It was the States which always were thwarting every plan for the general welfare; the States which were forever impairing the National obligations; the States which bound hand and foot the straw man of the central power, clothed it in rags and made it a mere scarecrow of government. And it was State pride, prejudice, and ignorance which gave provincial demagogues their advantage and opportunity. The State Governments were the "people's" Governments; to yield State "sovereignty" was to yield the "people's" power over their own affairs, shouted the man who wished to win local prominence, power, and office.
Those who did not want to pay taxes and who disliked much government of any kind felt that they could make shift with mere State establishments.[958] "A thirst for power, and the bantling, I had liked to have said monster for sovereignty, which have taken such fast hold of the States individually, will, when joined by the many whose personal consequence in the control of State politics will in a manner be annihilated, form a strong phalanx against"[959] the National Constitution, prophesied the leader of the Revolution.
But it was not alone the powerlessness of the Federal Government to keep the National faith, plighted by solemn treaties with foreign Governments; or to uphold the National honor by paying debts made to win American independence, that wrought that bloodless revolution[960] which produced the Constitution. Nor was it the proud and far-seeing plans of a few great minds whose heart's desire was to make the American People a Nation.
Finance, commerce, and business assembled the historic Philadelphia Convention; although it must be said that statesmanship guided its turbulent councils. The senseless and selfish nagging at trade in which the States indulged, after peace was declared, produced a brood of civil abuses as noisome as the military dangers which State control of troops had brought forth during the Revolution. Madison truly said that "most of our political evils may be traced up to our commercial ones."[961] The States passed tariff laws against one another as well as against foreign nations; and, indeed, as far as commerce was concerned, each State treated the others as foreign nations.[962] There were retaliations, discriminations, and every manner of trade restrictions and impediments which local ingenuity and selfishness could devise.
The idea of each State was to keep money from going outside its borders into other States and to build up its own business and prosperity at the expense of its neighbors.[963] States having no seaports were in a particularly hard case. Madison picturesquely describes their unhappy plight: "New Jersey placed between Phila & N. York, was likened to a cask tapped at both ends; And N. Carolina, between Virga & S. Carolina to a patient bleeding at both Arms."[964] Merchants and commercial bodies were at their wits' end to carry on business and petitioned for a general power over commerce.[965]
The commercial view, as stated by Madison, was that "the National Government should be armed with positive and compleat authority in all cases which require uniformity; such as the regulation of trade, including the right of taxing both exports & imports, the fixing the terms and forms of naturalization, &c., &c."
Madison then lays down this extreme Nationalist principle as the central article of his political faith: "Over and above this positive power, a negative in all cases whatsoever on the legislative acts of the States, as heretofore exercised by the Kingly prerogative, appears to me to be absolutely necessary, and to be the least possible encroachment on the State jurisdictions. Without this defensive power, every positive power that can be given on paper will be evaded & defeated. The States will continue to invade the National jurisdiction, to violate treaties and the law of nations & to harass each other with rival and spiteful measures dictated by mistaken views of interest."[966]
Too much emphasis cannot be put upon the fact that the mercantile and financial interests were the weightiest of all the influences for the Constitution; the debtors and agricultural interests the strongest groups against it. It deserves repetition, for a proper understanding of the craft and force practiced by both sides in the battle over ratification, that those who owed debts were generally against the Constitution and practically all to whom debts were due were for the new Government. "I have little prospect of bringing Banks [967]
London merchants were very anxious for a new order of things. "I hope ere long your Federal Government will be established, and that honest Men will again have the Assendency in your Country, for without such a change it must ever remain a poor place to live in," was the opinion of a business man living in the British Capital.[968]
A few weeks after Virginia ratified the Constitution, Minton Collins reported to his principal about a person named Banks, who, says Collins, "begins to be a little alarmed from the adoption of the Federal Constitution. I hope it will alarm every such R[asca]l. He had run his rig long enough for he boasts of being worth from 150,000£ to 200,000 pounds; this is not bad for a man that six years ago could scarcely raise a suit of clothes to his back."[969]