THE MOVEMENT FOR THE CONSTITUTION
Did the system of government prevailing in the United States in 1787
affect adversely any of the economic interests enumerated in the
preceding chapter? Furthermore, were the leaders in the movement which
led to the adoption of the Constitution representatives of the interests
so affected?
Fortunately, it is not necessary to devote any considerable attention to
the first of these questions. It is answered in part above, and all of
the standard treatises show conclusively that the legal system
prevailing at the opening of 1787 was unfavorable to the property rights
of four powerful groups above enumerated.[76] That system was, in brief,
as follows. There was a loose union of thirteen sovereign states under
the Articles of Confederation. The national government consisted of a
legislature of one house in which the states had an equal voting power.
There was no executive department and no general judiciary. The central
government had no power to regulate commerce or to tax directly; and in
the absence of these powers all branches of the government were rendered
helpless. Particularly, money could not be secured to pay the holders of
public securities, either their interest or principal. Under this
system, the state legislatures were substantially without restrictions
or judicial control; private rights in property were continually
attacked by stay laws, legal tender laws, and a whole range of measures
framed in behalf of debtors; and in New England open rebellion had
broken out.
That the economic groups in question looked to a new national government
as the one source of relief and advantage, is shown in a hundred
contemporary pamphlets and newspaper articles. It was in fact the topic
of the times.
For example, a letter from Philadelphia, under date of August 29, 1787,
sums up concisely the interests which were turning to the new
Constitution: “The states neglect their roads and canals, till they see
whether those necessary improvements will not become the objects of a
national government. Trading and manufacturing companies suspend their
voyages and manufactures till they see how far their commerce will be
protected and promoted by a national system of commercial regulations.
The lawful usurer locks up or buries his specie till he sees whether the
new frame of government will deliver him from the curse or fear of paper
money and the tender laws.... The public creditor, who, from the
deranged state of finances in every state and their total inability to
support their partial funding systems, has reason to fear that his
certificates will perish in his hands, now places all his hopes of
justice in an enlightened and stable national government. The
embarrassed farmer and the oppressed tenant, who wishes to become
free ... by emigrating to a frontier country, wait to see whether they
shall be protected by a national force from the Indians.”[77]
A final answer to the second question propounded above would require an
exhaustive analysis of the “movement for the Constitution,” in the
following form:—
1. A study of the economic forces in the Revolution and particularly in
the Continental Congress that drafted the Articles of Confederation.
2. An inquiry into the first signs of discontent with the prevailing
system, their geographic distribution, and their economic sources.
3. An examination of the several attempts in the Congress under the
Articles of Confederation to secure the power to regulate commerce and
establish a revenue for discharging the debt.
4. A description of the economic interests of all the members who were
most active in these attempts.
5. A description of the economic forces in the communities whose
representatives in Congress were zealous in securing a revision of the
Articles.
6. A study of the nature and distribution of the several legislative
attacks on private rights in property between 1783 and 1787.
7. A minute study of the personnel of the movement for revision and the
economic interests of the leading spirits in Congress and the state
legislatures and outside of legislative chambers.
Any one superficially acquainted with the sources of American history
will see at once the nature of the work which must be done to secure the
raw materials for such a study. The enormous mass of unprinted papers of
the Continental Congress in the Library at Washington would have to be
thoroughly searched; proceedings in state legislatures during the years
under consideration would have to be scrutinized; local archives and
newspapers would have to be examined.
In the present state of our historical materials, therefore, all that
can be attempted here is a superficial commentary on some of the outward
aspects of the movement for the Constitution which are described in the
conventional works on the subject. Many of the eminent men prominently
identified with the events which led up to the Convention of 1787 were
themselves members of that Assembly, and their economic interests are
considered below in Chapter V. But it is not without significance to
discover that some of the leading men outside of the Convention who
labored for an overthrow of the old system were also directly interested
in the results of their labors.
As early as January, 1781, General Philip Schuyler moved in the senate
of New York “to request the eastern states to join in an early
convention, which should form a perpetual league of incorporation,
subservient, however, to the common interest of all the states; invite
others to accede to it; erect Vermont into a state; devise a fund for
the redemption of the common debts; substitute a permanent and uniform
system for temporary expedients; and invest the confederacy with powers
of coercion.”[78] General Schuyler was a large holder of depreciated
securities.[79]
In February, 1781, Congress recommended to the states that they vest in
the national legislature a power to levy a duty to pay the principal and
interest of the debt. In April, 1783, Congress again appealed to the
states for authority to lay duties for the purpose of supplying a
revenue with which to discharge the debt. Among the leaders in Congress
who favored this increase in power were Gorham, Higginson, Ellsworth,
Dyer, Boudinot, Fitzsimons, Williamson, Izard, Johnson, and King, all of
whom held securities which were daily depreciating under the failure of
the government to meet its just obligations.[80]
In 1785, Governor Bowdoin, of Massachusetts, in his inaugural address
urged the necessity of a stronger union with larger powers, and
recommended a convention to deliberate upon the whole matter.[81]
Governor Bowdoin was a large holder of public securities.[82] The
legislature of the commonwealth, thereupon, resolved that the Articles
of Confederation were inadequate, and directed the representatives in
Congress to take steps looking toward a strengthening of the union; but
they failed to act.
Men less eminent than Bowdoin and Schuyler were being educated in
Federalism by the march of events. In Boston merchants were petitioning
Congress for relief from British discriminations[83]; in the Virginia
legislature the representatives of the commercial interests were
learning their lessons[84]; the demands for positive action were
increasing daily in number. Every failure to find a remedy under the
Articles of Confederation only served to augment the ranks of those who
were ready for a complete reconstruction of the prevailing system.
A few illustrations will serve to show how the demand for reform was
being fostered and also the connection between the leaders in the
agitation and the personnel of the public bodies which later achieved
the great work of framing and ratifying the Constitution. Even before
the war was over and the Articles of Confederation tested in a time of
peace, the inability of the government under it to afford defence to
commerce on the high seas was deplored by merchants whose vessels were
falling prey to the British. In April, 1782, a number of prominent
merchants presented a petition to Congress in which they lamented the
British depredations on American trade and the want of adequate naval
protection at sea.[85] Among the signers of this petition were several
men who were later known as warm supporters of a strong federal
government. One of them, Thomas Fitzsimons, was a member of the
Convention which drafted the Constitution; another, John Barclay, was a
member of the Pennsylvania convention and voted in favor of the
ratification of the new system of government.
Six years before the Convention met in Philadelphia, the disordered
financial system under the Confederation was the subject of protest by
interested parties. In 1781, “divers inhabitants of the state of
Pennsylvania,” were petitioning Congress to take some action designed to
put the credit of the country on a sound basis.[86] Thus runs the
petition: “Humbly sheweth that whereas you thought fit heretofore in the
course of your wisdom to emit bills of credit for good and great
purposes, but the same depreciating to such an amazing degree beyond the
expectation of all living did therefore lay open wide door for the most
monstrous and absurd injustices by fraudulent payments which we conclude
is directly contrary to your good and great purposes in emitting the
same, we therefore, not only firmly relying on the extraordinary
clearness of the circumstances of our agrievances, but likewise on the
uprightness of your understandings, Do therefore presume to pray your
honors would be pleased to recommend to the several states to adopt such
measures as they may think most likely to afford a safe and effectual
redress to all such agrievances....”[86] Among the signers to this
petition are Thomas Bull, John Hannum, and Thomas Cheyney, who six years
later as members of the Pennsylvania convention had the pleasure of
voting for the ratification of an instrument of government that put an
end to the evils against which they had so earnestly protested.
The failure of repeated attempts in Congress to secure an amendment
authorizing the laying of impost duties, the refusal of the states to
pay the requisitions made by Congress, and the obvious impossibility of
gaining their ends through the ordinary channels of ratification by
state legislatures, drove the advocates of these measures to
desperation. Republican government, as it had been tried out, had failed
to secure for personalty that protection and opportunity for advancement
which it enjoyed under monarchy. The despair of the representatives of
the property interests thus jeopardized and their readiness for some
heroic measures were fully manifest in the correspondence of the time.
Washington, who was not given to undue alarms, wrote to John Jay from
Mount Vernon, on August 1, 1786, to the effect that men of leadership
were ready for drastic action: “What astonishing changes,” he said, “a
few years are capable of producing. I am told that even respectable
characters speak of a monarchical form of Government without horror.
From thinking proceeds speaking, thence to acting is often but a single
step. But how irrevocable and tremendous! What a triumph for our enemies
to verify their predictions—what a triumph for the advocates of
despotism to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, & that
systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal &
fallacious! Would to God that wise measures may be taken in time to
avert the consequences we have but too much reason to apprehend.”[87]
Later in that year, General Knox, who was a holder of public securities,
wrote to Washington in the following strain: “The people who are the
insurgents [Shaysites] have never paid any, or but very little taxes—But
they see the weakness of government; They feel at once their own
poverty, compared with the opulent, and their own force, and they are
determined to make use of the latter, in order to remedy the former.
Their creed is ‘That the property of the United States has been
protected from the confiscations of Britain by the joint exertions of
all, and therefore ought to be the common property of all. And he that
attempts opposition to this creed is an enemy to equity and justice, and
ought to be swept from off the face of the earth.’ In a word they are
determined to annihilate all debts public and private and have agrarian
Laws, which are easily effected by means of unfunded paper money which
shall be a tender in all cases whatever—
“The numbers of these people may amount in Massachusetts to about one
fifth part of several populous counties, and to them may be collected,
people of similar sentiments, from the states of Rhode Island,
Connecticut, and New Hampshire so as to constitute a body of 12 or 15000
desperate & unprincipled men—They are chiefly of the young and active
part of the community, more easily collected than perhaps kept together
afterwards—But they will probably commit overt acts of treason which
will compel them to embody for their own safety—once embodied they will
be constrained to submit to discipline for the same reason. Having
proceeded to this length for which they are now ripe, we shall have a
formidable rebellion against reason, the principle of all government,
and the very name of liberty. This dreadful situation has alarmed every
man of principle and property in New England. They start as from a
dream, and ask what has been the cause of our delusion? what is to
afford us security against the violence of lawless men? Our government
must be braced, changed, or altered to secure our lives and property. We
imagined that the mildness of our government and _the virtue_ of the
people were so correspondent, that we were not as other nations
requiring brutal force to support the laws—But we find that we are men,
actual men, possessing all the turbulent passions belonging to that
anim[al] and that we must have a government proper and adequate for him.
The people of Massachuse[tts] for instance, are far advanced in this
doctrine, and the men of reflection, & principle, are determined to
endev[or] to establish a government which shall have the power to
protect them in their lawful pursuits, and which will be efficient in
all cases of internal commotions or foreign invasions—They mean that
liberty shall be the basis, a liberty resulting from the equal and firm
administration of the laws. They wish for a general government of unity
as they see the local legislatures must naturally and necessarily tend
to retard and frustrate all general government.”[88]
A few months later, Madison, writing to Edmund Pendleton from New York,
the seat of the government, corroborated the views expressed by
Washington and Knox and set forth what he conceived to be the desperate
state of republican government. His letter, dated February 24, 1787,
three days after Congress had issued the call for a national Convention,
ran as follows: “In general I find men of reflection much less sanguine
as to a new than despondent as to the present System. Indeed the Present
System neither has nor deserves advocates; and if some very strong props
are not applied will quickly tumble to the ground.... If the approaching
Convention should not agree on some remedy, I am persuaded that some
very different arrangement will ensue. The late turbulent scenes in
Massachusetts & infamous ones in Rhode Island, have done inexpressible
injury to the republican character in that part of the U. States; and a
propensity towards Monarchy is said to have been produced by it in some
leading minds. The bulk of the people will probably prefer the lesser
evil of a partition of the Union into three more practicable and
energetic Governments. The latter idea I find after long confinement to
individual speculations & private circles, is beginning to show itself
in the Newspapers.”[89]
A few days after this letter was written by Madison, John Armstrong
wrote to Washington from Carlisle that the suppression of the
insurrection in Massachusetts had not allayed the fears of leading men
in his state. “The alarming flame in Massachusetts,” he says, “seems
nearly extinguished, but if the subsequent measures of that State
respecting the insurgents should be severe, amounting to _death_,
Confiscation, or disfranchisement, the consequence may be bad, as
tending to reinkindle the flame. Shall I tell you in _confidence_, I
have now twice heard, nor from low authority (some principal men of that
State) begin to talk of wishing one general _Head_ to the Union, in the
room of Congress!”[90]
By correspondence such as this just cited, by an increasing recognition
of the desperate straights in which they were placed, a remarkable
fusion of interested forces was effected. The wealth, the influence, and
a major portion of the educated men of the country were drawn together
in a compact group, “informed by a conscious solidarity of interests,”
as President Wilson has so tersely put it.[91]
Having failed to obtain relief through the regular channels of amendment
by Congress ratified by the state legislatures, the leaders struck out
on a new path. Operating through the Virginia legislature, they secured
a resolution inviting the sister commonwealths to send delegates to a
convention at Annapolis to take into consideration the trade and
commercial system of the United States.[92] The convention duly met, but
the attendance was so slim that, as Professor Burgess has put it, “a
coup d’état attempted by so small a body could not but fail.”[93]
Although the Annapolis convention was ostensibly concerned with
commercial regulation primarily, there is no doubt that it was the
creation of the men who had been working in Congress and out for a
general revision of the whole system. There is no doubt also that it was
not regarded as of much significance in itself, but rather as a
preliminary to a national convention which would afford an opportunity
for reconstructing the government. For this view we have a witness of
high authority, James Madison, who in a letter of August 12, 1786, to
Jefferson, written a month before the Annapolis conference, said: “Many
gentlemen, both within and without Congress, wish to make this meeting
subservient to a plenipotentiary Convention for amending the
Confederation. Tho’ my wishes are in favor of such an event, yet I
despair so much of its accomplishment at the present crisis that I do
not extend my views beyond a commercial Reform.”[94]
Under the influence of Hamilton, the conference at Annapolis contented
itself with merely recommending that another convention be called “to
devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to
render the constitution of the federal government adequate to the
exigencies of the Union.” Acting on this modest suggestion, Congress, in
February, 1787, invited the states to send delegates to a Convention at
Philadelphia for “the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles
of Confederation.”
Certain tentative conclusions emerge at this point.
Large and important groups of economic interests were adversely affected
by the system of government under the Articles of Confederation, namely,
those of public securities, shipping and manufacturing, money at
interest; in short, capital as opposed to land.
The representatives of these important interests attempted through the
regular legal channels to secure amendments to the Articles of
Confederation which would safeguard their rights in the future,
particularly those of the public creditors.
Having failed to realize their great purposes through the regular means,
the leaders in the movement set to work to secure by a circuitous route
the assembling of a Convention to “revise” the Articles of Confederation
with the hope of obtaining, outside of the existing legal framework, the
adoption of a revolutionary programme.
Ostensibly, however, the formal plan of approval by Congress and the
state legislatures was to be preserved.