The significance of the figures showing the annual interest disbursement also when the debt had been funded becomes evident only by comparison. Tench Coxe, as commissioner of the revenue, estimated the amount of goods, wares, and merchandise exported from the United States between October 1, 1791, and September 30, 1792, at $21,005,568. In other words, the annual interest on the domestic debt was more than one-tenth the total value of the goods exported annually. The average imports for each of the three years ending March 4, 1792, was $19,150,000, so that the interest on the domestic debt was more than one-tenth of the value of the goods imported into the United States.[[58]]

One of the most potent effective forces of these public securities was the Society of the Cincinnati which was composed of the officers of the Revolutionary Army organized into local branches in the several states. Like other soldiers, the members of this order had been paid for their patriotic services partly in land warrants and depreciated paper; but unlike the privates, they were usually men of some means and were not compelled to sacrifice their holdings to speculators at outrageously low prices. The members of this Society appear in large numbers on the loan office records of the several states preserved in the Treasury Department; and many, if not all, of the state branches had funds derived from this source.

The political influence of the Society was recognized in the Convention. When the popular election of President was under consideration, Gerry objected to it. “The ignorance of the people,” he said, “would put it in the power of some one set of men dispersed through the Union and acting in concert to delude them into any appointment. He observed that such a Society of men existed in the Order of the Cincinnati. They were respectable, United, and influential. They will in fact elect the chief Magistrate in every instance, if the election be referred to the people—His respect for the characters composing this Society could not blind him to the danger and impropriety of throwing such a power into their hands.”[[59]] In this view Colonel Mason concurred.[[60]]

An observant French chargé d’affaires, writing to his home secretary of state for foreign affairs in June, 1787, calls attention to the weight of the Order of the Cincinnati in the movement for a new government, but remarks that their power has been greatly exaggerated. “Les Cincinnati,” he says, “c’est à dire les officiers de l’ancienne armée américaine, sont intéressés à l’éstablissement d’un Gouvernement solide, puisqu’ils sont tous créanciers du public, mais, considérant la foiblesse du Conseil national et l’impossibilité d’être payés par la présente administration, ils proposent de jeter tous les États dans une seule masse et de mettre à leur tête le gai. Washington avec toutes les prérogatives et les pouvoirs d’une tête couronné.” He also says that they threaten a revolution by arms in case the Convention fails, but adds that this project is too extravagant to merit the least consideration.[[61]]

This society was, however, compactly organized. Correspondence among the members was frequent, extensive, and frank. Almost uniformly, they were in favor of a reconstruction of the national government on a stronger basis.[[62]] They were bitter in their denunciation of the popular movements in the states; particularly Shays’ revolt in Massachusetts. War had given them a taste for strong measures, and the wretched provisions which had been made for paying them for their military services gave them an economic interest in the movement to secure a government with an adequate taxing power. Moreover, they were consolidated by the popular hostility to them on account of their “secret” and “aristocratic” character.

Personalty in Manufacturing and Shipping.—The third group of personalty interests embraced the manufacturing population, which was not inconsiderable even at that time. A large amount of capital had been invested in the several branches of industry and a superficial study of the extensive natural resources at hand revealed the immense possibilities of capitalistic enterprise. The industrial revolution was then getting under way in England and the fame of Arkwright was being spread abroad in the land. In the survey of the economic interests of the members of the federal Convention, given below, it is shown that a few leading men were directly connected with industrial concerns, although it is not apparent that the protection of industries was their chief consideration, in spite of the fact that they did undoubtedly contemplate such a system. But outside of the Convention vehement appeals were made by pamphleteers for protection, on the score that the discriminatory measures of Great Britain were disastrous to American economic independence.

As early as April, 1785, a memorial from prominent merchants and business men of Philadelphia was laid before the legislature of the state lamenting that Congress did not have “a full and entire power over the commerce of the United States,” and praying that the legislature request Congress to lay a proposal conferring such a power before the states for their ratification. The memorialists assured the legislature that there was a “disposition in the mercantile interest of Pennsylvania favorable thereto.”[[63]] Among the signers were T. Fitzsimons and George Clymer, who were destined to sit in the constitutional Convention as representatives of the state of Pennsylvania and of the mercantile interest which they had so much at heart.

The supporters of the Constitution were so earnest and so persistent in their assertion that commerce was languishing and manufactures perishing for the lack of protection that there must have been some justification for their claims, although it is impossible to say how widespread the havoc really was. The exaggeration of danger threatened by a tariff reduction is not peculiar to our times; it was sharply marked in older days. That the consumer suffered from the lack of the protection sought in 1787 by merchants and manufacturers is not apparent. Indeed the “mechanics and manufacturers of New York” in their humble petition to Congress for relief in 1789 complain that “their countrymen have been deluded by an appearance of plenty; by the profusion of foreign articles which has deluged the country; and thus have mistaken excessive importation for a flourishing trade. To this deception they [the petitioners] impute the continuance of that immoderate prepossession in favor of foreign commodities which has been the principal cause of their distresses, and the subject of their complaint.”[[64]]

That innumerable manufacturing, shipping, trading, and commercial interests did, however, look upon the adoption of the Constitution as the sure guarantee that protection could be procured against foreign competition, is fully evidenced in the memorials laid before Congress in April, May, and June, 1789, asking for the immediate enactment of discriminatory tariff laws.[[65]]

The first of these petitions was from Baltimore in particular and Maryland generally, and was communicated to the House of Representatives on April 11, 1789, a few days after that body had settled down to business. The second was laid before the House a week later by a committee representing the mechanics and manufacturers of New York. On May 25, 1789, the shipwrights of Philadelphia laid their pleas before Congress; and on June 5, the tradesmen and manufacturers of Boston put in their appearance. These petitions for protection from the four great trading and shipping centres of the country, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, which had been most zealous in securing the establishment of the new government, are in themselves eloquent documents for the economic interpretation of the Constitution.