Elbridge Gerry opposed the ratification of the Constitution, believing it consolidated power, lacked safeguards for individual liberties, and undermined the reserved powers of the states. He maintained his objections throughout the ratification process, despite fierce opposition that sometimes turned personal.
As one of the most active delegates at the Philadelphia Convention, Gerry repeatedly sought to create a distinct line between the powers of the federal government and those reserved to the states.
However, when the convention produced a plan that he believed created a national rather than federal system, gave Congress ambiguous and expansive powers such as those in the ‘general welfare’ and ‘necessary and proper’ clauses, and lacked a bill of rights, Gerry refused to sign the final document
GERRY’S PRIMARY OBJECTIONS
About a month after the Philadelphia Convention, Gerry sent a letter to the president of the Massachusetts Senate and the Speaker of the House, briefly outlining his objections to the proposed Constitution.
He said it was “painful for me … to differ from the respectable members who signed the Constitution.” But he insisted that “because the liberties of America were not secured by the system, it was my duty to oppose it.”
Gerry highlighted a number of specific reasons for his opposition to the Constitution. These included the following:
The executive is blended with, and will have an undue influence over, the legislature.
Gerry warned that mixing executive and legislative authority would undermine the separation of powers, leading to an erosion of checks and balances and the risk of executive dominance.
Like many in the founding generation, Gerry was influenced by the French political philosopher Montesquieu who warned, “When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.”
There is no adequate provision for a representation of the people.
As many other anti-federalists before and after him argued, the relatively small size of the legislature, particularly the Senate, would not reflect the will of the people.
As the Pennsylvania Dissent later put it, “The sense and views of 3 or 4 millions of people diffused over so extensive a territory, comprising such various climates, products, habits, interests, and opinions, can not be collected in so small a body.”
Some of the powers of the legislature are ambiguous, and others are indefinite and dangerous.
Gerry believed ambiguous language in the Constitution would allow Congress to interpret its powers expansively, opening the door to overreach and abuse. As the ratification process continued, Anti-Federalists warned about poorly-defined powers including the “general welfare clause,” and the “necessary and proper clause.”
The system is without the security of a bill of rights.
Gerry considered the absence of explicit protections for individual liberties a fatal flaw, leaving the people at the mercy of the federal government.
ADDITIONAL OBJECTIONS
In addition to these structural concerns, Gerry questioned the very authority of the convention to propose such sweeping changes.
He reminded readers that the convention was called for “the sole & express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, & reporting to Congress & the several Legislatures such alterations & provisions as shall render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government, & the preservation of the union.”
He argued that the convention’s mandate did not extend to creating an entirely new system of government. However, Gerry acknowledged that he ultimately went along with the convention’s decision, believing that preserving the union required an “efficient Government” and that making “proper amendments to the Articles of Confederation” would be extremely difficult.
- Election Security: Gerry argued that “They have no security for the right of election.”
- Judicial Oppression: He warned, “The judicial department will be oppressive.”
- Treaty Power: Gerry expressed alarm at the small number of people that could be involved in the treaty-making process, writing, “Treaties of the highest importance may be formed by the president with the advice of two-thirds of a quorum of the Senate.”
He emphasized that “These are objections which are not local, but apply equally to all the states.”
Beyond the specifics, Gerry echoed one of the most fundamental Anti-Federalist objections – that it wasn’t creating a federal system at all.
“The constitution proposed has few if any federal features; but is rather a system of national government.”
THREE CRITICAL QUESTIONS
Despite these objections, Gerry insisted in his letter that the Constitution could still be salvaged. He said “In many respects, I think it has great merit, and, by proper amendments, may be adapted to the ‘exigencies of government, and preservation of liberty.’”
But he cautioned that the Constitution raised three critical questions:
- Whether the federal government would be dissolved, reflecting his belief that the Constitution essentially dissolved the federal system under the Articles and replaced it with something entirely new.
- Whether the state governments would be so fundamentally altered as to be effectively dissolved
- Whether a national government would replace both federal and state systems without amendment.
Gerry cautioned that Americans faced a decision of unparalleled magnitude, warning, “Should the Citizens of America adopt the plan as it now stands, their liberties may be lost: or should they reject it altogether, Anarchy may ensue.”
He urged careful deliberation, emphasizing that the Constitution should be well understood before acceptance, to avoid a scenario where the people would later refuse to support the government they had hastily approved.
URGING CAUTION
Gerry also warned against putting blind trust in the delegates of the Philadelphia Convention, cautioning that even the most respected figures could make grave errors. He insisted, “A free people are the proper Guardians of their rights & liberties – that the greatest men may err – and that their errors are sometimes of the greatest magnitude.”
He also argued that it would be better to address the Constitution’s flaws through amendments before ratification, rather than trusting future changes would be made.
“Should a free people adopt a form of Government, under conviction that it wants amendment?” he asked.
Finally, Gerry dismissed the notion that “if the Plan is not accepted by the people they will not unite in another:” He maintained, “Surely whilst they have the power to amend, they are not under the necessity of rejecting it.”
Furthermore, in Gerry’s view, the need for unity should not outweigh the imperative to establish a government that fully protects the rights of the people and the reserved powers of the states.
THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION
As a delegate to the Philadelphia convention, Gerry generally favored a stronger central government, and he initially supported the Virginia plan as a starting point. But in the end, he thought the Constitution went too far in the direction of centralization, and like many Anti-federalists, bemoaned the lack of a bill or rights.
Historian Greg Bradsher notes that Gerry “very quickly found himself in the middle, between the states’ righters who wanted the balance of power to remain with the states and the nationalists who wanted to create a powerful central government.”
“Because of his desire for a stronger central government, Gerry frequently sided with the nationalists, but always tempering his support by insisting that federal features be retained in any new system of government and urging that republican principles be adopted.”
He was instrumental in getting the nationalists to drop the word “national” out of the Virginia Plan and instead go with the phrase “the United States.”
Gerry thought it was best to first “enumerate and define the powers to be vested in the general government” before moving on to detailed questions over representation.
From there, he found himself in the thick of the debate over representation in Congress. Many delegates from smaller states opposed the plan for proportional representation based on population and pushed for equal representation as it was under the Articles of Confederation. Gerry pushed for a compromise.
During a speech on the convention floor after a deadlock vote on whether the states would have equal representation in the Senate, he urged, “We must make concessions on both sides. Accommodation is absolutely necessary, and defects may be amended by a future convention.” He went on to warn, “Something must be done, or we shall disappoint not only America, but the whole world.”
Gerry was appointed chair of a committee that produced a plan that provided for proportional representation in the House and equal representation in the Senate. Upon presenting the committee’s report, Gerry said he had some objections, but a compromise was necessary to keep the convention from dissolving.
“If we do not come to some agreement among ourselves, some foreign sword will probably do the work for us.”
He highlighted the ongoing debate between state and centralized power, arguing, “We were neither the same Nation nor different Nations. . . . We ought not therefore pursue the one or the other of these ideas too closely.” He went on to insist the compromise offered the best solution – a government that was “partly national, partly federal.”
Like George Mason, it appears Gerry’s support for the Constitution evaporated with the rejection of a bill of rights on Sept. 12. Two days later, he voiced several objections to the proposed Constitution in his final floor speech, highlighting “the duration and re-eligibility” of the Senate, the power of the House to keep their journals secret, inadequate representation for the state of Massachusetts, the power for Congress to set the place of elections, the power of Congress over its own compensation, the vice president being made the head of the Senate, and the ? compromise.
But he insisted he could overlook these issues “if the rights of the citizens were not rendered insecure.”
He pointed out three key sources of this insecurity. “The general power of the Legislature…”
- “To make what laws they may please to call ‘necessary and proper.’”
- “To raise armies and money without limit.
- “To establish a tribunal without juries, which will be a Star Chamber as to civil cases.
Gerry insisted that “under such a view of the Constitution, the best that could be done…was to provide for a second general Convention.”
THE FEDERALIST RESPONSE
The Massachusetts Senate ordered the publication of Gerry’s objections. It appeared first in the Massachusetts Centinel on Nov. 4, 1787. Within three weeks, the state’s 10 other prominent newspapers had published the letter, and by Jan. 4, it had been reprinted in 31 other newspapers throughout the country.
Gerry was less diplomatic about his opposition in a private letter to Massachusetts House Speaker James Warren, warning that if adopted, the Constitution would “lay the foundation of a Government of force & fraud, that the people will bleed with taxes at every pore, & that the existence of their liberties will soon be terminated.”
But despite the softer tone in his public letter outlining his objections, it still brought down the wrath of Federalists who supported the Constitution.
Prominent Boston merchant Henry Jackson claimed Gerry had “done more injury to this country by that infamous Letter than he will be able to make atonement in his whole life.”
MASSACHUSETTS RATIFYING CONVENTION
The Massachusetts Ratifying Convention took place from January 9, 1788, to February 5 in Boston. Gerry was not selected as a delegate due to the fallout from the letter.
On Jan. 15, 1788, Gerry was asked to “take a seat in the house to answer any question of fact, from time to time, that the Convention may want to ask respecting the passing of the constitution.”
As he put it in a letter defending his actions, he complied with the request “contrary to my inclination, not doubting in the least that I should be treated with delicacy & candor.”
Since the convention was dominated by federalists, Gerry never had the opportunity to speak. Gerry called it “a humiliating condition.”
When the issue of equal representation in the Senate came up, “one of my honorable Colleagues observed, that this was agreed to by a Committee consisting of a member from each state, & that I was one of the number.”
Gerry called the comments on the ratifying convention floor “a partial narrative of facts, which I conceived placed my conduct in an unfavorable point of light.”
Given that he wasn’t allowed to speak, he was “thus reduced to the disagreeable alternative of addressing a letter to your honor for correcting this error, or of sustaining the injuries resulting from its unfavorable impressions.”
He went on to assert that he was “not in the least suspecting, that when I had committed myself to the convention without the right of speaking in my own defence, any Gentleman would take an undue advantage from being a member of the House, to continue the misrepresentation by suppressing every attempt on my part to state the facts.”
But as Gerry explained, even his letter of defense created a controversy when “the honorable Judge Dana, who rose with an appearance of party virulence which I did not expect, & followed one misrepresentation with another by impressing the House with the Idea, that I was entering into their debates.”
Gerry said he repeatedly requested to leave, however, Dana “became more vehement, & I was subject to strictures from several parts of the House, till it adjourned without even being permitted to declare, that I disdained such an intention, & did not merit such unworthy treatment.”
Gerry said “the indelicacy & disingenuity of this procedure distressed my feelings beyond anything I had ever before experienced,” and he insisted that even if he had been requested to partake in the debates “I should have considered it as improper & unconstitutional, & from principles of decency & propriety, should have declined their request.” because he wasn’t selected by the people as a delegate.
GERRY vs THE LANDHOLDER
In November 1787, future Chief Justice Oliver Elsworth published a refutation to Gerry’s objections under the pen name Landholder. He accused Gerry of framing his objections “in such vague and indecisive terms, that they rather deserve the name of insinuations, and we know not against what particular parts of the system they are pointed.”
On April 18, 1788, Gerry penned a response to the Landholder essays.
Gerry not only reiterated his objections to the proposed Constitution, but he also defended himself and fellow anti-federalist Luther Martin against personal attacks by Ellsworth, writing, “His frequent misrepresentations having exposed him to suspicions… it is proper to set him right in facts, which, in almost every instance, he has misstated.”
Gerry disputed the claim that Martin opposed the early proposals for a new constitution “without requesting information, or to be let into the reasons of the adoption of what he might not approve,” pointing out that Martin was deliberate, well-informed, and restrained in his initial engagement. Gerry insisted, “Mr. Martin had been a considerable time in convention before he spoke… and his speech, if published, would do him great honor.”
Gerry also countered Landholder’s assertion that Martin had supported a powerful judiciary during the convention and that “Mr. Gerry agreed with Mr. Martin on these questions.” Gerry countered that “whether there is any truth in these assertions as they relate to Mr. Martin, he can best determine,” but as for himself, “He not only voted against the first proposition, but contended for jury trials in civil cases, and declared his opinion, that a federal judiciary with the powers above-mentioned, would be as oppressive and dangerous, as the establishment of a Star-Chamber.”
More generally, Gerry reiterated his belief that the Constitution gave Congress excessive power, particularly its authority to create and maintain a standing army, insisting, “Some of the powers of the federal legislature are ambiguous, and others… are indefinite and dangerous.”
LEGACY AND IMPLICATIONS
Gerry’s opposition to the Constitution exemplified the deep divisions and contentious debates surrounding its ratification.
Although he supported the idea of a stronger central government and pushed for it during the Philadelphia Convention, Gerry refused to sign the Constitution due to its lack of a bill of rights and what he viewed as an overly centralized structure that he feared undermined state powers.
Gerry continued his opposition through the ratification debates, raising the ire of the Constitution’s supporters. Despite these public and sometimes personal attacks, he stood firm in his belief that unity should not come at the expense of overreaching federal power and the erosion of individual liberty.
Elbridge Gerry’s steadfast advocacy for deliberation and amendments underscored his commitment to preserving individual freedoms and ensuring a balanced government for the United States.
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