Strong constitution
From Miss Mary Ellen Synon Sir: Simon Nixon (`Bum wrap', 10 August), though admirably sceptical about any new Euro-constitution, gets in a tangle when he looks to America's constitutional debate for inspiration. He says, 'We need to look for inspiration to the greatest of all antifederalists, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.. . [to thwart] the ambitions of those latter-day Hamiltons and Adamses, with their centralising instincts.'
But Madison was not anti-federalist. He joined with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay to write The Federalist Papers, a series of essays which put the case for a national government of greatly increased powers. The anti-federalists were instead led by Virginians such as Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry, and the Boston revolutionary firebrand Sam Adams (a man whom Tories such as Mr Nixon wanted to hang in 1776).
As for Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, neither was among the framers of the constitution. Throughout the Constitutional Convention, Jefferson was in Paris and Adams was in London. Both supported the federalists.
But the constitution which such men as Jefferson supported, and such men as Madison created, was a miracle. The constitution that threatens us now will be nothing like it.
Mary Ellen Synon
Paris, France
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