Charles A. Beard

“ 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. ”

“ Nevertheless, it may be asked why, if the protection of property rights lay at the basis of the new system, there is in the Constitution no provision for property qualifications for voters or for elected officials and representatives. This is, indeed, peculiar when it is recalled that the constitutional history of England is in a large part a record of conflict over the weight in the government to be enjoyed by definite economic groups, and over the removal of the property qualifications early imposed on members of the House of Commons and on the voters at large. ”

“ The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government. Can a democratic assembly who annually revolve in the mass of the people, be supposed steadily to pursue the public good? ”

“ That is, the right of revolution is, at bottom, the justification for all great political changes. If it is argued that this right of revolution should not be exercised by a small group of men, such as the Convention of fifty-odd delegates at Philadelphia, Madison replies that it is impossible for the whole people to move forward in concert, and “it is therefore essential that such changes be instituted by some informal and unauthorized propositions made by some patriotic and respectable citizen or number of citizens.” ”

“ Where is the ground of allegiance that is due to government? Are not the bonds of civil society dissolved? Or is allegiance founded only in power? Has moral obligation no place in civil government? In mutual compacts can one party be bound while the other is free? ”

“ The chief business of government, from which, perforce, its essential nature must be derived, consists in the control and adjustment of conflicting economic interests. After enumerating the various forms of propertied interests which spring up inevitably in modern society, he adds: “The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the ordinary operations of the government.” ”

“ The government of the Union, then (whatever may be the influence of this fact on the case) is emphatically and truly a government of the people. In form and in substance it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit.... It is the government of all; its powers are delegated by all; it represents all, and acts for all. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the juristic view, the Constitution is not only the work of the whole people, but it also bears in it no traces of the party conflict from which it emerged. Take, for example, any of the traditional legal definitions of the Constitution; Miller’s will suffice: “A constitution, in the American sense of the word, is any instrument by which the fundamental powers of the government are established, limited, and defined, and by which these powers are distributed among the several departments for their more safe and useful exercise, for the benefit of the body politic.... ”

“ It was to this region particularly that Oliver Ellsworth must have appealed in his open letter to the citizens of New Hampshire in which he said: “New York, the trading towns on the Connecticut River, and Boston are the sources from which a great part of your foreign supplies will be obtained, and where your produce will be exposed for market. In all these places an import is collected, of which, as consumers, you pay a share without deriving any public benefit. You cannot expect any alteration in the private systems of these states unless effected by the proposed government.” ”

“ It is the interest of the merchants to encourage the new constitution, because commerce may then be a national object, and nations will form treaties with us. It is the interest of the mechanicks to join the mercantile interest, because it is not their interest to quarrel with their bread and butter. It is the interest of the farmer because the prosperity of commerce gives vent to his produce, raises the value of his lands, and commercial duties will alleviate the burden of his taxes. ”

“ That the debt of the United States should have greatly depreciated will excite no surprise when it is recollected that the government of the Union possessed no funds, and without the assent of jealous and independent sovereigns could acquire none to pay the accruing interest; but the depreciation of the debt due from those states, which made an annual and adequate provision for the interest, can be ascribed only to a want of confidence in the governments which were controlled by no fixed principles ”

“ They knew that there was a deep-seated antagonism between the “natural aristocracy” and the “turbulent democracy” which was giving the government of Massachusetts trouble. Such an analysis of the difficulty is set forth by Stephen Higginson, a leading Federalist of Boston, in March, 1787: “The people of the interior parts of these states [New England] have by far too much political knowledge and too strong a relish for unrestrained freedom, to be governed by our feeble system, and too little acquaintance with real sound policy or rational freedom and too little virtue to govern themselves. ”

“ None of the powers conferred by the Constitution on Congress permits a direct attack on property. The federal government is given no general authority to define property. It may tax, but indirect taxes must be uniform, and these are to fall upon consumers. Direct taxes may be laid, but resort to this form of taxation is rendered practically impossible, save on extraordinary occasions, by the provision that they must be apportioned according to population—so that numbers cannot transfer the burden to accumulated wealth. ”

“ THE ECONOMICS OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS The authors of The Federalist carry over into the field of international politics the concept of economic antagonisms which lie at the basis of their system of domestic politics. Modern wars spring primarily out of commercial rivalry, although the ambitions of princes have often been a source of international conflict. “Has commerce hitherto done anything more than change the objects of war?” asks Hamilton. “Is not the love of wealth as domineering and enterprising a passion as that of power or glory? ”

“ George Clymer entertained the notions of government which were common to the Federalists of his time. He held that “a representative of the people is appointed to think for and not with his constituents”; [450] and invariably, during the course of his career, he “showed a total disregard to the opinions of his constituents when opposed to the matured decisions of his own mind.” It was on these principles that he “warmly opposed the proposition introducing a clause in the Constitution which conferred upon the people the unalienable right of instructing their representatives.” ”

“ There they have a powerful hereditary nobility, and real distinctions of rank and interests; but even there, for want of that perfect equality of power and distinction of interests in the three orders of government, they exist but in name; the only operative and efficient check upon the conduct of administration is the sense of the people at large.... If the administrators of every government are actuated by views of private interest and ambition, how is the welfare and happiness of the community to be the result of such jarring adverse interests? ”

“ The Federalist, on the other hand, presents in a relatively brief and systematic form an economic interpretation of the Constitution by the men best fitted, through an intimate knowledge of the ideals of the framers, to expound the political science of the new government. This wonderful piece of argumentation by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay is in fact the finest study in the economic interpretation of politics which exists in any language; and whoever would understand the Constitution as an economic document need hardly go beyond it. ”

“ A man in debt can scarcely be honest.... Vote for no man who was in favor of paper money, for no honest man was for that measure. None but debtors and desperate wretches advocated the diabolical scheme.... Elect no man who supported the law allowing insolvent debtors to discharge their persons from perpetual imprisonment, by honestly delivering up all their property to the use of their creditors. ”

“ After the plan of ratification by conventions was carried in spite of Ellsworth’s objections, he defended it in his appeal to the populace by saying: “It proves the honesty and patriotism of the gentlemen who composed the general Convention, that they chose to submit their system to the people rather than to the legislatures, whose decisions are often influenced by men in the higher departments of government, who have provided well for themselves and dread any change least they should be injured by its operation. ”

“ Inasmuch as the primary object of a government, beyond the mere repression of physical violence, is the making of the rules which determine the property relations of members of society, the dominant classes whose rights are thus to be determined must perforce obtain from the government such rules as are consonant with the larger interests necessary to the continuance of their economic processes, or they must themselves control the organs of government. ”

“ The first constitution of Pennsylvania established in 1776 was the work of a radical party, and it provided for a single chambered legislature based on a widely extended suffrage. “Every freeman of the full age of twenty-one years,” runs the instrument, “having resided in this state for the space of one whole year ... and paid public taxes during that time, shall enjoy the right of an elector: Provided always that sons of freeholders of the age of twenty-one years shall be entitled to vote although they have not paid taxes.” ”

“ In the absence of a critical analysis of legal evolution, all sorts of vague abstractions dominate most of the thinking that is done in the field of law. The characteristic view of the subject taken by American commentators and lawyers immersed in practical affairs is perhaps summed up as finely by Carter as by any writer. “In free, popular states,” he says, “the law springs from and is made by the people; and as the process of building it up consists in applying, from time to time, to human actions the popular ideal or standard of justice, justice is only interest consulted in the work.... ”

“ But if imitating the constitution of Pennsylvania, you vest all the legislative power in one body of men (separating the executive and the judicial) , elected for a short period, and necessarily excluded by rotation from permanency and guarded from precipitancy and surprise by delays imposed on its proceedings, you will create the most perfect responsibility; for then, whenever the people feel a grievance, they cannot mistake the authors and will apply the remedy with certainty and effect, discarding them at the next election. ”

“ The Constitution proceeds from the whole people; the people are the original source of all political authority exercised under it; it is founded on broad general principles of liberty and government entertained, for some reason, by the whole people and having no reference to the interest or advantage of any particular group or class. “By calm meditation and friendly councils,” says Bancroft, “they [the people] had prepared a Constitution which, in the union of freedom with strength and order, excelled every one known before.... ”

“ This antagonism came out in a pamphlet war over the amendment of the state constitution which was being waged about the time of the adoption of the new federal system. In this war, “Appius,” the spokesman for the reform party is reported to have declared that “wealth ought not to be represented; that a rich citizen ought to have fewer votes than his poor neighbor; that wealth should be stripped of as many advantages as possible and it will then have more than enough; and finally, that in giving property the power of protecting itself, government becomes an aristocracy.” ”

“ I apprehend, Sir, the principal cause of complaint among the people at large, is the public and private debt with which they are oppressed, and which in the present scarcity of cash threatens them with destruction, unless they can obtain so much indulgence in point of time that by industry and frugality they may extricate themselves. ”

“ Since the contending classes cannot be eliminated and their interests are bound to be reflected in politics, the only way out lies in making it difficult for enough contending interests to fuse into a majority, and in balancing one over against another. The machinery for doing this is created by the new Constitution and by the Union. (a) Public views are to be refined and enlarged “by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens.” (b) The very size of the Union will enable the inclusion of more interests so that the danger of an overbearing majority is not so great. ”