Introduction

On September 10, 1787, James Madison records in his notes Edmund Randolph, a delegate from Virginia, as having expressed 12 specific objections to the Constitution as written, and his assertion that if changes could not be made to any of the plan, that ” should be be obliged to dissent from the whole of it.” All of these objections would be taken up by various Antifederalist authors over the next year. Many hinge on concerns over limits of federal power – legislative, executive, and judiciakl – and on the unique form of federalism the Constitution proposed. His objections are listed below.

1. Randolph was concerned about the Senate serving as “court of impeachment for trying the Executive”
2. “…on the necessity of three fourths instead of two thirds of each House to overrule the negative of the President…”
3. “…on the smallness of the number of the Representative branch…”
4. “…on the want of limitation to a standing army…”
5. “…on the general clause concerning necessary and proper laws…”
6. “…on the want of some particular restraint on navigation acts…”
7. “…on the power to lay duties on exports…”
8. “…on the authority of the General Legislature to interpose on the application of the Executives of the States…”
9. “…on the want of a more definite boundary between the General and State Legislatures…”
10. “…and between the General and State Judiciaries…”
11. “…on the unqualified power of the President to pardon treasons…”
12. “…on the want of some limit to the power of the Legislature in regulating their own compensations.”