Three of our Founding Fathers, the men who formed—and formulated—our nation, did not sign this country’s most important document: the Constitution.
This Constitution Day, Americans celebrate this vital document. The Constitution is one of the greatest and most succinct treatises on government and governance in human history, and it has played a huge role in America’s longevity.
And yet, today, and every day throughout our history, the Constitution is under attack—primarily by forces that would undo its restrictions on government power.
A key part of the Constitution’s brilliance and staying power is the system of checks and balances it creates for the American republic. As James Madison put it, “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” By dividing government power between three branches, the U.S. Constitution shows an understanding of human nature that thousands of years of history in government did not—the truth that government officials seek to collect power to help their friends and harm their enemies, and so an intelligently constructed government should pit that ambition against itself.
In its ideal operation, the Constitution encourages and empowers each branch to check the others—and in that race to gather power, each branch of government is constantly tripping and pulling back the other branches, ensuring that none are able to run ahead and become tyrannical.
However, the race to power has only been slowed, not stalled, and every day we see blatant attempts to empower the government to do something it never had the power to do—whether in the name of a global pandemic, a foreign enemy, or just what a certain group of people think would be “best” for peoples lives. Each of these attempts is an attack on the limited government our Founders put in place, and each of them must be opposed.
Modern opponents of the Constitution claim that it is an outdated document because it limits their ability to achieve the change they want—change which often can only be achieved by giving the government the power to trample the rights of the individual.
This is why the three Founding Fathers who did not sign the U.S. Constitution bear remembrance today. Those three men—George Mason, Elbridge Gerry, and Edmund Randolph—withheld their signatures not because they thought the government they were creating was too weak. Instead, each in their own way were concerned that the Constitution granted the federal government too much power.
Mason, in particular, feared that “this government will set out a moderate aristocracy: it is at present impossible to foresee whether it will, in its operation, produce a monarchy, or a corrupt, tyrannical aristocracy; it will most probably vibrate some years between the two, and then terminate in the one or the other.”
Additionally, each of these three men wanted a clearer protection of the rights American citizens, rights such as the freedom of press or trial by jury. These three men, along with other anti-federalists, led to the new formed government passing the Bill of Rights—a vital and important tool to protect the people which has been copied and adapted in nation across the globe.
As we celebrate this Constitution Day, let us remember the tireless work of those men who sought to place limits on government power. And, when we look at the Founding Fathers who stated that they “would sooner chop off their right hand than put it to the Constitution as it now stands,” remember that they held a completely opposite view of modern opponents to the Constitution—that back in the Founding, they were debating putting more limits on government, not less.