Two Noteworthy December Historical Events

During the debates surrounding the writing and ratification of the U.S. Constitution, two factions developed among the delegates, each representing different political philosophies. Those factions became known as the Federalists, who wanted a strong central government with broad, far-reaching powers, and the Anti-Federalists, who wanted the state governments to have greater powers and distinct and specific limitations on the federal government.

The Bill of Rights

Alexander Hamilton

Foremost among the Federalists were James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. They recorded their arguments, attempts to convince their opponents to accept the proposed constitution, in a series of essays collectively titled The Federalist Papers.

Patrick Henry

Their opponents, the Anti-Federalists, also had their cast of luminaries, including Patrick Henry, James Winthrop, and Mercy Otis Warren, a woman. The arguments of those worthies and others are recorded in another volume of essays appropriately titled The Anti-Federalist Papers.

So strong and forceful were the Anti-Federalists' fears of and objections to a strong central government that they threatened to prevent several of the states they represented from ratifying it. To save their document, the Federalists agreed to compromise. They promised that after the new document was ratified, they would amend it, adding clauses and sections protecting certain individual rights and state prerogatives that the Anti-Federalists considered essential to their agreeing to the new government.

True to their word (I doubt that our current roster of politicians would be so honest; after all, they're mere politicians, not honorable statesmen on the caliber of the Founders), the Federalists added ten amendments. These ten amendments, known collectively as the "Bill of Rights," were ratified and became effective on December 15, 1791.

They guarantee, among other things, the freedoms of speech, the press, religion, and assembly; bearing of arms; trial by jury; security from unreasonable search and seizure; and a speedy, public trial.

The Federalists opposed most of these amendments; they deemed them unnecessary. Nonetheless, they acquiesced, and all ten of the amendments were approved and added to the Constitution. Since their ratification, most of them have continued to face opposition and battle efforts to repeal them, most notably the first and second amendments (freedoms of speech, religion, and the press and the right to bear arms).

Perhaps it is the final, or tenth, amendment, however, that led to and continues to cause the most trouble, though not always the most publicized issue. It states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people."

And it was what was deemed gross violations of that very amendment that led to another historic event on Decembe3r 20, 1861--the secession from the Union by South Carolina. Over the next several weeks, especially following Abe Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers to prevent South Carolina from doing what the New England states (and general opinion throughout the nation) had deemed a solemn right--seceding.

South Carolina's secession document

To secede was the exercise of the people's right "to alter or abolish" the government "whenever [it] becomes destructive of those ends" on which it was founded "and to institute new Government, laying its foundation and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem mot likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." (Declaration of Independence)

South Carolina did what the New England states had only talked about doing and felt justified in doing at some point. And ten other states, agreeing with and acting upon that right, soon followed the Palmetto State in seceding. Together, they instituted a new government, the Confederate States of America.

Two events. Both historic. Both interconnected. Both as relevant today as they were when they occurred. Food for thought.