GOVERNMENT AND LIES...
IT BEGAN EARLY IN AMERICA.
GOVERNMENT AND LIES: THEY CAN’T BE SEPARATED!
In at least three of my previous lessons, I referenced “a wave of deception” used by the Federalists to write and promote their agenda of a constitution and the creation of a government, they, themselves, would control.
Never mentioned in any class which I ever took, or in many of the books that I have read on the founding era, was the mention of a series of articles, appearing in several newspapers of the period, which contained patently false statements about the Anti-federalists, including the most bizarre claim of all—that Patrick Henry supported the Constitution!
The below document, found in the Library of Congress, is proof positive of the prevarications of the Federalist marketing campaign.
The Attack on the Non-signers of the Constitution
Philadelphia, 17 October 1787
The items below, printed on 17 October in three Philadelphia newspapers, inaugurated a barrage of newspaper attacks on Elbridge Gerry, George Mason, and Edmund Randolph for their refusal to sign the Constitution. Newspaper criticism, particularly of Gerry and Mason, was widespread but was especially intense in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.
Pennsylvania Journal, 17 October
Letters are received by the last post from Boston, which say, that Mr. Gerry, a Member of the late fœderal Convention, is not only censured by the public in general, but by his best friends, for not signing the Constitution proposed by that august body.
We hear from Virginia, that on the arrival of Mr. Mason (one of their Delegates in Convention) at Alexandria, he was waited on by the Mayor and Corporation of that Town, who told him, they were not come to return him their thanks for his conduct in refusing to sign the Fœderal Constitution; but to express their abhorrence to it, and to advise him to withdraw from that town within an hour, for they could not answer for his personal safety, from an enraged populace, should he exceed that time.(1)
Pennsylvania Gazette, 17 October
We hear from Virginia, that George Mason has been treated with every possible mark of contempt and neglect, for neglecting to sign the Fœderal Constitution, and that Patrick Henry, Esq; is using his influence in the state, in promoting its adoption. (2)
Pennsylvania Herald, 17 October
It is reported that the citizens of Virginia have expressed the most pointed disapprobation of the conduct of those delegates to the convention who have refused to concur in the new plan of government. Notwithstanding the popular clamour however, we find that in many of the states persons avowedly inimical to that work, have been chosen members of the different legislatures. In New-York the prevailing politics support the principles of the governor, and in Maryland Mr. Chase has surmounted every opposition to his election.
1Both paragraphs were reprinted in sixteen newspapers by 19 November: Vt. (1), N.H. (1), Mass. (3), Conn. (2), N.Y. (5), N.J. (1), Pa. (3). The first paragraph was also reprinted once in Maryland; the second paragraph in eleven other newspapers: N.H. (2), Mass. (3), R.I. (1), Conn. (4), Pa. (1).
2This paragraph was reprinted and refuted by “A Lover of Truth,” who stated “that the above hear-say is not true. The laws of the country, the decency of the people of Alexandria, and the very great respectability of Mr. Mason forbidding such a foolish outrage to have been committed. But the fabricators of this falsehood are evidently among the number of those who are for cramming down the New Constitution by force, fraud and falsehood.… These persons will do well to recollect, that they are not doing much honor to the New Constitution by practices like these …” (New York Packet, 30 October). This refutation was summarized in the Philadelphia Freeman’s Journal, 7 November; the Philadelphia Evening Chronicle, 7 November; the Boston American Herald, 26 November; and the State Gazette of South Carolina, 20 December.
Reprints by 3 November (12): N.H. (1), Mass. (4), R.I. (1), Conn. (1), N.Y. (1), Pa. (2), Md. (2).
Reprinted: Gazette of the State of Georgia, 1 November, and the October issue of the Philadelphia Columbian Magazine.
5George Clinton.
In early October Samuel Chase, an opponent of the Constitution, had been elected a Baltimore representative to the Maryland House of Delegates, following a campaign in which the Constitution was an issue.