A Revolution in Favor of Government: Origins of the U.S. Constitution and the Making of the American State Review

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A Revolution in Favor of Government: Origins of the U.S. Constitution and the Making of the American State ReviewThe most important development in early American history in the last fifty years has been archival. The debates surrounding the adoption of the Constitution continue to be thoroughly exhumed for insights into what our Founders were thinking. The writings of the Anti-Federalists both in the press of the time and in the state conventions that approved the Constitution have been reconsidered. I recently reviewed a history by Saul Cornell that considers those writings to be the beginnings of a dissenting tradition that continues to this day.
One of the things that strikes any reader of recent histories of the ratification debates is what a gold mine it is for philosophy of history. There are few historical moments that can offer greater insight into the difficulties of determining what were the intentions or motives behind the speech and actions of historical actors. Depending on what reading background, theory of human nature and political persuasion a historian brings to their readings of these debates it is possible to see Madison, Hamilton and the other players as having any number of motives.
Max Edling has obviously lived and breathed the volumes of the ongoing publications of The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution. More importantly he has studied deeply the history of nation formation in Europe. The lesson of that branch of European history has been that the modern European state was formed by the exigencies of war. Baldly put, European states started to force each other into maintaining large armies (or navies) even during peacetime. This development fed and was fed by a revolution in state financing. The majority of the monies to maintain their armies and fight their wars came from loans. In England, this became a large funded public debt which was religiously serviced by taxes and securities.
This is the background against which Edling wants us to see the ratification debate. The Federalists ignored their instructions to amend the Articles of Confederation and wrote up a whole new document, our present Constitution. The most controversial portions of that document related to the maintenance of a peacetime army and the unlimited ability to raise taxes. Our Anti-Federalists, who Edling sees as the American progeny of the English "Country" dissent traditions saw this as the road to tyranny. Standing armies in peacetime had been murderously used to squelch dissent in England (the killing of 7 at St. George's Fields in 1768) and in America (the Boston Massacre in 1770).
The Federalists, on the other hand, argued that we had no choice. England remained to our north and Spain was to the south and at the mouth of the Mississippi. The English had refused to turn over forts in the west as agreed in the peace accords. Unless those troops were removed and the forts handed over there was no way to assert control over the formidable Indian tribes of the Old Northwest.
Even worse, the federal government under that Articles of Confederation was insolvent by 1787. The various states ignored the requisitions of the Congress, the certificates that we had used to pay off the Continental Army at the end of the Revolution were worthless, we had defaulted on loans from France and Spain and had actually had to borrow more money from Dutch lenders in order to pay them the servicing on debts we already owed them.
The Federalists believed that the key to rescuing our credit and our ability to defend ourselves (remember that modern wars are always fought on credit) was for the Federal government to be able to establish and collect taxes directly from the people. A government without a source of revenue is a beggar. Here's another thought for you; Who would fight for us the next time? Knowing that we had failed to pay troops some of whom had fought seven years in our Revolution?
Again, the Anti-Federalists had concerns over the power of the national government to tax. It was their belief that the state legislatures were far more representative of the people's wishes than the national government could ever be. The new national government would would feel any number of temptations to lay more taxes on the people. Recent English history showed that this was quite probable.
One aside- it is very clear from Edling's argument that in the thought of many of the founders on both sides of the ratification debate that the final stage of legitimizing any law was the willingness of the people to obey it. In other words, if there was wide spread resistance to any measure passed that it was the legitimacy of the measure that was questioned. The people's representatives were seen to have failed in their function. Can you imagine our George II operating under such conditions? Just imagine how the Anti-Federalists would have reacted to the Patriot Act!
My only problem with Edling's argument is that it is too monocausal. I think that Edling has made an enormous contribution to our understanding of the debates of the founding. But if I had to use only one prism to view those debates, it would be the concept of localism versus distant government. I tend to read the Federalists as wanting a strong national government that was also somewhat distant from the people. It had to be able to raise taxes, borrow money and wage war. Otherwise it would inevitably dissolve. They also wanted a legal system that was a little further out of the control of local juries and judges. They wanted the ability to set national economic policy. They wanted to create a political culture that would continue to allow the "natural" elite to rule and put some breaks on mobocracy, etc.. I believe that they realized that the only way to legitimately do that was to create a stronger more effective national government.
In any case, Edling's book is now necessary reading for a fuller understanding of the political context in which our founders lived. Start reading, people.
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