Patrick Henry's Three Bugbears
In June of 1787 Patrick Henry gave a speech arguing against ratification of the Constitution by brushing off the scare tactics being used by the Federalists.
This speech has become associated with the Anti-Federalist Papers under the title ‘Foreign Wars, Civil Wars, and Indian Wars - Three Bugbears.’
In the speech, Henry echoes the sentiments of William Grayson with attention to different details.
Note: For those of you (like me) who don’t know what a bugbear is, apparently it's an old way to call someone a boogeyman.
Foreign Wars
In Patrick Henry’s speech, Foreign Wars, Civil Wars, and Indian Wars - Three Bugbears, he first discusses the fear of going to war with a foreign nation.
Patrick points out that France does not have any indication of going to war with the United States, despite all the money that nation was still owed.
Furthermore, Henry points out that Thomas Jefferson (who missed the whole Constitution debate while overseas) indicated that France was happy with the United States and, “his opinion is, that you reject this government.”
Henry further goes on to discuss Spain’s fear of the US conquering Louisiana prevented them from war.
Additionally, The Netherlands were too weak to attack in North America precisely because they had a government that reflected the Constitution.
Civil Wars
Patrick’s discussion of possible civil wars is much more brief.
He points out that the majority of the States had been good neighbors on the majority of issues and generally have settled any disputes with commissions and arbitrators without any significant violence for over a hundred years.
Furthermore, the Articles of Confederation gave States an opportunity to air grievances and seek redress for any issues that might arise.
Indian Wars
Lastly, Henry discusses war with Native American nations.
In this, he took a bit of liberty. He claimed that word from the frontier was that things were getting more peaceful everyday.
At best this was selective as the Northwest Indian War was most assuredly going strong.
However, he pointed out that the American forces were overpowering the Native Americans with greater and greater ease. This was certainly true, especially now that there was no longer a need to focus on the British Army.
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