To be a little provocative, I have to say that Jeremy Bentham's comments on the Declaration (well before the American Constitution was composed) make sense to me. He seemed to know that no limited federal government would last and made a strong implication that the founders were naive to imagine that they could invent a new form of government without powers or inclinations to over-tax or oppress.
If you read the Declaration this weekend, most of the colonists' grievances do seem rather trivial especially in light of our current American federal government. From Bentham’s Critique of the Declaration of Independence:
Here then they have put the axe to the root of all Government; and yet, in the same breath, they talk of “Governments,” of Governments “long established.” To these last, they attribute the same kind of respect; they vouchsafe even to go so far as to admit, that “Governments, long established, should not be “changed for light or transient reasons.”
Yet they are about to change a Government, a Government whose establishment is coeval with their own existence as a Community. What causes do they assign? Circumstances which have always subsisted, which must continue to subsist, wherever Government has subsisted, or can subsist.
For what, according to their own shewing, what was their original their only original grievance? That they were actually taxed more than they could bear? No; but that they were liable to be so taxed. What is the amount of all the subsequent grievances they allege? That they were actually oppressed by Government? That Government has actually misused its power? No; but that it was possible that they might be oppressed; possible that Government might misuse its powers. Is there any where, can there be imagined any where, that Government, where subjects are not liable to taxed more than they can bear? where it is not possible that subjects may be oppressed, not possible that Government may misuse its powers?
This I say, is the amount, the whole sum and substance of all their grievances.
My understanding is that most colonists were not enthused about the war either. By 1789, it all worked out OK anyway, winning admiration from many of the skeptics. For a while.
