The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
CONSTITUTION / UNITED STATES / CONVENTION
Our first essay, in America, to establish a federative government had
fallen, on trial, very short of its object. During the war of
Independence, while the pressure of an external enemy hooped us
together, and their enterprises kept us necessarily on the alert, the
spirit of the people, excited by danger, was a supplement to the
Confederation, and urged them to zealous exertions, whether claimed by
that instrument or not; but, when peace and safety were restored, and
every man became engaged in useful and profitable occupation, less
attention was paid to the calls of Congress. The fundamental defect of
the Confederation was, that Congress was not authorized to act
immediately on the people, and by its own officers. Their power was
only requisitory, and these requisitions were addressed to the several
Legislatures, to be by them carried into execution, without other
coercion than the moral principle of duty. This allowed, in fact, a
negative to every Legislature, on every measure proposed by Congress;
a negative so frequently exercised in practice, as to benumb the
action of the Federal government, and to render it inefficient in its
general objects, and more especially in pecuniary and foreign
concerns. The want, too, of a separation of the Legislative,
Executive, and Judiciary functions, worked disadvantageously in
practice. Yet this state of things afforded a happy augury of the
future march of our Confederacy, when it was seen that the good sense
and good dispositions of the people, as soon as they perceived the
incompetence of their first compact, instead of leaving its correction
to insurrection and civil war, agreed, with one voice, to elect
deputies to a general Convention, who should peaceably meet and agree
on such a Constitution as "would ensure peace, justice, liberty,
the common defense and general welfare."
This Convention met at Philadelphia on the 25th of May, '87. It sat
with closed doors, and kept all its proceedings secret, until its
dissolution on the 17th of September, when the results of its labors
were published all together. I received a copy, early in November, and
read and contemplated its provisions with great satisfaction. As not a
member of the Convention, however, nor probably a single citizen of
the Union, had approved it in all its parts, so I, too, found articles
which I thought objectionable. The absence of express declarations
ensuring freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of the
person under the uninterrupted protection of the Habeas corpus, and
trial by jury in Civil as well as in Criminal cases, excited my
jealousy; and the re-eligibility of the President for life, I quite
disapproved. I expressed freely, in letters to my friends, and most
particularly to Mr. Madison and General Washington, my approbations
and objections. How the good should be secured and the ill brought to
rights, was the difficulty. To refer it back to a new Convention might
endanger the loss of the whole. My first idea was, that the nine
States first acting, should accept it unconditionally, and thus secure
what in it was good, and that the four last should accept on the
previous condition, that certain amendments should be agreed to; but a
better course was devised, of accepting the whole, and trusting that
the good sense and honest intentions of our citizens, would make the
alterations which should be deemed necessary. Accordingly, all
accepted, six without objection, and seven with recommendations of
specified amendments. Those respecting the press, religion, and
juries, with several others, of great value, were accordingly made.
from Notes for an Autobiography, 6 January 1821
|