Alternate Constitutional Convention

Been re-studying the United States Constitutional Convention, and I've been thinking about just how much things could have gone differently. Generally, people talk about how the different Compromises could have been hashed out between the various Plans (Virginia's, New Jersey's, etc. etc.), but I'm presently more interested in more specifics.

For example, I'm struck by how the not-yet dubbed Anti-Federalists choose the least effective method of opposing the measures to strengthen the Federal Government: boycotting the Convention, by and large. Not to mention that Rhode Island completely boycotted it and didn't even ratify until after the new Federal government was sworn in.

And, on the Federalist side, there was Hamilton's threat to have NYC secede from NY state when the governor was stymying the state's ratification of the Constitution.

All sorts of fun little details.

So, to start, lets posit that Patrick Henry decides to attend the Convention, and that leads to a stronger Anti-Federalist representation there. We might also assume that Rhode Island might also attend.

On the one hand, they might just gum up the works and slow things down, or totally derail the process. On the other hand, the anti-Federalist were not malicious, and tended to be just as patriotic to the cause of America as their Federalist opponents. Patrick Henry, after all, eventually came to support the Federalist Party, and opposed Nullification. So, I don't think it would be unreasonable to assert that they would work in good faith to get the Constitution more in line with what they would want.

And what might that be?

Well, the most obvious would that the Bill of Rights would be included in the actual Constitution, rather than as amendments. If it maintains the same basic structure of several articles (7 historically), this would probably be the 8th article, or, if you're feeling poetic, bump it up to the 1st article.

While simply putting the Bill of Rights into the Constitution before Ratification might seem like nothing, there are some changes that might happen. For example, two of the Amendments were not initially passed; the first defined apportionment to the House of Representatives, and the second limited Congressional pay, eventually made it in as the 27th Amendment. So, that might be in from the get-go, meaning that the House might be much larger as the US grew, unless Amended.

Another change might be the Enumerated Powers. Simply put, the Anti-Federalists might defeat the inclusion of the Necessary and Proper clause, or weaken it (perhaps by requiring any law passed on the basis of being necessary and proper to obtain a super-majority). If the N&P is totally struck, I could see many more amendments to the Constitution, as additional Enumerated Powers are added as seen fit by contemporaries.

I'd go on, but my wife is glaring at me for spending too much time typing up history stuff for now. Discuss away.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
A "better" CC is an interesing POD; most of the time

the basic concept of functional politics is ignored.

The bicameral legislature seems a given, with the large state/small state problem, but perhaps direct elections of senators from day one? No Electoral College?

Does seem more (small d) democratic.

A federal definition of suffrage might be pushing things...

Let me think...

Best,
 
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I don't think having Patrick Henry in attendance is going to shift things that incredibly. The Convention IOTL was dominated by Federalists and, Patrick Henry or no, that isn't going to change. A few anti-Federalists were in attendance anyway and all they ended up doing were either refusing to sign or leaving the Convention early.

Patrick Henry may have been one of the best orators of the era but he isn't going to alter the course of the convention on his own.

Serious changes to the Constitution prior to adoption need to be done by getting a second convention that can consider some of the amendments that were recommended by the various state ratifying conventions.
 
I think direct election of senators and the president would be fairly difficult as the system that was chosen gave a lot of power to state legislatures, power which they were reluctant to give up in the first place. Direct election would seriously weaken states' rights and probably be unacceptable in an initial constitution.

I think a clearer method for determining how members of the House are elected sounds feasible and might lead to some very interesting situations. For example if a state has 10 seats there's a state-wide election in which the 10 candidates that receive the most votes take the seats. It would lead to some interesting situations since it would effectively break the two party hold on the House that the all or nothing system grants.
 
Direct election of the President and direct election of Senators had basically no chance of happening. In addition to the reasons stated, many of the representatives were almost as afraid of direct democracy (i.e., "mob rule") as they were of a monarchical executive, so indirect elections and centers of power established by them, where the elites would be able to temper the possible excesses of the mob and of the directly elected House of Representatives, were viewed as good things. Indeed they are one of the hallmarks of the "Republican Form of Government", as the term was generally understood at that time.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Well, yeah, but I was "going big"...

I actually think the most likely outcome is not much beyind what did happen, but that's sort of a "meh" response.

Best,
 
As to the idea of direct election of more federal officials (Senators and Presidents), lets remember that anti-federalists would probably be less supportive of such idea than the Federalist would be. After all, their concern was in limiting the power of the central government, not just for the sake of individual liberty, but for the liberty of the constituent states as well. So, anything that makes the states less powerful is not going to be on their agenda.

Add on top of that the fact that, as others have said, the Founding Fathers had a dim view of 'small d' democracy to begin with. And, on top of that, we have historical proof of the fact that direct elections weaken the states: Once Senators were directly elected, the Federal government grew greatly at the expense of the state governments. And, of course, during the build-up to the Civil War, it was the state legislature-appointed Senate that was dominated by those that wanted to maintain the strength of the states in relation to the Federal government.
 
I don't think having Patrick Henry in attendance is going to shift things that incredibly. The Convention IOTL was dominated by Federalists and, Patrick Henry or no, that isn't going to change. A few anti-Federalists were in attendance anyway and all they ended up doing were either refusing to sign or leaving the Convention early.

Patrick Henry may have been one of the best orators of the era but he isn't going to alter the course of the convention on his own.

Serious changes to the Constitution prior to adoption need to be done by getting a second convention that can consider some of the amendments that were recommended by the various state ratifying conventions.

I agree that there won't be any great changes, but alterations along the edges are certainly possible. Now, Patrick Henry on his own might not be enough to change the outcome, agreed. However, he could galvanize the Anti-Federalists, who seem to have lacked a counterpart to Madison or Hamilton to lead them at the convention (not to disparage the more notable Anti-Federalists that did attend). Lets remember that, historically, Madison's original design was more centralized than the ultimate result.

Further, in addition to galvanizing the Anti-Federalist that did attend, having a big name like Henry there might convince others to attend as well. Imagine Samuel Adams and John Hancock attended as well.

Besides, the biggest specific cause of the Anti-Federalists, a Bill of Rights, was not something the Federalists absolutely opposed themselves, so it would not be a huge divergence for a stronger Anti-Federalist bloc at the convention to get one included prior to ratification. And, as mentioned above, such an early inclusion might lead to several differences.
 
As to the idea of direct election of more federal officials (Senators and Presidents), lets remember that anti-federalists would probably be less supportive of such idea than the Federalist would be. After all, their concern was in limiting the power of the central government, not just for the sake of individual liberty, but for the liberty of the constituent states as well. So, anything that makes the states less powerful is not going to be on their agenda.

It's extraordinarily difficult to speak of the 'anti-federalists' as a group. They represented a broad spectrum of opinion from crypto-conservative to radical democrat. Their reasons for doing things and thus the basis on which we can predict what they would do is going to vary from person to person.
 
It's extraordinarily difficult to speak of the 'anti-federalists' as a group. They represented a broad spectrum of opinion from crypto-conservative to radical democrat. Their reasons for doing things and thus the basis on which we can predict what they would do is going to vary from person to person.

To be sure, the actual label basically does cast a broad net, over everyone that did not support the Constitution. However, the general idea that they were concerned about increasing the power of the central Federal government was a constant, more or less.
 
To be sure, the actual label basically does cast a broad net, over everyone that did not support the Constitution. However, the general idea that they were concerned about increasing the power of the central Federal government was a constant, more or less.

Those who were actually against creating a more vigorous national government were in a distinct minority even amongst so-called anti-federalists. It's telling that only Martin Luther, amongst all the delegates to the Philadelphia Convention, had any real desire to retain the Articles of Confederation in any form.

The problems that 'anti-federalists' had with the Constitution IOTL varied greatly, from the lack of a bill of rights to the length of terms or lack of representation in the House. The issue of a bill of rights was, perhaps, the most common problem cited and the first ten amendments to the Constitution were what ultimately reconciled many former opponents to the new document. It was one of George Mason's first major objections and one that kept getting repeated throughout the ratification process.
 
Those who were actually against creating a more vigorous national government were in a distinct minority even amongst so-called anti-federalists. It's telling that only Martin Luther, amongst all the delegates to the Philadelphia Convention, had any real desire to retain the Articles of Confederation in any form.

The problems that 'anti-federalists' had with the Constitution IOTL varied greatly, from the lack of a bill of rights to the length of terms or lack of representation in the House. The issue of a bill of rights was, perhaps, the most common problem cited and the first ten amendments to the Constitution were what ultimately reconciled many former opponents to the new document. It was one of George Mason's first major objections and one that kept getting repeated throughout the ratification process.

Note that I didn't say they were against a more vigorous national government but that they were concerned by such a government. For example, someone who thought that the Articles of Confederation would work if the Congress had the power to tax would be an Anti-Federalist, as would someone who thought that the Constitution should have a shorter list of enumerated powers for the Federal Government. The point is that they were defined by their skepticism of empowering the central government.

The desire for a Bill of Rights can't be separated from that concern, it was a fundamental core to it. Remember that the BofR is a list of limits upon the power of the Federal Government (and, now, the state governments as well).
 
Note that I didn't say they were against a more vigorous national government but that they were concerned by such a government. For example, someone who thought that the Articles of Confederation would work if the Congress had the power to tax would be an Anti-Federalist, as would someone who thought that the Constitution should have a shorter list of enumerated powers for the Federal Government. The point is that they were defined by their skepticism of empowering the central government.

The desire for a Bill of Rights can't be separated from that concern, it was a fundamental core to it. Remember that the BofR is a list of limits upon the power of the Federal Government (and, now, the state governments as well).

What about those who thought Representatives should have shorter terms, or the House itself should be larger?

What about those who wanted to replace the Senate's limited executive functions with an executive council (no matter how they were elected)?

Look, I don't want to be hard on you here but this period is one of my bugaboos. So much of what we believe about the Critical Period and the Ratification comes down from myths and narratives originating in propaganda and partisan history. Reality is always more complex and faithful alternative history writers should pay their attention to that, not to the myths and narratives.

A Bill of Rights was indeed a major concern of the so-called anti-federalists. A decent bill of rights is indeed a limit on the power of the government which it applies to. However, the context extends beyond this simple observation: One of the main Federalist arguments against a bill of rights was that it was un-necessary, that the Constitution only granted limited, specific powers. Robert Morris, I think. In other words, many Federalists at least pretending to already believe the new government was a limited one.

This is important because we're talking about introducing one at the Philadelphia Convention itself, something that was done twice IOTL and didn't go anywhere. First, on August 20th, Charles Pinckney submitted to the Committee of Detail drawing up drafts of the Constitution a list of proposed changes that included several individual right guarantees that eventually found their way into the Bill of Rights years later. It wasn't acted upon by the Committee. Then, on September 12th, a short debate was held on setting up a committee to draw up a bill of rights and the motion was unanimously voted down, with the last word going to Roger Sherman, who called the motion un-necessary because the state bills of rights already existed and were not repealed by the new Constitution. This implied that he believed the Constitution did not give the new government any power to intrude on people's individual rights except for in the area of the explicitly enumerated powers and at least a portion of the Convention agreed with him.

We need to look at how the few anti-federalists in attendance at the Convention (or perhaps we should call them 'pro-bill of rights' attendees, because you could be pro-bill of rights and still very much in favor of a stronger central government than even some of the moderate 'federalists'), or any hypothetical ATL anti-federalist attendees, would alter this belief, if at all.
 
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