COMMENTARIES, 2 NOVEMBER 1787

Americanus I
New York Daily Advertiser, 2 November 17871
Seven essays signed "Americanus" that answered critics of the Constitution
appeared in the Daily Advertiser between 2 November 1787 and 21 January
1788. In numbers I-VI "Americanus" criticizes the New York writer "Cato"
(see "Cato" I, New York Journal, 27 September, above). In number VI "Ameri-
canus" also attacks "The Dissent of the Minority of the Pennsylvania Conven-
tion," Pennsylvania Packet, 18 December (CC:353). Number VII responds to
Virginia Governor Edmund Randolph's letter to the speaker of the Virginia
House of Delegates, first printed as a pamphlet around 27 December (CC:385).
(See also "New York Reprinting of the Dissent of the Minority of the Pennsyl-
vania Convention," 27 December 1787-April 1788, and "New York Reprinting
of Virginia Governor Edmund Randolph's 10 October 1787 Letter to the
Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates," 8 January-April 1788 [both be-
low].) None of the seven "Americanus" essays was reprinted; nor did any of
them evoke any significant commentary.
"Americanus" wasJohn Stevens,Jr., of Hoboken, N.J., who identified himself
as the author when he wrote to his father on 14 December that "If you get
the New York Daily advertiser you will see some pieces signed Americanus
written by a friend of yours" (Stevens Family Papers, NjHi).
Cato has at length opened his batteries on the Constitution, submit-
ted to us by the late Convention.2 He begins with an endeavor to im-
press us with this idea, that "the axioms of Montesquieu, Locke, &c. in
the science of politics, are as irrefragable as any in Euclid." And can
we possibly believe Cato to be really in earnest? Wretched indeed would
be our political institution [s], had we been governed by the "axioms"
of European writers on politics, in the formation of them. As we are
placed in a situation totally new, instead of absurdly hunting for pre-
cedents in the old world, we must think, we must reason, for ourselves.
Every American breast, retaining the least degree of spirit, must spurn,
with indignation, at this insidious attempt to shackle our understand-
ings.
Montesquieu, it seems, tells us, that a Republic must have only a small
territory. But how, I would ask, would he, or Locke, or any other political
writer in Europe, be warranted in insisting on this assertion as an irre-
fragable axiom? Had they formed any conceptions of a republican Gov-
ernment instituted upon the plan of the Constitution now under con-
sideration? Because the wretched attempts that have been made in the
old world, to constitute Republican Governments, have necessarily
failed of attaining the desired purpose, are we to be told the thing is
"impracticable," when attempted upon principles as different, as light
is from darkness? Montesquieu's maxim may be just, for aught I know,

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