Brutus 1 Explained | What Elements of the Constitution Concerned the Anti-Federalists?

0:00 Welcome back to the Bill of Rights Institute’s. Close Reads. Today we’re going to be taking a look at an Anti-Federalist paper, Brutus number one. Let’s check it out. So over the past few weeks we’ve been looking at The Federalist Papers. But today we’re going to be looking at the Anti-Federalist Papers or those those who were opposed to the passing

0:20 of the new Constitution as it was sent out from the Philadelphia Convention, 1787. The main question we’re going to be looking at is what are Brutus’ main concerns about the new Constitution? But before we get to that question, let’s talk a little bit about the historical context. So like with The Federalist Papers, we’re still talking about the ratification debates or those debates over whether or not to adopt the new Constitution.

0:43 The Federalists, remember, all wrote under the name Publius. That was James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay. There were other Federalists who wrote but those three men wrote a packet of essays, all published in New York. They were called The Federalist Papers. So when we talk about The Federalists, generally speaking, that’s what we’re talking about. The Anti Federalist, on the other hand,

1:04 wrote at various times in various states under various pen names and weren’t as organized and consolidated as Hamilton, Madison and Jay were in writing their essays They went by the names of Brutus, Sentinel, Cato, The Federal Farmer and all of them wrote from different perspectives. Today we’re just looking at Brutus and we’re just looking at his first essay.

1:25 Typically, when we’re talking about Brutus, most people assume that this was Robert Yates who was a politician in New York at the time. But we’re not going to really go into who he was because what’s more important are the arguments that he’s putting forward, like thinking about Publius’ arguments and The Federalists. Here we’re just thinking about what was Brutus’ deal, what was he talking about, what was he arguing? Why was he so against the new Constitution?

1:46 And today that’s what we’re going to take a look at. So he starts out by laying out the stakes of what this argument is about. He says perhaps this country never saw so critical a period in their political concerns as this question of whether or not to adopt this new Constitution. He goes on in his opening to sort of frame up and give credit to the new Constitution that’s been proposed. He says that this confederation that we’ve

2:07 been living under hasn’t been working well and what we need is a new system and what the convention has given us is this new system. And so then today we’re here to decide whether or not that’s a good system. He says it’s the most important question that has ever been proposed to your decision or to the decisions of any under heaven is before you.

2:28 And he goes on he makes this really dramatic and it’s interesting. He says if the Constitution is a good one. It’s going to be known for generations that you passed it and all of these wonderful things are going to happen. But if it’s bad, boy, is it going to be bad. So let’s make sure that it’s not bad before we go into it. Now, if you’re thinking about how political debates are represented and sent out, it’s important to keep in mind he’s setting up a sort of a rhetorical

2:51 framework here saying, hey, if this is good, great, let’s adopt it. But if it’s bad, oh boy, do we need to reject it. Otherwise liberty is going to be crushed. In fact, he says, for liberty will be shut up. Imposterity will excrecate your memory. They will see this as horrible. So don’t get it wrong. And because we know he’s going to be running against it,

3:11 you can see how he’s setting up a debate to say, hey, this isn’t going to be good. So he’s open it up, we set the stage, we have the stakes. We need to decide whether or not we’re going to adopt this constitution. So what’s the central question we want to get out here? He says momentous is this question. And he says, it is insisted indeed that this constitution must be received, be it ever so imperfect if it has defects.

3:34 It said that they can be best amended when they’re experienced. All right, so we’ve got this momentous decision. And as if it wasn’t enough in his opening to say how momentous this was, he says it again. Momentous then is the question you have determined that you have to determine. And he concludes it here with an important famous phrase from this. And he says, but remember, when the people wants to part with power,

3:55 they can sell them or never resume it again, but by force. So here he is saying, look, we want to set up this new constitution. We know the old Articles of Confederation was not strong enough to do what we needed to do. So the big question that’s before us is, is this going to be helping us achieve more liberty and freedom, or is it going to crush that out and put us back under oppression?

4:19 He says that some people are here arguing you should experience it, just go ahead and pass it, and then we’ll amend it. If it’s not working, he’s saying is, don’t do that, because once you give up this power, you can’t get it back except by force. And here he’s basically saying, except through another revolution. All right, so let’s look at the question. The first question that presents itself on the subject is whether a confederate government be best for the United States,

4:42 or in other words, whether the 13 United States should be reduced to one great republic governed by one great legislature under the direction of one executive and judicial, or whether they should continue 13 confederated republics under the direction and control of a supreme federal head for certain defined national purposes only. He says this is the important because

5:04 although the government reported by the convention does not go to a perfect entire consolidation, yet it approaches so near to it that if executed, certainly in infallibly terminate in it. All right. So what’s he saying? It’s a lot of words to say. We need to determine whether or not a confederation or a Confederated government which is 13 strong states all operating with their own sovereignty,

5:27 with a national government that’s doing some things for it is better, or whether or not a consolidated government is better. Meaning one national government is ruling over everyone in all of the states. So that can be confusing. So there’s a couple of words here to point out. Federal, Confederal, Consolidated and National. Federal and confederal here can get conflated.

5:49 We already talked about the Federalists. What’s interesting is the Federalists called themselves that and the Anti-Federalist did not call themselves Anti-Federalist. They would have also seen themselves as Federalists because when we’re thinking of a confederation, we’re really talking about what they would have called a Federal government or federated power, meaning it is divided amongst several states. There’s not one national government that’s ruling over everyone.

6:11 They use that word, national. Suffice it to say when you’re reading through these things and you’re thinking about them, when you see these words, flag it, stop it, and think about the context that it’s being presented in because they can mean very specific things. Here what Brutus is saying, and this is central to his argument, is we have a government with 13 states that all have their own interests and values.

6:31 What he’s concerned about is if all of those states get consolidated under one national government, that could be bad because it’s not going to allow for those states to exercise the kind of discretion that they think is important. So we’re going to step through the rest of his argument. But that’s really what he’s getting at here. These words are really important for understanding that. So again, when you see these words take a pause, think about their context.

6:53 It’ll just help you better understand the arguments that Buddhist has outlined. All right, so the question before us is, well, is this going to be one consolidated national government? The Constitution, the way that it was presented to us, says that it’s not. But Brutus thinks it’s going to become that consolidated government. And so first he’s going to outline whether or not that’s the case. Is it actually going to become

7:13 consolidated or is it, like the Federalists are saying, not consolidated, but actually having power distributed amongst the states? He says this government is to possess absolute and uncontrollable power legislative, executive, judicial, with respect to every object for which it extends. So here he’s saying, look, even though they’re saying it’s not consolidated, it is.

7:35 And the reason he says it is are the necessary improper clause and the Supremacy Clause. He goes on here to quote this extensively. We only have excerpts from the paper here, but if you go back and read it, he quotes it extensively. What he’s essentially saying is look, between the Necessary and Proper Clause and the Supremacy Clause, any other legislation that’s passed by the states is going to be subsumed by the national government’s legislation.

7:59 So he’s arguing that, look, it’s not going to matter what we do in the states even though they say that we have power because the federal government has power over these two things and they can extend it with these two clauses, it’s going to make the existence of the states almost meaningless. So he goes on to say not only do they have this Necessary and Proper Clause and the Supremacy Clause, but they also have the power to tax.

8:22 And in this section he goes through and talks about, look, that power to tax is really the ultimate power that exists in the government and even says here it is proper here to remark that the authority to lay and collect taxes is of the most important powers that can be granted and it connects with other powers. It is a great means of protection, security and defense in a good government

8:45 and the great engine of oppression and tyranny and a bad government. Right? So what’s he saying? He’s saying, look, they have this Necessary and Proper Clause and the Supremacy Clause that are going to make federal legislation the ultimate power in the land. And not only that, but they have this taxing power. That taxing power is good if it’s directed toward good ends. But the problem is if it’s not directed toward good ends, it quickly becomes oppressive and can

9:09 dominate over the people like they had just bought the revolution. Again, there were concerns that Britain was oppressing the colonies through its powers of taxation. Here he’s sort of conjuring up that image and saying, hey, be careful because this could happen here again. But how is it going to happen? That’s what he’s going to go on to explain even more of. So he says not only do they have this power to tax, but they can also raise armies so they can have a standing army.

9:32 And standing armies were seen as the greatest threat to liberty. This comes from the English tradition. During the English Civil Wars, it was seen as a standing army is one of the most dangerous things that you could have contrary to liberty because it sort of shows the naked force that the state has to oppress the people. That was later carried over during the American Revolution, there were a lot of concerns about standing armies.

9:52 And here again you see it in Brutus him saying that this standing army is the greatest threat to liberty that we can have. Not only are they going to threaten us with an army, having a standing army, but they also have supreme judicial power and the judiciary is being made and it’s going to have different courts in the states and those courts, like the Supremacy Clause, like the Necessary and Proper Clause,

10:15 are also going to be substantial, the national government, because the states aren’t going to have any recourse because, because again, this is all being determined by the national government. So again, what he’s laying out here in great detail, as you can already probably tell by the length of this video, is he saying, look, they say that it’s not going to be consolidated, but it is going to be consolidated. They say it’s not going to be consolidated, but it is going to be consolidated.

10:36 He’s going to repeat that over and over again as he goes through this paper. So now we finally get to where he’s summing up and here he essentially says, look, I’m not saying that this is inevitable, that this is going to become consolidated, but it certainly looks likely that it’s going to. And he says it’s important that it looks likely to because if it is likely, it’s probably going to happen. So I’m not going to read this entire section, but starting with this section

10:58 here, saying and if it may do it, Brutus is going to go on and basically make an argument that human nature is such that given this Supremacy clause and given this Necessary and Proper clause and given the idea that the courts are going to be absorbed into the national court and given the opportunity that a standing army has, and given this idea that this legislature is going to be basically unlimited in its

11:24 taxing powers, all of that, because that’s all possible, that it could become consolidated, it’s probably going to because human nature is such again, thinking back to that idea on power that he said earlier, human nature is such that if there’s an opportunity for people to consolidate this power and take more power onto them, they’re going to do it and it’s not going to be good for the nation. So all of this is to say, he’s saying,

11:46 look, it’s likely that this is going to become a consolidated government. But now let’s take a step back. At the beginning of the paper, he said, well, should we have a confederated government or should we have a consolidated government? Now he’s going to go through and lay out all the reasons why we do not want that consolidated government that’s likely going to come out of this government the way that the Constitution has been proposed. The question will then be whether

12:07 a government thus constituted and founded on such principles as practicable and can be exercised over the whole United States reduced into one state. So is this consolidation going to continue to advance to secure the liberty, as he says, to have this done? Or is it not going to do that? To explore that, he’s going to pull out

12:29 some experts. So what he says here is, it is respect to be plain to the greatest and wisest men who have ever thought or wrote on the science of government. We shall be constrained to conclude that a free republic cannot succeed over a country with such immense extent containing such a number of inhabitants, and these increasing in such rapid

12:49 progression as out of the whole United States. So who are these wise men? Well, one is Baron de Montesquieu, and he’s going to quote Montesquieu specifically. And remember, Montesquieu wrote The Spirit of the Laws, which was a well read document by many of the founders that influenced a lot of their thinking and in their Montesquieu says, and this is part of the quote that he pulls in a large republic, the public good is sacrificed

13:11 to a thousand views, is subordinate to exceptions, and depends on accidents. In a small one, a small republic, the interest of the people, the public, is easier preserved, better understood, and more within reach of every citizen. So he’s saying, Look, Monescu, who is our expert on the science of government, says, a large republic is bad.

13:32 A large republic is what you’re going to get from this consolidated single government. So now he goes on to detail why that’s the case. And again, I’m not going to read through all of this, but you can pause and go back. But looking at each one of these, he says, in a free government, the people must give their assent to laws. And in this large government, they might give their assent, but they’re not really going to know who it is, what they’re ascending to, or who it is it’s representing them.

13:56 It already contains nearly 3 million souls and is capable of containing much more. Is it practical for so large and so numerous as they will become soon to elect representation that will speak for their sentiments? He was arguing, look, you, had you governed over this huge, wide territory with all of these different people, all of these different interests, can you have a single government that represents all their interests?

14:17 What’s that going to look like? He says, in a republic, manners and sentiments and interests of the people should be similar. If this be not the case, they will constantly clash of opinion. So not only can they not agree on who should represent them or what they’re being represented for, but they’re also going to have lots of different opinions on what their primary interests are. And so those are going to clash. And that clashing is going to cause them

14:38 not to be able to govern or pass legislation that they need to. Then finally, he says, in despotic governments, as well as in the monarchies of your abstaining, armies are kept up to execute the commands of the prince and the magistrate, and are employed for this purpose when occasion requires. But they have always proved the destruction of liberty and are abhorrent to the spirit of the free republic.

14:59 A free republic will never keep a standing army to execute its laws. It must depend upon the support of the system. Why are we talking about standing armies again? Well, he’s setting up an argument here when he’s going to talk about that on this next page that essentially, look, you’ve got this government over a large extended republic. Their interests aren’t going to align, they’re not going to be represented. That’s going to cause people to lose faith. And when people lose faith in the government,

15:21 then the rule of the government has to be enforced on them by force. What’s going to do that? A standing army and what does that essentially equate to? Liberty has now been destroyed. By that point, you’re no longer living in a free country. You’re living in a country where the law is not popularly supported, but it is instead being forced on people by the army. And so this is the specter that Brutus is trying to put together.

15:44 And again, keeping in mind these are Brutus’s arguments. He’s doing this because he is concerned about the way that the new constitution is being formatted. So he says the consequences will be they will have no confidence in their legislature, suspect them of ambitious views and on and on and on again saying, look, they’re not going to believe in this government and so therefore it is going to fail and end in.

16:07 Tyranny. He says, in a republic of such vaster extent, it cannot be sufficiently numerous to be acquainted with the local conditions. And wants is in so sense of a republic, the great offices of the government would soon become above the control of the people and their abusive power and the purposes of aggrandizing themselves and oppressing them. So again, he’s saying we have this huge

16:28 republic, they’re not going to have confidence in it. Not only they’re not going to have confidence in it, but it’s going to be so numerous that they’re not going to know everybody who’s governing them. And the ambitions and power of those people are now going to be so vast in some extent that the people aren’t really going to be able to control them. It’s going to be out of their control. And again, what results? Tyranny so going back to our central question,

16:51 what are Brutus’ main concerns and what is his main argument? So again, we’re talking about the ratification of the constitution. Should this new constitution be ratified and should the people say, yes, we want this new constitution? And he asked that question. He says, is this constitution going to consolidate power at the national level? That’s his first and foremost question. Yes, he says, absolutely it will, because of all of these provisions

17:12 that aren’t going to keep it separate or keep it stable as others are arguing. It’s going to slowly become consolidated, it’s going to absorb the states and it’s going to be one national government. Should we have that consolidated government? No, he says, absolutely not. And why not? Because it can’t represent the people. They can’t agree on their issues.

17:33 The people will then lose confidence in that government force will result from that and liberty will be crushed. And so that government cannot be controlled. It’s no longer the kind of liberty promoting government that they were fighting for during the American Revolution. And so he said that we should not go forward with this. All right, so that was a lot.

17:53 We went through it really quickly. It’s a longer Anti-Federalist Paper, but it’s always interesting and it’s important to keep in mind in studying the Anti-Federalists helps us also better understand the Federalists because the Federalists begin responding to some of these different arguments that the Anti-Federalists are putting forward. And if you remember from some of the other Federalist Paper videos that we’ve done

18:13 and you can take a look at those, we’ll have them linked down in the description. Publius begins responding to a lot of these arguments, arguing why it is that in fact this isn’t going to be the kind of extended republic that Montesquieu is talking about, but instead one that even has more protections and is working to improve on the kind of government that Monaskey was thinking about.

18:34 And he goes on to argue that all of the concerns that Brutus is outlining here are actually advantages in the new government. And so by looking at Brutus’ arguments in the arguments of other Anti-Federalists which we’ll be taking a look at in future videos, you can begin to better understand how this whole argument is coming together. Because it’s important to keep in mind

18:55 that A, there was nothing inevitable about the Constitution passing, there were serious concerns that it wouldn’t and these arguments were very serious to those who were going back and forth. And two, it’s always important to keep in mind how it is that different individuals throughout our history, whether it be in the 1780s like this is, or in the 1920s or in the 2010s, whenever you may be watching this video,

19:17 it’s always important to keep in mind how different people are looking at understanding and talking and debating about the government because you can begin to see how it is that we can understand how governments operating in our lives and come to our own conclusions about what we think the best arrangements may be. These arguments are a healthy part of democracy and it’s an interesting and important way to kind of dive into historical debates and see how it is different people were talking about,

19:40 thinking about arguing these things as the country has gone on as a nation. So I hope you enjoyed that. I hope it was helpful. Check out the other videos that we have on our channel. We have scholar talks that are really interesting with my colleague Tony Williams or a BRIdge for the past videos with my colleague Mary Patterson, looking at different visual primary sources. And if you’re just looking to tune up on more primary sources for American history, I hope you’ll join us next time.

20:03 Thanks so much.