A series of essays under the alias “Centinel” appeared in a Philadelphia newspaper from 1787 to 1789. Their author was likely Samuel Bryan, a clerk for the Pennsylvania legislature who opposed the new U.S. Constitution. Centinel III was printed on Nov. 8, 1787.
An excerpt from Centinel No. III (right-hand side) published in the Independent Gazetteer/Chronicle of Freedom, a Pennsylvania newspaper. Source: Constitutional Sources Project
That fall the Founders had produced the Constitution, but state governments had not yet gone through the ratification (approval) process to make it an official founding document. The 1776 Declaration of Independence had asserted the right to overthrow a corrupt government; 10 years later, that right was nowhere to be found in the Constitution.
Centinel railed against ratification, calling the proposed government a “masqued aristocracy” designed to protect the ruling class from the will of the people. He cited several pieces of the Constitution in his critique, like: Article 1, Section 8 that gave Congress the power to raise and support armies; and Article 1, Section 9 that extended U.S. participation in the international slave trade into the 19th century.
Read more in the lesson “Founding” Documents We Don’t Learn About.
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