Public Debate at the Time of the Constitutional Convention

Abstract

Rome’s importance in shaping the attitudes that formed the American republic is confirmed by the substance of early constitutional discussion, as it appeared in American newspapers prior to the United States Constitutional Convention. Benjamin Rush of Pennsylvania was among the first to prepare the ground for the gathering delegates by calling for a strong central government. Writing in January 1787, for the first volume of a new monthly magazine, the American Museum, ¹ Rush suggested that when the first American constitutions were designed, ‘most of us were ignorant of the forms and combinations of power in republics’ so that in ‘our opposition to monarchy, we forgot that the temple of tyranny has two doors. We bolted one of them by proper restraints; but we left the other open, by neglecting to guard against the effects of our own ignorance and licentiousness.’²