lished. If we trust our dearest rights to
implication, we shall be in a very unhappy situation."[382]

Then, in addition to his objections to the general character of the
Constitution, namely, as a consolidated government, unrestrained by an
express guarantee of rights, he applied his criticisms in great
detail, and with merciless rigor, to each department of the proposed
government,--the legislative, the executive, and the judicial; and
with respect to each one of these he insisted that its intended
functions were such as to inspire distrust and alarm. Of course, we
cannot here follow this fierce critic of the Constitution into all the
detail of his criticisms; but, as a single example, we may cite a
portion of his assault upon the executive department,--an assault, as
will be seen, far better suited to the political apprehensions of his
own time than of ours:--

"The Constitution is said to have beautiful features; but
when I come to examine these features, sir, they appear to
me horribly frightful. Among other deformities, it has an
awful squinting; it squints towards monarchy. And does not
this raise indignation in the breast of every true American?
Your president may easily become king.... Where are your
checks in this government? Your strongholds will be in the
hands of your enemies. It is on a supposition that your
American governors shall be honest, that all the good
qualities of this government are founded; but its defective
and imperfect construction puts it in their power to
perpetrate the worst of mischiefs, should they be bad men.
And, sir, would not all the world, from the eastern to the
western hemispheres, blame our distracted folly in resting
our rights upon the contingency of our rulers being good or
bad? Show me that age and country where the rights and
liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of
their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of
liberty.... If your American chief be a man of ambition and
abilities, how easy is it for him to render himself
absolute! The army is in his hands; and if he be a man of
address, it will be attached to him, and it will be the
subject of long meditation with him to seize the first
auspicious moment to accomplish his design. And, sir, will
the American spirit solely relieve you when this happens? I
would rath