For many, the verdict of history was that republics were unstable and short-lived. Their propensity to devolve into chaos was followed by periods of a strong centralized government frequently in the form of a dictatorship or monarchy. When Congress was unable to resolve many of the crises during and after the American Revolution, there were voices advocating a limited dictatorship until the emergencies had passed. There was even a suggestion in Congress that George Washington be given power to do all “things as shall appear to him necessary to promote the welfare of these United States.” Although rejected by Congress, the idea continued to appear in some quarters. Even as the Constitutional Convention met, a small number of newspaper items continued to espouse monarchy. Additionally, suspicions circulated during the summer of 1787 suggesting that the Convention delegates might be creating some form of monarchy. Later during the ratification process, Federalists would have to answer charges made by An Old Whig V and others that the executive branch as designed in the Constitution was nothing more than a king. Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 67 attempted to allay these Antifederalist suspicions. Later, the label “monarchist” haunted some Federalists as doubts about their commitments to republican government surfaced again in the 1790s. For an extended introduction on the subject, see Monarchial Tendencies in America taken from volume XIII of The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution.
The selections below give a sense of the anxiety that some felt and the logic that flowed from that desperation.
- Norwich Packet, 5 July 1787
- Fairfield Gazette, 25 July 1787: An extract from a letter that espoused a plan to make a son of George III (the Bishop of Oznaburg) the king of America.
- New Haven Gazette, 2 August 1787: A summary of the Fairfield Gazette extract.
- Pennsylvania Herald, 18 August 1787: The delegates at the Convention respond to the alleged plot to establish a monarchy.
- Alexander Hamilton to Jeremiah Wadsworth, New York, 20 August 1787: Hamilton attempts to find the source of a letter that claimed the Convention was working on a scheme to establish a monarchy in the United States.
- Jeremiah Wadsworth to Alexander Hamilton, Hartford, Conn., 26 August 1787: Wadworth’s response to Hamilton.
- David Humphreys to Alexander Hamilton, New Haven, Conn., 1 September 1787: Humphreys traces the origins of the monarchial plot to former Loyalists fearful of the radicalism illustrated by Shays’s Rebellion.
John Adams and the Publication of A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States
In the first of three volumes published in December 1786, Adams expressed an admiration for the English system of government and for balanced government with a strong executive. Critics saw the threat of monarchy in this treatise and branded Adams a monarchist.