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]
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.
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