Citizen or subject?

by Francis X. Hennessy

So long as the former subjects continued their Revolution, it was only natural that Americans should not realize how inadequately a mere federation of states would serve really to secure the protected enjoyment of individual human freedom. But, as soon as that war had ended, discerning men began quickly to realize that fact. Jealousies between nations, jealousies in abeyance while those nations were fighting a common war for independence, quickly had their marked effect upon the relations of these nations to one another and upon the respect which they showed to the commands of the government of the federation of which all those nations were members. As a matter of fact, those commands, because the governing powers of that government were wholly federal, were tantamount to nothing but requisitions. Those requisitions were honored largely by ignoring them. There was no way of enforcing respect for them or compelling observance of them. The plan of a purely federal union of nations permitted no method of enforcement save that of war upon whatever nation or nations might refuse obedience to a requisition. Such a war would have been repugnant to the mind of every patriotic American.

This was only one of the many defects coming from the fact that Americans, in spirit one people or nation, had no political existence as one nation and had no general national government, with general powers over all Americans, to command respect at home and abroad for the individual freedom of the American.

There is neither time nor necessity for dwelling further upon the fact, quickly brought home to the American people after the close of their Revolution, that a purely federal government of the states was no adequate security for their own freedom. Let the words of one of themselves, apologizing for the inadequacy of that government, attest their quick recognition that it was inadequate. They are the words of Jay in The Federalist of 1787. This is what he said: “A strong sense of the value and blessings of union induced the people, at a very early period, to institute a federal government to preserve and perpetuate it. They formed it almost as soon as they had a political existence; nay, at a time when their habitations were in flames, when many of their citizens were bleeding, and when the progress of hostility and desolation left little room for those calm and mature inquiries and reflections which must ever precede the formation of a wise and well-balanced government for a free people. It is not to be wondered at, that a government instituted in times so inauspicious, should on experiment be found greatly deficient and inadequate to the purpose it was intended to answer.” (Fed., No. 2.)

CHAPTER IV
THE BIRTH OF THE NATION

Living through those old days, immediately after the peace with England of 1783, we find that public and official recognition of a fatal defect in the federal form of union came from the inability of its federal government, which had no power over commerce, to establish a uniform regulation of trade among the thirteen American nations themselves and between them and foreign nations. Discerning men, such as Madison and Washington and others, already recognized other incurable defects in any form of union which was solely a union of nations and not a union of the American people themselves, in one nation, with a government which should have national, as well as federal, powers. Taking advantage of the general recognition that some central power over commerce was needed, the legislature of the nation of Virginia appointed James Madison, Edmund Randolph and others, as commissioners to meet similar commissioners to be appointed by the twelve other nations. The instructions to these commissioners were to examine into the trade situation and report to their respective nations as to how far a uniform system of commerce regulations was necessary. The meeting of these commissioners was at Annapolis in September, 1786. Only commissioners from the nations of Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York attended. The other eight nations were not represented.

Madison and Hamilton were both present at Annapolis and figured largely in what was done there. It is an interesting and important fact that these two played a large part from its very inception in the peaceful Revolution which brought to an end the independent existence of thirteen nations—a Revolution which subordinated these nations, their respective national governments, and their federation to a new nation of the whole American People, and to the Constitution and the government of that new nation.

At every stage of that Revolution, these two men were among its foremost leaders. Recorded history has made it plain that Madison, more than any other man in America, participated in planning what was accomplished in that Revolution. He drafted the substance of most of the Articles in what later became the Constitution of the new nation. By the famous essays (nearly all of which were written by himself or Hamilton) in The Federalist, explaining and showing the necessity of each of those Articles, he contributed most effectively to their making by the people of America, assembled in their conventions. He actually drew, probably in conference with Hamilton, what we know as the Fifth Article, which will later herein be largely the subject of our exclusive interest.

The Annapolis commissioners made a written report of their recommendations. This report was sent to the respective legislatures of the five nations, which had commissioners at Annapolis. Copies were also sent to the Federal Congress and to the Executives of the other eight nations in the federation. The report explained that the commissioners had become convinced that there were many important defects in the federal system, in addition to its lack of any power over commerce. The report recommended that the thirteen nations appoint “commissioners, to meet at Philadelphia on the second Monday in May next, to take into consideration the situation of the United States; to devise such further provisions as shall seem to them necessary to render the constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the Union; and to report such an act for that purpose, to the United States in Congress assembled as, when agreed to by them, and afterwards confirmed by the legislature of every state, will effectually provide for the same.”

The Annapolis recommendation was acted upon by the legislatures of twelve nations. Each nation, except Rhode Island, appointed delegates to attend the Philadelphia Convention to begin in May, 1787. Madison himself, in his introduction to his report of the debates of the Philadelphia Convention, gives his own explanation of why Rhode Island did not send delegates. “Rhode Island was the only exception to a compliance with the recommendation from Annapolis, well known to have been swayed by an obdurate adherence to an advantage, which her position gave her, of taxing her neighbors through their consumption of imported supplies—an advantage which it was foreseen would be taken from her by a revisal of the Articles of Confederation.” This is mentioned herein merely to bring home to the minds of Americans of the present generation the reality of the fact, now so difficult to realize, that there were then actually in America thirteen independent nations, each having its powerful jealousies of the other nations and particularly of its own immediate neighbors. The actual reality of this fact is something which the reader should not forget. It is important to a correct understanding of much that is said later herein. It is often mentioned in the arguments that accompanied the making of our Constitution, that the nation of New Jersey was suffering from exactly the same trouble as the nation of Rhode Island was causing to its neighbors. Almost all imported supplies consumed by the citizens of New Jersey came through the ports of New York and Philadelphia and were taxed by the nations of New York and Pennsylvania.

Interesting though it would be, it is impossible herein to give in detail the remarkable story of the four months’ Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. It began on May 14 and its last day was September 17. It is recommended to every American, who desires any real knowledge of what his nation really is, that he read, in preference to any other story of that Convention, the actual report of its debates by Madison, which he himself states were “written out from my notes, aided by the freshness of my recollections.” It is possible only to refer briefly but accurately to those actual facts, in the history of those four months, which are pertinent to the object of this book.