The
most prescient of the Founders, Patrick Henry clearly discerned the
predictable result of ratifying the Constitution which he viewed as
nothing more than consolidating the States into one centralized
government. He challenged the centralizing Federalists of his day: “let
me appeal to the candor of the committee, if the want of money be not
the source of all our misfortunes.” He maintained that the new
government was a consolidated one, and that its advocates sought
“splendor” – not liberty.
The Constitution Would Not Control Man’s Nature
“Man,”
Patrick Henry warned, “is a fallen creature, a fallible being, and
cannot be depended upon without self-love.” Certainly, a large measure
of Henry’s ideas of the type of government which would serve the true
function of government, the preservations of liberty, were based upon
this idea of the nature of the human species. Indeed, the best
government would be one which would be one which made the most effective
provisions against this.
One
of the primary modes in which this “self-love” manifested itself was in
a desire for power because “human nature never will part from power.”
The human temptation was present in all men . . . Henry deduced, for
“the characteristic of the good or great Man is not that he has been
exempted from the evils of life, but that he surmounted them.”
The
annals of history pointed this out, for “can the annals of mankind
exhibit one single example, where rulers overcharged with power
willingly let go the oppressed, though solicited and requested most
earnestly?” In fact, “a willing relinquishment of power is one of those
things which human nature never was, nor will ever be capable of.”
What
was there about this new government which did not provide for this
innate weakness of man? Why had the men at the Constitutional Convention
created a new government? Was it because the government of the Articles
of Confederation was so weak that they were faced with the alternatives
of drastic action or anarchy? Patrick Henry did not think so.
The
Confederation had won the war; it had saved the West. He protested that
history was replete with examples, “instances of people losing their
liberties by their own carelessness and the ambition of a few.” Was
this not the real reason for the proposed change in government?
Also
disturbing to Henry’s mind was the fact that in many States which had
ratified the new Constitution, the masses had not been awarded the
opportunity to vote on the election of new delegates to the ratification
conventions. He protested, “. . . only 10,000 were represented in
Pennsylvania although 70,000 had a right to be represented. Is this not
a serious thing?”
If the people did not want a change in their government, why then did the Philadelphia Convention write the new Constitution?
(The
Christian Philosophy of Patrick Henry, James M. Wells, Carris J.
Kocher, editor, Bill of Rights Bicentennial Committee, 2004 (original
1960), pp. 58-59)
