Posted on 01/03/2016 3:56:53 PM PST by ForYourChildren
After the American War for Independence, both Britain and the thirteen newly freed states felt the need to centralize their political power. Many in Congress, fearing that Britain or another European nation would take advantage of the fragile American governments, deeply in debt and without any means of protection, sought to form a stronger union than the one established under the Articles of Confederation. This shift from “thirteen independent sovereigntiesâ€[i] to united states has gone down into our popular mythos as an integral part of the American progression towards liberty, so it is not surprising that few people today are aware of the resistance that anti-nationalists had towards sealing such a union. While the nationalists were pushing for American centralization, there were many who perceived it as a grasping collaboration of politicians and businessmen, and violently resisted, as Daniel Shays and the Regulators would do in the autumn of 1786.
As the American War for Independence wound down in the early 1780s and victory became assured, the former colonies teetered on the brink of financial collapse. Particularly concerned about the rocking ship of state were the financiers of the new republic, located up and down the eastern seaboard in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. These men, represented at the Philadelphia conventions, were big city lawyers and men of wealth in land, slaves, manufacturing and shipping. According to the records of the Treasury Department, half of the men deciding the course of the country at Philadelphia had money loaned out at interest, and forty of the fifty-five held government bonds. Unsurprisingly, their personal financial interests lay in protecting the many diverse government economic holdings, a difficult juggling job considering the independent nature of the states.[ii]
Chief among those who stood to profit from the formation of a centralized economy was Robert Morris, the man who had helped financially hold up the Continental Congress throughout the American War for Independence. However, Morris also found the position extremely beneficial for his own private interests. As William Hogeland put it, Morris used Congressional funding for “dozens of personal speculations and had awarded his own and his partners’ firms and middlemen millions in congressional contracts, commissions, and outright disbursements. Morris and the revolution financed each other.â€[iii] Having become the wealthiest merchant in the colonies, Robert Morris was elected superintendent of finance in an attempt to stem the post-war meltdown, brought on by runaway inflation and out-of-control debt. By 1781 he had complete economic control of Congress, with his people heading the Department of Finance, Foreign Affairs, and the Department of War. Their goal was to consolidate the economy around a British-style mercantilist government based on national debt, a central bank, corporate welfare, and heavy taxation.[iv] Yet it soon became apparent that if they were to achieve financial independence for Congress, they would need more economic control over the states than was provided under the Articles of Confederation.[v]
The war had left Congress with virtually no money. Morris was forced to choose between paying the government creditors and bondholders, and paying the men who had served in the military for years without compensation.[vi] Morris chose the former. He suspended military pay, prohibited state legislatures from paying their own soldiers, and demanded instead that all states send their money to Congress to be redistributed at his discretion.[vii] The obvious one-sided nature of this system was bound to face opposition. As the states tried to simultaneously pay for their own expenses and ward off Federal creditors, they found themselves strapped for cash, attempting to squeeze what they could from their own people. Particularly hurt were the backcountry poor, who murmured their discontent up and down the Appalachians and throughout rural regions, from South Carolina to Vermont.
The situation came to a head when, in 1780, Massachusetts raised the property requirements for voting, and since most Massachusetts citizens were deeply debt ridden from the war, few outside of the metropolitan areas had the ability to have a say in their government. In protest, extralegal conventions sprang up across the countryside, run by locals calling themselves the Regulators. Most of the people who filled these meetings were farmers who had fought in the war, given years of their lives and all of their personal wealth, and yet had not been paid a cent for their service. These people found themselves being over-taxed and under-represented within their own state governments. State officials began seizing harvestable farm land and livestock to pay off the farmers’ debts. As one farmer, Plough Jogger, complained at an illegal convention:
{excerpt. Too long for the iPhone}
I came across on the web and thought it it interesting.
Also of note, oathkeepers has decided to stand down in Oregon at the wishes of the family.
Patrick Henry and George Mason were two of the anti-Federalists opposed to the increase of power granted to the government by the Constitution, although one or both may have changed their opinion by the time it was ratified. History proved that their initial misgivings were valid.
My understanding is that the 17th Amendment changed everything, tipping the balance away from the States and toward ever increasing federal power.
As one farmer, Plough Jogger, complained at an illegal convention:
I've labored hard all my days and fared hard. I have been greatly abused, have been obliged to do more than my part in the war; been loaded with class rates, town rates, province rates, Continental rates, and all rates . . . been pulled and hauled by sheriffs, constables, and collectors, and had my cattle sold for less than they were worth. I have been obliged to pay and nobody will pay me. I have lost a great deal by this man and that man and t'other man, and the great men are all going to get all we have, and I think it is time for us to rise and put a stop to it, and have no more courts, nor sheriffs, nor collectors nor lawyers, and I know that we are the biggest party, let them say what they will. . . . We've come to relieve the distresses of the people. There will be no court until they have redress of their grievances.[viii]
The state, however, made some attempt to pacify the farmers by accepting goods instead of the near-worthless issued money, but this did little to help the situation. For the next several years, farmers petitioned the Massachusetts General Court for tax and debt relief, while protestors harassed state tax collectors, shut down courts, and prevented debt collection. Violence was averted for several years, but the state militias were called out numerous times to stand threateningly in front of large gatherings of increasingly desperate Regulators, and it quickly became apparent that one of these standoffs would lead to bloodshed. The situation was eerily reminiscent of the protests and threats that had been made against those who had enforced the British tax policies before the war, a connection that was not lost on either side.
Footnotes
[i] Henry Knox in a letter to George Washington, October 23, 1786, as printed in Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove, Voices of a People's History of the United States (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2005), 105.
[ii] When the government was finally unified in the Constitution, at least five-sixths of those who ratified it were directly benefited financially (Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States [New York: Dover, reprinted 2004], 149-152).
[iii] William Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion (New York: Scribner, 2006), 32; Curtis P. Nettels, The Emergence of a National Economy, 1775-1815 (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1962), 23-34.
[iv] Thomas Dilorenzo, Hamilton's Curse (New York: Random House, 2008), 59.
[v] Robert A. Feer, "Shay's Rebellion and the Constitution: A Study in Causation," The New England Quarterly 42 no. 3 Sep., 1969, 390-393.
[vi] Thomas Dilorenzo, Hamilton's Curse, 45.
[vii] As Morris put it, it was his intent to see that wealth flowed "into those hands which could render it most productive," (E. James Ferguson, Power of the Purse: A History of American Public Finance, 1776-1790 [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961], 124); William Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion, 32.
[viii] As quoted in Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove, Voices of a People’s History of the United States, 104.
I am deeply suspicious of the motivations of anyone who employs the term “American imperialism”.
Yawn.
Conservatives should be for what works. The Constitution is a wonderful document, not because it is perfect, but because for a very long time it worked.
Unfortunately, this essay provides yet one more example where a major threat to the US was resolved mostly in a way to benefit the rich and powerful, then later gussied up with patriotic bunting and speeches.
Thus we have the unconstitutional treatment of the Copperheads during the Civil War, the extension of government powers during the Progressive Era, the creation of the IRS partly to fund WWI, the creation of the welfare state in response to The Depression, the centralization of the workforce during WWII, the creation of the DHS and NSA snooping during the war on terror, etc.
I’d say that Lincoln had the biggest role in relegating the states as minor players. Andrew Jackson might have earned that position in the South Carolina nullification controversy but it became a moot issue before any shots were fired.
Part of the now-forgotten push for direct election of Senators was the perception that Senators were being selected by power brokers that represented campaign donors instead of the people of the states. Pretty much the same situation that has everyone furious with the GOPe. The 17th Amendment was probably just an ineffective attempt to deal with a perennial problem.
Read
So how did Lincoln accomplish this, through executive power or legislation?
I see a number of red flags going up as I read through this.
My advice to other readers is to take this article with a huge truckload of salt.
Several of the comments too ;’}
Congress was not in session when Lincoln called up 75,000 troops to put down what he called rebellion and the seven Deep South states called secession. Lincoln called up this army by proclamation, a tool he used more than any previous President. Washington had issued the sole major proclamation prior to Lincoln when he declared the United States neutral in 1793.
Proclamations, like Executive Orders, are undefined in the Constitution and somewhat ambiguous.
But it’s more than proclamations, isn’t it? Congress has been backed by an oligarchy of nine. Isn’t the problem mainly with the Supreme Court? Was it the one flaw by the Founders that is our undoing, this lifetime appointment?
The Supreme Court certainly showed itself to be dangerous once Justices discovered that they could legislate from the bench with impunity.
I think it’s the combination of being able to declare laws unconstitutional and the lifetime appointment. There isn’t a really good check that Congress possesses beyond the consent of appointments.
Part of the now-forgotten push for direct election of Senators was the perception that Senators were being selected by power brokers that represented campaign donors instead of the people of the states...
Another reason was when the Governor and the State legislature could not agree on a candidate, resulting in no appointment.
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