Taxing Power: Luther Martin’s Anti-Federalist Warnings
By: Michael Boldin Luther Martin believed the Constitution’s sweeping taxation power was one of its most dangerous features, a direct threat to both state sovereignty and individual liberty. Long before ...
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Three Pillars of Power: Luther Martin’s Anti-Federalist Warnings
By: Mike Maharrey Luther Martin warned that the Constitution would create a centralized national government with few real restraints – one that would steadily erode state sovereignty, override local control, ...
Read more.Luther Martin’s Warning: Executive Power, Unequal Representation, and the Illusion of Impeachment
By: Michael Boldin Luther Martin feared that the Constitution was not a blueprint for liberty, but rather a framework for centralized control that threatened state sovereignty. He hammered this point ...
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Luther Martin vs. Landholder: Anti-Federalist Warnings on Consolidation and Tyranny
By: Mike Maharrey In a heated war of words, Luther Martin responded to a series of essays penned by Oliver Ellsworth under the pseudonym Landholder, defending his colleague Elbridge Gerry against ...
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A Republic at Risk: Cato’s Anti-Federalist Warnings
By: Mike Maharrey “A vile and arbitrary aristocracy or a monarchy.” That’s what the anti-federalist writer Cato warned we would get under the Constitution. This was because, in his view, ...
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Limited or Absolute Power: Warnings from Anti-Federalist Agrippa
By: TJ Martinell The Anti-Federalist writer Agrippa powerfully expressed many of the same reservations about the Constitution as other opponents – that it would create a consolidated government leading ...
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Mercy Otis Warren: Constitution Would “Terminate in the Most Uncontrolled Despotism”
By: TJ Martinell Mercy Otis Warren came down firmly opposed to ratification of the Constitution, and her anonymously written pamphlet titled “Observations on the new Constitution, and on the Federal ...
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Federal Farmer: Will the Judiciary Preserve or Destroy Liberty?
By: TJ Martinell While many anti-federalists, including Patrick Henry, regarded the judicial branch of the federal government under the proposed U.S. Constitution with deep suspicion, the Federal Farmer took a more ...
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Federal Farmer: Representation Isn’t Sufficient
By: TJ Martinell When it was ratified, the U.S. Constitution set a cap on the number of representatives at no more than one per 30,000 persons. In his seventh letter dated Dec. ...
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Patrick Henry Warns of a “Great and Mighty Empire”
By: TJ Martinell On June 5, 1788, Patrick Henry gave a speech at the Virginia Ratifying Convention warning that “consolidation” – centralizing of power – would turn the United States into a dangerous ...
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