A Columbian Patriot - Mercy Otis Warren Observes the Constitution

Mercy Otis Warren was one of the most renowned female writers in the United States when she took up her pen as an Anti-Federalist and began criticizing the Constitution.

Mercy Otis Warren

By the time debates began regarding the ratification of the Constitution, Mercy Otis Warren was arguably the best known female author in North America. 

This was despite the fact that she had, until this point, published under a pseudonym. 

As one of the wealthy elite of Massachusetts, some might have assumed that Mercy would support the new government.

The truth was quite the contrary, as Warren was a woman of the people…

Observations on the new Constitution

Mercy again took up a pen name, A Columbian Patriot, and published an essay titled Observations on the new Constitution, and on the foederal and state conventions.

This paper is noteworthy first and foremost because of the language it used.

As we’ve established, Warren was a wonderful writer and reading her work is genuinely a pleasure when compared to the other Anti-Federalist Papers.

A Columbian Patriot

As for the content, Observations argues that the Constitution is not just wrong politically but morally.

Warren believed that the new system would lead average Americans toward servitude to an aristocratic Congress.

Mercy laid out several specifics and noted there were more issues she did not even get to.

Mainly, she thought that the close connection between the Legislative and Executive Branches, lack of term limits and ability for members to pay themselves would lead to a government that sucked up all the nation's money and put it in the pockets of aristocrats. 

She was also afraid that the lack of a Bill of Rights would limit the people’s ability to halt this assumption of power, sinking the United States further and further into a nightmare from which it could never awake.

This was just one article in my series on the Anti-Federalist Papers.

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For a more complete biography of Mercy Otis Warren, check out this article I wrote a while back:

Mercy Otis Warren Scribbles Her Way Into History