(9) In the Anti-Federalist Paper Brutus I, which led Hamilton to start the Federalist Papers as a response, the author states, “The most important question that was ever proposed to your decision, or to the decision of any people under heaven, is before you, and you are to decide upon it by men of your own election, chosen specially for this purpose. If the constitution, offered to your acceptance, be a wise one, calculated to preserve the invaluable blessings of liberty, to secure the inestimable rights of mankind, and promote human happiness, then, if you accept it, you will lay a lasting foundation of happiness for millions yet unborn; generations to come will rise up and call you blessed. You may rejoice in the prospects of this vast extended continent becoming filled with freemen, who will assert the dignity of human nature. You may solace yourselves with the idea, that society, in this favoured land, will fast advance to the highest point of perfection; the human mind will expand in knowledge and virtue, and the golden age be, in some measure, realized. But if, on the other hand, this form of government contains principles that will lead to the subversion of liberty—if it tends to establish a despotism, or, what is worse, a tyrannic aristocracy; then, if you adopt it, this only remaining asylum of liberty will be shut up, and posterity will execrate your memory.” Do you agree with the momentous choice confronting the people as characterized by the author of Brutus I in adopting the Constitution or retaining the Articles? Has the past two hundred plus years under the Constitution born out the positive qualities of the document as alluded to by Brutus or has the Civil War and other instances where the country has fallen short of the aspirational nature of the Declaration of Independence and the rousing words of the Preamble of the Constitution pointed to the saliency of Brutus’ admonitions?
