“This Constitution is said to have beautiful features: but when I come to examine these features, Sir, they appear to me horridly frightful: Among other deformities, it has an awful squinting: it squints towards monarchy: And does not this raise indignation in the breast of every American? Your President may easily become King: Your Senate is so imperfectly constructed that your dearest rights may be sacrificed by what may be a small minority; and a very small minority may continue forever unchangeably [sic] this Government, although horridly defective: Where are your checks in this Government?”*
The famous patriot, Patrick Henry, opposed Virginia’s adoption of the new constitution (current U.S. Constitution) in 1788. He feared the federal government would become like the British government that the American States had just defeated to ensure their own independence. He wanted to keep the Articles of Confederation that did not give the national government the same level of centralized power as the new constitution. His phrase, “It squints towards monarchy” is brilliant rhetoric. Henry recognizes the new constitution’s supporters promised a republican form of government, but he fears they have delivered another possible tyrant.
*Patrick Henry, “Speech of Patrick Henry on June 7, 1788” in The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Debates, ed. Ralph Ketcham (New York, 2003), p. 216. [Emphasis added]
