Main currents in American thought An interpretation of American literature from the beginnings to 1920
is a classic example of the relation of economics to politics; of the
struggle between greater property and smaller property for control of
the state.
The strategic position of the large property interests in the year
1787 was favorable to a bold stroke. In the northern and middle
states the controlling influence was wielded by a powerful money
group that had been slowly rising during pre-Revolutionary days,
and had greatly increased its resources and augmented its prestige
as a result of war financing and speculation in currency and lands.
They at once assumed the leadership which before had belonged to
the gentry. Like all eighteenth-century realists they exhibited a
frank property-consciousness that determined all their moves. With
them affiliated such members of the older gentry as remained, the
professional classes, ambitious Revolutionary officers who had set up
the militant Order of the Cincinnati, together with a numerous body
of the disappointed and the disaffected; the net result of which was
a close working alliance of property and culture for the purpose of
erecting a centralized state with coercive powers. They were powerfully
aided by two outstanding characteristics of the eighteenth-century
mind: an aristocratic psychology which was deeply ingrained in the
colonial through the long unchallenged rule of the gentry; and the
universal belief in the stake-in-society theory of government,
evidenced by the general disfranchisement of non-property-holders.
Property had always ruled in America, openly and without apology,
and the money group could count on a spontaneous response to its
demand that property should reorganize the feeble central government
and set up one more to its liking. In the South this reorganization
was unnecessary, for the planter aristocracy, in siding with the
Revolution, remained masters of their society, and the money group
had not risen to challenge their supremacy. It remained only for the
northern interests to join forces with the planters to bring the great
property interests of the country under one banner.
The status of the small property holders, on the other hand, was much
less happy. They were in possession of many of the state governments,
and were strongly wedded to the Articles of Confederation; but they
were deep in populism and their agrarian measures offered rallying
points for a powerful opposition. They lacked disciplined cohesion and
were wanting in a broad program. The militant mood of Revolutionary
days had given place to suspicion and disillusion, and their fighting
strength was greatly weakened. They were suffering the fate of all
post-war governments. The widespread depression was attributed to
populist policies, and all the evils from which the country was
suffering were laid at the doors of agrarian legislatures. Under such
conditions the political strategy of the money group was predetermined.
The issue was ready-made. Astute politicians like Hamilton seized the
opportunity and crystallized the discontent by the ingenious argument
that the trouble was too much agrarianism, that agrarianism resulted
from too much democracy, and that the inevitable end of too much
democracy was universal anarchy. The root of all the troubles, it was
asserted, was the pernicious slackness of the Articles of Confederation
which prevented a vigorous administration. There could be no prosperity
until a competent national government was set up on a substantial basis.
The inevitable consequence was that the ideal of popular democratic
rule received a sharp setback. The aristocratic prejudices of the
colonial mind were given a more militant bias by skillful propaganda.
Democracy was pictured as no other than mob rule, and its ultimate
purpose the denial of all property rights. Populistic measures were
fiercely denounced as the natural fruit of democratic control; all
America was in danger of following the destructive example of New
Hampshire and Rhode Island. “Look at the Legislature of Rhode Island,”
exclaimed a speaker in the New York Constitutional Convention, “what
is it but the perfect picture of a mob!” The virus of democracy
was a poison that destroyed the character of the people as well as
government; was not the fate of Rhode Island a warning to the rest
of the country? Here is a picture of that commonwealth, drawn by an
English gentleman before agrarianism had done its worst.
The government of this province is entirely democratical, every
officer, except the collector of the customs, being appointed ...
either immediately by the people, or by the general assembly....
The character of the Rhode Islanders is by no means engaging,
or amiable, a circumstance principally owing to their form of
government. Their men in power, from the highest to the lowest, are
dependent upon the people, and frequently act without that strict
regard to probity and honour, which ought invariably to influence
and direct mankind. The private people are cunning, deceitful, and
selfish: they live almost entirely by unfair and illicit trading.
Their magistrates are partisan and corrupt: and it is folly to
expect justice in their courts of judicature; for he who has the
greatest purse is generally found to have the fairest cause.... It
is needless, after this, to observe that it is in a very declining
state.[294]
“Under the Articles of Confederation,” comments a recent student,
“populism had a free hand, for majorities in the state legislatures
were omnipotent. Any one who reads the economic history of the time
will see why the solid conservative interests of the country were
weary of the talk about the ‘rights of the people,’ and were bent upon
establishing firm guarantees for the rights of property.”[295] The
money-economy had made up its mind that such government as that of
Rhode Island could not longer be tolerated. An example must be made of
such hotbeds of anarchy; if reason would not be listened to, force must
be used. An ardent Federalist, Judge Dana of Massachusetts, offered a
possible solution:
This state [Rhode Island] will not choose delegates to the
convention, nor order on their delegates to Congress. I hope they
will not, as their neglect will give grounds to strike it out of
the union, and divide its territory between their neighbors....
According to my best observation, such a division of this state
would meet the best approbation of the commercial part of it,
though they are afraid to take any open measures in the present
state of things, to bring it about. Their interest must dictate
such a measure; they never can be secure under the present form
of government, but will always labor under the greatest mischief
any people can suffer, that of being ruled by the most ignorant
and unprincipled of their fellow citizens. This state is too
insignificant to have a place on an equal footing with any of
the others in the Union, unless it be Delaware. Therefore a
bold politician would seize upon the occasion their abominable
anti-federal conduct presents, for annihilating them as a separate
member of the Union.[296]
“It is fortunate,” wrote General Varnum to Washington, confirming Judge
Dana’s analysis of the economic divisions of Rhode Island, “that the
wealth and resources of this state are chiefly in possession of the
well affected, and they are entirely devoted to the public good.”
It was Shays’s Rebellion, that militant outbreak of populism that
set all western Massachusetts in uproar, and spread to the very
outskirts of Boston, which crystallized the anti-democratic sentiment,
and aroused the commercial group to decisive action. With its armed
attack upon lawyers and courts, its intimidation of legislators, its
appeal for the repudiation of debts, it provided the object lesson
in democratic anarchy which the “friends of law and order” greatly
needed. The revolt was put down, but the fear of democracy remained
and called aloud for stronger government. “We see the situation we are
in,” exclaimed a Boston member in the Massachusetts Constitutional
Convention. “We are verging toward destruction, and every one must be
sensible of it.” Shays had failed, but with political power in the
hands of agrarian legislatures, friendly to debtors, what dangers must
not the future hold in store? Was it not the patriotic duty of the
sober conservators of society to set up betimes a strong constitutional
defense, before the rights of property were swept away by the fierce
tide of democracy? Writing to Washington under date of October 23,
1786, General Knox argued:
On the very first impression of faction and licentiousness, the
fine theoretic government of Massachusetts has given way, and its
laws are trampled under foot.... Their creed is, that the property
of the United States has been protected from the confiscation of
Britain by the joint exertions of all, and therefore ought to be
the common property of all.... This dreadful situation, for which
our government have made no adequate provision, has alarmed every
man of principle and property in New England. They start as from a
dream, and ask what can have been the cause of this delusion? What
is to give 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 wishes of the people were so correspondent that we were not as
other nations, requiring brutal force to support the laws. But we
find we are men--actual men, possessing all the turbulent passions
belonging to that animal, and that we must have a government
proper and adequate for him. The people of Massachusetts ... are
far advanced in this doctrine, and the men of property and the men
of station and principle there, are determined to establish and
protect them in their lawful pursuits.... Something is wanting and
something must be done.[297]
During these years of unrest the problem of a new fundamental law
was carefully studied by the anti-agrarian leaders and solutions
suggested. A remarkable change had come over their thinking. They
discarded the revolutionary doctrines that had served their need in the
debate with England. They were done with natural rights and romantic
interpretations of politics and were turned realists. They parted
company with English liberalism in its desire for a diminished state.
Their economic interests were suffering from the lack of a strong
centralized government, and they were in a mood to agree with earlier
realists who held that men are animals with turbulent passions, and
require a government “proper and adequate” for animals; and in view
of local agrarian majorities, a proper and adequate government could
not be had without a strong centralized state. The solution, they
were convinced, lay in a return to some form of seventeenth-century
republicanism, possibly modeled after Harrington, but with further
checks upon the power of the democratic branch of the legislature, and
a stronger executive. Hobbes with his leviathan monarchy had gone too
far, but he had, at least, understood the need of a strong state; and a
strong state, subservient to their interests, the business and landed
groups were determined to set up as a barrier against a threatening
agrarianism.
The great obstacle to such a program was the political power of the
farmers, bred up in the traditional practice of home rule, jealous of
local rights, and content with the Articles of Confederation. These
home rulers would not take kindly to any suggestion of a centralized
state, even though it should be republican in form. The thing must be
done skillfully, if it were to succeed. To nullify where they could not