Yates: One of the Men Who Rejected the Constitution

Robert Yates, a judge from New York, opposed the Constitution and walked out of the 1787 Convention. Yates was one of the founders who rejected the Constitution. Although that generation is usually portrayed as a unified group of patriots who stood together, bitter dissent was rife at times. Thirty-nine who attended the 1787 Constitutional Convention signed the document, but 16 did not.

Born in New York in 1738, Yates became an attorney in 1760 after studying law; he later helped write the state constitution. He attended part of the 1787 Constitutional Convention but walked out because of his opposition to the plan. As an anti-federalist he was aligned with the likes of Patrick Henry, George Mason, and Samuel Adams. Their camp believed the proposed constitution would give too much power to the federal government. He joined the Supreme Court of New York in 1777 and presided until 1798.

Yates is believed to have written a series of letters under the pseudonym "Brutus", though the authorship is not known for certain. He attacked the Constitution and tried to persuade others to reject it.

He believed the proposed constitution would vest uncontrollable power in the federal legislature: "This government is to possess absolute ...power, legislative, executive and judicial, with respect to every object to which it extends..." He objected specifically to Article I, Section 8 of the proposed constitution, which would give power to Congress "To make all Laws... necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."

He invoked the histories of Rome and Britain and warned of the problem of a standing army: "The liberties of a people are in danger from a large standing army, not only because the rulers may employ them for the purposes of supporting themselves in any usurpations of power, ... but there is great hazard, that an army will subvert the forms of the government, under whose authority, they are raised, and establish one, according to the pleasure of their leader."

At the New York convention, he voted against the proposed constitution because he believed that lawyers and judges would dominate the system and usurp power.

Was Yates right? Do lawyers and judges dominate government? Many presidents have been lawyers, including J. Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, J. Quincy Adams, Jackson, Lincoln, Nixon, Ford, Clinton and Obama, to name some. Franklin D. Roosevelt attended law school. Courts are active in making law constantly, and many in Congress have backgrounds in law. Yates made a point. On the other hand, many presidents had military experience or backgrounds: Washington, Monroe, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, T. Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Johnson, Ford, Carter, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, to name but some. The rest of the population tends to assert itself regardless of what the lawyers are doing.

Yates was an opponent of slavery.

He passed away in 1801. His notes from the Constitutional Convention were published posthumously under the title "Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Federal Convention."