Iron handed

The next consequence that will attend the adoption of this Constitution is, that from the ruins of the State Governments, will be produced one consolidated Government, which, from the nature of things, will be an iron handed despotism.

This consolidated Government will be an iron handed despotism.

But to think that in his heyday, that sweet, pathetic old man had been quite the iron handed hierarch; hated and feared by all those who fell subject to his purview.