Ratification Debates
Federal Farmer: Will the Judiciary Preserve or Destroy Liberty?
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 moderate, albeit guarded stance. In his fifteenth letter dated Jan....
Federal Farmer: Appointment Power Should Be Divided
In an earlier essay, the Federal Farmer argued that appointed officers would have too much power in the constitutional system and that there should be provisions made to reduce it. In his fourteen letter dated Jan. 17, 1788, he further expounded on his view that it...
Federal Farmer: Politicians and Bureaucrats must be “Recallable”
Given the power various officers in the federal government would wield, the Federal Farmer believed that there needed to be a better mechanism to appoint them and remove them from power when necessary. The Constitution delegated the power to appoint various officers...
The ideas that formed the Constitution: Cicero Continued
The previous installment in this series outlined the life and career of the Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero. It described how John Adams relied on Cicero’s work in the preface to the first volume of his survey of republican constitutions. Although Adams was in...