Posted on 04/29/2010 7:56:41 AM PDT by Publius
That’s a good summary and a good illustration, I think, that plus ca change plus c’est la meme chose. You’re right. It *is* exciting. One hopes that the pen proves mightier than the sword.
It could just be that passions have been excited and people are giving themselves some time to calm down and construct cogent arguments/commentaries.
Patrick Henry and his fellow patriots, proponents of a decentralized form of government on the eve of the Constitutional Convention was extremely uncomfortable with the direction the debate was going -- towards a national government. His famous "I smell a rat" was his reply when asked to attend the convention. He and his countrymen felt the "nationalists" had the upper hand going into the convention. History shows that Patrick Henry and his fellow patriots won the day--more or less. Through the years, Hamilton and his nationalist soul mates have been chewing at the edges ever since. That's my quick and dirty understanding.
Question: Why do we not hear longer and louder arguments for the notion that the amendments to the Constitution, and in particular the Bill of Rights, as being modifiers to the Constitution? Just as addendums to a contract modify and/or expand the original document. That is, the BOR especially should be looked to first when studying the context of the Constitution.
From what little I've studied I'll give you my impressions of Hamilton. First, that the Articles weren't nearly as bad as he and his fellow travelers(and future historians for that matter) have made them out to be. They had an agenda after all. There are those that are students of the subject(no saved links) who claim that with some tweaking, the Articles could have been made to work and work well. You'll recall, that was the original intent of the CC in the first place. Hamilton was a salesman, and a pretty good one it seems.
Now my view is much the opposite. Hamilton and Madison won the day in favor of a national govenrment. Jefferson, his Virginia followers, and Jackson took the argument in favor of a federal government, but Lincoln, thanks to the Civil War, took it back to the national government side. After Lincoln, there has been no cogent argument for a federal government, especially as the Roosevelt family took it totally in the direction of a national govenrment.
We are at a cusp in that argument, and the next few years will decide where things will go for the next two generations.
ping
ping
Your view may technically be more accurate than mine; particularly in light of the fact the BOR was not exactly contemporaneous with the Constitution, only the promise of a BOR. The BOR added much needed chains on the new government that gave the States and The People additional muscle with which to deal with a runaway "national" government. I suppose we could agree the final product was a hybrid of sorts.
Still in all, it's my impression from my limited studies, Hamilton and his running mates were pretty well disgruntled with the whole affair because they felt too constrained by the new governing document(s), post BOR would be my guess.
I am, as usual, late to the party but here are my thoughts on the matter.
IMHO Hamilton and his high federalist buddies LOST the argument initially but never stopped the process of undermining what had actually been put into place. They exploited every weakness of the new Constitution pointed out by the opposition in these very debates at every opportunity and thus moved the government in their direction by degrees. That process proved not to be adequate however as their opponents were on to them very soon and the protections provided by the Constitution were just too strong until Mr. Lincoln came along and, by force, just plain overthrew the Constitutional Republic of the founders and replaced it with one that the high federalist had sought all along. We have suffered the result of that continually since.
I completely agree with that statement but that does not change what has happened since.
See post #50.
1.) As opposed to what is taken for fact at this forum, the problems with the Articles were serious enough to compel the states to correct them only six years after ratification. Here are a few.
Americans owed debts to Europeans. Several state legislatures denied standing for foreign creditors. Why would the civilized world invest in a country that would not uphold contracts?
As I said in post #15, the British continued to hold western outposts granted to us by treaty. They would do so until Brit creditors were repaid.
Congress could only beg the states for taxes. There was no power to collect.
Foreign countries realized that Congress had no power to enforce commercial treaties. There was nothing to prevent each state from negotiating trade deals. MA, RI, NH imposed trade restraints on British trade in the hope of exacting concessions from Parliament.
Internal commerce among the states was awful. Some states imposed tariffs on the goods of others.
Private lending was at a near standstill. Post war America was in the grip of a deep depression.
The thirteen member Congress possessed quasi-judicial powers. That’s right, politicians with authority to adjudicate yet no power to enforce. The Congress court overturned a Pennsylvania court decision regarding the war time capture of a British vessel. Pennsylvania simply refused to comply.
There were numerous times when not enough states were present in Congress to constitute a quorum. No business could be done.
George Washington wrote in 1786, “We are fast verging to anarchy and confusion. In 1775 there was more patriotism in a single village than there is now in the 13 states.”
John Jay feared that the “orderly and industrious portion of the population, dismayed at the general uncertainty and above all, by the insecurity of property, might consider the charms of liberty as imaginary, . . . and turn to a king or dictator.”
2) I hope everyone here realizes that the Articles of Confederation were no more than treaties among sovereign states. As in any treaty, the parties were pledged to certain actions under particular circumstances. Also as in any treaty, no one state or combination could legally force compulsion. A state was a political entity like Virginia, or France, like Massachusetts or Great Britain.
If the Articles were so great, why didn’t a single delegate to the Constitutional or State ratifying conventions scream, “STOP, I have a plan to correct the Articles regarding taxation and commerce?”
Patrick Henry, the definition and very face of arch-antifederalism never offered an alternative.
Nobody did because it was impossible. The government of the US was a Congress of thirteen ambassadors. It would have been suicidal to our liberties to give a single body, Congress, the requisite legislative, judicial, and executive powers. Such a grant of power would have been tyrannical and was never proposed. As John Adams put it, “a people cannot be long free nor ever happy whose government is in one assembly.”
I’ve read a few classics on political philosophy. The latest was Aristotle’s “Politics.” He examines in exquisite detail every form of government. They include monarchies, dictatorships, aristocracies, oligarchies, constitutional republics and democracies. If a confederacy was a form of government, I suspect it is safe to assume he would have included it.
Hamilton was spot on when he said in #15, “They seem still to aim at things repugnant and irreconcilable; at an augmentation of federal authority without a diminution of state authority.”
3) For years I a have read at this forum of the ulterior motives of the federalists. Okay, fine. Men are not angels. By the same, it is clear to me that there were anti-federalists who had personal motives to maintain the anarchy under the Articles.
Baloney!
The convention was stampeded to the idea of a NEW Constitution before there had been any real attempt at doing what they had specifically been sent to Philadelphia to do! That is precisely why every single member of the New York delegation save Hamilton went home and refused to participate!
" Article II. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.
Amendment X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
And THAT is what the likes of Hamilton, Jay, Marshall, and those who followed them could not allow to stand if their dreams were to be realized!
Haven’t considered that as I have had no reason to do so.
What precisely is the point?
I see the question as entirely irrelevant and an attempt at misdirection?
Please be kind enough to explain to me why it isn’t
It is a response to your post #52. The topic of this thread is Federalist #15, the deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation. No one has offered any solutions because there aren’t any.
Baloney!
They did not do so to be sure but to construe from that that it could not have been done so goes WAY to far IMHO!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.