Former Governor Patrick Henry, of the Commonwealth of Virginia, at the Constitutional Ratification Convention, makes an impassioned plea against ratification fearing the president will have the powers of a military dictator:
[T]he President, in the field, at the head of his army, can prescribe the terms on which he shall reign master, so far that it will puzzle any American ever to get his neck from under the galling yoke. I cannot with patience think of this idea. … Can he not, at the head of his army, beat down every opposition? Away with your President! [W]e shall have a king: the army will salute him monarch: your militia will leave you, and assist in making him king, and fight against you: and what have you to oppose this force? What will then become of you and your rights? Will not absolute despotism ensue?
[restored 10/5/2021]
George Mason, a non-signing Delegate to the Constitutional Convention, at the Virginia Ratifying Convention, argues against ratification warning of the federal government unlimited power of taxation:
That unconditional power of taxation which is given to that government cannot but oppress the people. …
For example, they may lay a poll tax. This is simply and easily collected, but is of all taxes the most grievous. Why the most grievous? Because it falls light on the rich, and heavy on the poor. It is most oppressive: for if the rich man is taxed, he can only retrench his superfluities; but the consequence to the poor man is, that it increases his miseries. …
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… The man who has one hundred acres of the richest land will pay as little as a man who has one hundred acres of the poorest land. Near Philadelphia, or Boston, an acre of land is worth one hundred pounds; yet the possessor of it will pay no more than the man with us whose land is hardly worth twenty shillings an acre. … I say, then, there are great and important powers, which were not transferred to the state government, given up to the general government by this Constitution.
[added 8/1/2026]
Subsequent Events:
References:
Murray Dry, The Anti-Federalist: An abridgement, from The Complete Anti-Federalist by Herbert J. Storing, ed., (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 297, 311.
Irwin A. Schiff, The Great Income Tax Hoax: Why You Can Immediately Stop Paying This Illegally Enforced Tax, (Hamden, Connecticut: Freedom Books, 1985), 431-32.
Current U.s. National Debt:
