Reason Without a Face

I make my living off the evening news
Just give me something, something I can use
People love it when you lose, give me dirty laundry
--Don Henley

After the Constitution was drafted in 1787, it circulated among the states for debate. While much of the debate was informal and took place over dinner tables, taverns, town halls, etc, there was also a more formal stream of written discourse that found its way into newspapers, pamphlets, and billings.

The primary issue concerned the proper size of the central government that would oversee the federation of states. The arguments fell into two general camps. The Federalists, today commonly associated with James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, argued for the central government as specified by the Constitution. The writings of this groups are well captured in the body of work known today as the Federalist Papers.

The other camp, known today as the Anti-Federalists, was a less organized group that included Patrick Henry and George Mason. The Anti-Federalists thought that the central government specified by the Constitution was too powerful, and they argued for designs more likely to limit that power. Because Anti-Federalist writings were not published by a central authority, they have been harder to capture, although various collections of Anti-Federalist Papers are available (here's but one list).

An interesting characteristic of this discourse is that most of the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers were written anonomously, with authors commonly assuming pseudonyms that evoked patriotic or classical imagery. Works were signed by the likes of Publius, Sentinel, Federal Farmer, Brutus, and A Plebian.

A primary reason for anonymity was that people believed that the debate would be more lucid if the ideas were not associated with personalities. A letter might hold more influence if it was signed by Thomas Jefferson than by Agrippa or Cato, even if the contents were not well thought out. If authors used their real names, then readers may have been distracted by what they knew or didn't know about the author--rather than focusing attention on the ideas conveyed in the papers.

It is hard not to wonder how today's political debates would differ if we were to follow similar customs of anonymity. If people today could no longer level criticism on the people behind the ideas, and had to critically analyze the ideas themselves, then my sense is that many of these 'policital thinkers' would be totally lost.

Capacity for reason in the political domain is so under-developed that I doubt many could do much more than speculate about who the faces were behind anonymous missives. Like robots, these critics would launch their tired, programattic personal attacks on imaginary strawmen.

Many people seem to believe that the Constitution has been rendered largely irrelevant by today's world--that humanity has advanced beyond the Framers' capacity to design a governmental system that anticipates modern problems and change.

Those who bother to read discourse penned during the country's formative years know otherwise. Writings of the Federalists and Anti-Federalists indicate a degree of thought process that puts today's political discussions to shame.