Does anyone know exactly what this word means? I can’t find it in any dictionary I have access to, and googling doesn’t produce anything except a single hit on the original source.
From the Anti-Federalist Papers No. 1:
From the context, I would guess that it’s somewhat synonymous with “detractor” or maybe “detainer”, but not exactly. Any authoritative definitions out there? There are several cases of misspellings in the document (ex. “duty” instead of “duly”), but I can’t seem to find an adjacent word that quite fits. I’m probably missing an obvious one.
Ah, you’re probably right. I knew there was obvious substitution I was missing. Never try to read 200+ year old documents with only a single cup of coffee in you
In the quote, he’s referring to the first constitutional convention held earlier that year (May 25, 1787). The gist of it is that he’s accusing them of setting up an aristocracy by devious political maneuvering and refusing people the right to scrutinize their proposal. A charge which, even if you agree with the outcome of the constitution, wasn’t completely without merit. The constitution “by the people and for the people” was created by a very small group of men, who could be fairly catagorized as aristocrats. They rushed it through the ratification process so rapidly that it couldn’t face much opposition or approval by the actual citizenry, in spite of the fact that not all of their original delegation even approved of it themselves.
It’s all pretty fascinating, to me. The document which lays out and defines our freedoms and the powers of our democratic government was put in place by a process which most people who agree with it today would find pretty appalling.
