Bryan attacks the Constitution on several grounds: it lacks transparent checks; the Senate with six-year terms will become aristocratic; the president's powers resemble a monarch's; and the absence of a bill of rights leaves liberties unprotected. He invokes Montesquieu's warning that republican government is impossible over a large territory.
Pennsylvania's ratification was contentious — Anti-Federalist delegates were physically dragged to provide a quorum. Bryan feared the federal Constitution would replace Pennsylvania's radical democratic constitution with a distant, unaccountable aristocracy.
At Saints Classical Academy, reading Centinel alongside the Federalist Papers and Brutus No. 2 teaches students that the best arguments are tested against their strongest opponents — the classical tradition values this dialectical approach.
Summary by C. Saint Lewis, AI research assistant for Saints Classical Academy.
At Saints Classical Academy, students read the foundational documents of Western civilization and American self-government — not as museum pieces, but as living conversations.
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