of these political axioms, that man is born free, and possessed of certain unalienable rights—that government is instituted for the protection, safety, and happiness of the people, and not for the profit, honour, or private interest of any man, family, or class of men. That the origin of all power is in the people, and that they have an incontestible right to check the creatures of their own creation, vested with certain powers to guard the life, liberty, and property of the community: And if certain selected bodies of men, deputed on these principles, determine contrary to the wishes and expectations of their constituents, the people have an undoubted right to reject their decisions, to call for a revision of their conduct, to depute others in their room, or, if they think proper, to demand further time for deliberation on matters, of the greatest moment: it therefore is an unwarrantable stretch of authority or influence, if any methods are taken to preclude this reasonable and peaceful mode of enquiry and decision.
And it is with inexpressible anxiety, that many of the best friends to the Union—to the peaceable and equal participation of the rights of nature, and to the glory and dignity of this country, behold the insidious arts, and the strenuous efforts of the partisans of arbitrary power, by their vague definitions of the best established truths, endeavouring to envelope the mind in darkness—the concomitant of slavery; and to lock the strong chains of domestic despotism on a country, which, by the most glorious and successful struggles, is but newly emancipated from the sceptre of foreign dominion. But there are certain seasons in the course of human affairs, when Genius, Virtue, and Patriotism, seem to nod over the vices of the times, and perhaps never more remarkably than at the present period, or we should not see such a passive disposition prevail in some, who we must candidly suppose have liberal and enlarged sentiments; while a supple multitude are paying a blind and idolatrous homage to the opinions of those, who, by the most precipitate steps, are treading down their dear-bought privileges, and who are endeavouring, by all the arts of insinuation and influence, to betray the people of the United States into an acceptance of a most complicated system of government, marked on the one side with the dark, secret, and profound intrigues of the statesman, long practised in the purlieus of despotism; and on the other, with the ideal projects of young ambition, with its wings just expanded to soar to a summit which imagination has painted in such gawdy colours as to intoxicate the inexperienced votary, and send him rambling from State to State, to collect materials to construct the ladder of preferment.
But as a variety of objections to the heterogeneous phantom, have been repeatedly laid before the public, by men of the best abilities and intentions, I will not expatiate long on a Republican form of government, founded on the principles of monarchy—a democratic branch with the features of aristocracy—and the extravagance of nobility pervading the minds of many of the candidates for office, with the poverty of peasantry hanging heavily on them, and insurmountable, from their taste for expence, unless a generous provision should be made in the arrangement of the civil list, which may enable them with the champions of their cause, to "sail down the new Pactolean channel." Some gentlemen, with laboured zeal, have spent much time in urging the necessity of government, from the embarrassments of trade—the want of respectability abroad, and confidence in the public engagements at home: These are obvious truths which no one denies; and there are few who do not unite in the general wish for the restoration of public faith, the revival of commerce, arts, agriculture, and industry, under a lenient, peaceable, and energetic government: But the most sagacious advocates for the party have not, by fair discussion, and rational argumentation, evinced the necessity of adopting this many-headed monster; of such motley mixture, that its enemies cannot trace a feature of Democratic or Republican extract; nor have its friends the courage to denominate it a Monarchy, an Aristocracy, or an Oligarchy, and the favoured bantling must have passed through the short period of its existence without a name, had not Mr. Wilson, in the fertility of his genius, suggested the happy epithet of a Federal Republic.
But I leave the field of general censure on the secrecy of its birth, the rapidity of its growth, and the fatal consequences of suffering it to live to the age of maturity, and will particularize some of the most weighty objections to its passing through this continent in a gigantic size.—It will be allowed by every one, that the fundamental principle of a free government, is the equal representation of a free people.—And I will first observe with a justly celebrated writer, That the principle aim of society is to protect individuals in the absolute rights which were vested in them by the immediate laws of nature, but which could not be preserved in peace, without the mutual intercourse which is gained by the institution of friendly and social communities.
—And when society has thus deputed a certain number of their equals to take care of their personal rights, and the interest of the whole community, it must be considered that responsibility is the great security of integrity and honour; and that annual election is the basis of responsibility.—Man is not immediately corrupted, but power, without limitation, or ameanability, may endanger the brightest virtue—whereas a frequent return to the bar of their constituents is the strongest check against the corruptions to which men are liable, either from the intrigues of others of more subtil genius, or the propensities of their own hearts.
1. There is no security in the profered system, either for the rights of conscience, or the liberty of the press:—Despotism usually, while it is gaining ground; will suffer men to think, say, or write what they please; but when once established, if it is thought necessary to subserve the purposes of arbitrary power, the most unjust restrictions may take place in the first instance, and an imprimator on the press in the next, may silence the complaints, and forbid the most decent remonstrances of an injured and oppressed people.
2. There are no well defined limits of the judiciary powers, they seem to be left as a boundless ocean, that has broken over the chart of the supreme lawgiver, "thus far shalt thou go and no farther," and as they cannot be comprehended by the clearest capacity, or the most sagacious mind, it would be an Herculean labour to attempt to describe the dangers with which they are replete.
3. The executive and the legislative are so dangerously blended as to give just cause of alarm, and every thing relative thereto, is couched in such ambiguous terms—in such vague and indefinite expressions, as is a sufficient ground without any other objection, for the reprobation of a system, that the authors dare not hazard to a clear investigation.
4. The abolition of trial by jury in civil causes.—This mode of trial, the learned judge Blackstone observes, has been coeval with the first rudiments of civil government, that property, liberty and life, depend on maintaining in its legal force the constitutional trial by jury.
5. Though it has been said by Mr. Wilson, and many others, that a standing army is necessary for the dignity and safety of America, yet freedom revolts at the idea, when the Divan, or the despot, may draw out his dragoons to suppress the murmurs of a few, who may yet cherish those sublime principles which call forth the exertions, and lead to the best improvment of the human mind. Standing armies have been the nursery of vice, and the bane of liberty, from the Roman legions, to the establishment of the artful Ximenes, and from the ruin of the Cortes of Spain, to the planting the British Cohorts in the capitals of America.
6. Notwithstanding the delusory promise to guarantee a republican form of government to every state in the union—if the most discerning eye could discover any meaning at all in the engagement, there are no resources left for the support of internal government, or the liquidation of the debts of the state. Every source of revenue is in the monopoly of Congress.
7. As the new Congress are impowered to determine their own salaries, the requisitions for this purpose may not be very moderate, and the drain for public monies will probably rise past all calculation.
8. There is no provision for a rotation, nor any thing to prevent the perpetuity of office in the same hands for life; which by a little well timed bribery, will probably be done, to the exclusion of men of the best abilities from their share in the offices of government.
9. The inhabitants of the United States, are liable to be dragged from the vicinity of their own county, or state, to answer to the litigious or unjust suit of an adversary, on the most distant borders of the continent.
10. One representative to thirty thousand inhabitants is a very inadequate representation; and every man who is not lost to all sense of freedom to his country, must reprobate the idea of Congress altering by law, or on any pretence whatever interfering with any regulations for the time, places, and manner of choosing our own representatives.
11. If the sovereignty of America is designed to be elective, the circumscribing the votes to only ten electors in this state, and the same proportion in all the others, is nearly tantamount to the exclusion of the voice of the people in the choice of their first magistrate. It is vesting the choice solely in an aristocratic junto, who may easily combine in each state to place at the head of the union the most convenient instrument for despotic sway.
12. A senate chosen for six years, will in most instances, be an appointment for life, as the influence of such a body over the minds of the people, will be coeval to the extensive powers with which they are vested, and they will not only forget, but be forgotten by their constituents; a branch of the supreme legislature thus set beyond all responsibility, is totally repugnant to every principle of a free government.
13. There is no provision by a bill of rights to guard against the dangerous encroachments of power in too many instances to be named: But I cannot pass over in silence the insecurity in which we are left with regard to warrants unsupported by evidence—the daring experiment of granting writs of assistance in a former arbitrary administration is not yet forgotten in the Massachusetts.
14. The difficulty, if not impracticability, of exercising the equal and equitable powers of government by a single legislature over an extent of territory that reaches from the Missisippi to the western lakes, and from them to the Atlantic ocean, is an insuperable objection to the adoption of the new system.
15. It is an indisputed fact, that not one legislature in the United States had the most distant idea when they first appointed members for a convention, entirely commercial, or when they afterwards authorised them to consider on some amendments of the federal union, that they would, without any warrant from their constituents, presume on so bold and daring a stride, as ultimately to destroy the state governments, and offer a consolidated system, irreversible but on conditions that the smallest degree of penetration must discover to be impracticable.
16. The first appearance of the article which declares the ratification of nine states sufficient for the establishment of the new system, wears the face of dissention, is a subversion of the union of the consederated states, and tends to the introduction of anarchy and civil convulsions,—and may be a means of involving the whole country in blood.
17. The mode in which this constitution is recommended to the people to judge without either the advice of Congress, or the legislatures of the several states, is very reprehensible—it is an attempt to force it upon them before it could be thoroughly understood.
But it is needless to enumerate other instances, in which the proposed constitution appears contradictory to the first principles which ought to govern mankind; and it is equally so to enquire into the motives that induced to so bold a step as the annihilation of the independence and sovereignty of the thirteen distinct states.—They are but too obvious through the whole progress of the business, from the first shutting up the doors of the Federal Convention, and resolving that no member should correspond with gentlemen in the different states on the subject under discussion.
It is presumed the great body of the people unite in sentiment with the writer of these observations, who most devoutly prays, that public credit may rear her declining head, and remunerative justice pervade the land; nor is there a doubt, if a free government is continued, that time and industry will enable both the public and private debtor to liquidate their arrearages in the most equitable manner. They wish to see the Confederated States bound together by the most indissoluble union, but without renouncing their several sovereignties and independence, and becoming tributaries to a consolidated fabric of aristocratic tyranny.
They wish to see government established, and peaceably holding the reins with honour, energy, and dignity; but they wish for no federal city, whose "cloud cap'd towers" may screen the state culprit from the hand of justice; while its exclusive jurisdiction may protect the riot of armies encamped within its limits. They deprecate discord and civil convulsions, but they are not yet generally prepared, with the ungrateful Israelites, to ask a King, nor are their spirits sufficiently broken to yield the best of their olive grounds to his servants, and to see their sons appointed to run before his chariots.
The great art of governing is to lay aside all prejudices and attachments to particular opinions, classes, or individual characters; to consult the spirit of the people; to give way to it; and, in so doing, to give it a turn capable of inspiring those sentiments which may induce them to relish a change which an alteration of circumstances may hereafter make necessary.
Though the virtues of a Cato could not save Rome, nor the abilities of a Padilla defend the citizens of Castile from falling under the yoke of Charles, yet a Tell once suddenly rose from a little obscure city, and boldly rescued the liberties of his country. Every age has its Bruti and its Decii, as well as its Caesars and Sejani. The happiness of mankind depends much on the modes of government and the virtues of the governors; and America may yet produce characters who have genius and capacity sufficient to form the manners and correct the morals of the people, and virtue enough to lead their country to freedom.
But if after all, on a dispassionate and fair discussion, the people generally give their voice for a voluntary dereliction of their privileges, let every individual, who chooses the active scenes of life, strive to support the peace and unanimity of his country, though every other blessing may expire; and while the statesman is plodding for power, and the courtier practising the arts of dissimulation without check; while the rapacious are growing rich by oppression, and fortune throwing her gifts into the lap of fools, let the sublimer characters, the philosophic lovers of freedom, who have wept over her exit, retire to the calm shades of contemplation; there they may look down with pity on the inconsistency of human nature, the revolutions of states, the rise of kingdoms, and the fall of empires.
FINIS.
Warren, M. O. (2008). Observations on the new Constitution, and on the foederal and state conventions. By a Columbian patriot. ; Sic transit gloria Americana. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N16431.0001.001/1:2?rgn=div1