Ummmm, Ive got lots
... to Samuel Miller, a Presbyterian minister, 23 January 1808 I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. . . . Certainly no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general [federal] government. It must then rest with the states, as far as it can be in any human authority. . . . I am aware that the practice of my predecessors [prescribing a day of fasting and prayer] may be quoted. . . . Be this as it may, everyone must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the U.S. and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents. Source: Alexander Anderson cartoon, 1808 Document D Source: Daniel Webster, Federalist from New Hampshire, in a speech on a conscription bill, to the House of Representatives, 9 December 1814 The [Madison] administration asserts the right to fill the ranks of the regular army by compulsion. . . . Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly or the wickedness of the government may engage it? . . . Who will show me any constitutional injunction which makes it the duty of the American people to surrender everything valuable in life, and even life itself, . . . whenever the purposes of an ambitious and mischievous government may require it?. . . If the secretary of war has proved the right of Congress to enact a law enforcing a draft of men out of the militia into the regular army, he will at any time be able to prove quite as clearly that Congress has power to create a dictator. Document E Source: Report and Resolutions of the Hartford Convention, 4 January 1815 Resolved, That the following amendments of the constitution of the United States be recommended to the states represented as foresaid, to be proposed by them for adoption by the state legislatures, and in such cases as may be deemed expedient by a convention chosen by the people of each state. . . . Second. No new state shall be admitted into the Union by Congress, in virtue of the power granted by the constitution, without the concurrence of two thirds of both houses. Third. Congress shall not have the power to lay any embargo on the ships or vessels of the citizens of the United States, . . . for more than sixty days. Fourth. Congress shall not have power, without concurrence of two thirds of both houses, to interdict the commercial intercourse between the United States and any foreign nation, or the dependencies thereof. Document F Source: John Randolph, a Democratic Republican congressman from Virginia, in a speech to the House on the proposed tariff of 1816 [W]e have another proof that the present government have renounced the true republican principles of Jefferson's administration on which they raised themselves to power, and that they have taken up, in their stead, those of John Adams . . . . [T]heir principle now is old Federalism, vamped up into something bearing the superficial appearance of republicanism . . . . Sir, I am convinced that it would be impolitic, as well as unjust, to aggravate the burdens of the people for the purpose of favoring the manufacturers; for this government created and gave power to Congress to regulate commerce and equalize duties [tariffs] on the whole of the United States, and not to lay a duty [tariff] but with a steady eye to revenue . . . . Document G Source: Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kerc...