The People?Making a New National

Government

Daniel Shays and Job Shattuck, 1786

Making sense of the American Revolution’s “Final Battle”Problems besetting new nation in

1780s: Inefficiencies of Articles of Confederation

(presented 11/1777; ratified 3/1781):

Powers of national government limited: Only powers necessary to war and independence (with 9

states assenting to diplomatic and money-related issues): Foreign relations : conducting war, and conducting

treaties Can coin and borrow money Can regulate Indian affairs

Can NOT: Levy taxes Regulate commerce

Making sense of the American Revolution’s “Final Battle”Problems besetting new nation in 1780s:

The problem of state government

Resolution: creating a new federal Constitution

Creating new state governmentsBegins in an unstructured way amid conflictNeed to fulfill civilian functions

Little direction from Continental Congress

Yet seen as marking “total, absolute independence.”

Creating new state governmentsCommon principles:

1. Reduced power of chief magistrateElected by legislature;terms limited; impeachment process created no legislative power

Creating new state governmentsCommon Principles:

2. Importance of separation of powersYET: Bulk of power with elected

legislatures prerogative powers lodged here

right to pardon (judicial function)right to conduct foreign relations,

declaring war and peace

Creating new state governmentsBig problem: Devising a scheme of

representation to reflect key elements of “the People”

Options:Reflect ownership of propertyGeographic parityDistribution of population

State Governments: Devising a representative schemeExample: Maryland

Dominated by elite plantersHigh property requirements to vote, higher to hold

office: L. 500. to serve in house of delegates L. 1000. to serve in state senate L. 5000. to serve as governor

Reflects key classical republican ideal: only the economically independent can make decisions in interest of greater good, selflessly

State Governments: Devising a representative schemeExample: Pennsylvania

Radical artisans, professionals, western farmers

Every element of government dependent on legislature

Broad suffrage: all male taxpayers and adult sons

Unicameral legislatureannual electionsterm limits

Benjamin Rush: ““absurd,” it “substituted a mob government to one of the happiest governments of the world.”

Problem of devising a representation scheme: Shay’s RebellionConservative constitution – weighted towards

east, with high property requirements to vote and hold office

Context of 1780s:Problem of war debt

MA decides to pay at face value immediately (boon to creditors)

Raise taxesDelay paying promissory notes to veterans

Shays RebellionWestern farmers:

Petition for debt relief, end to imprisonment for taxes, foreclosure moratorium

Are ignored,

Begin forcing closures of courts

Shay’s RebellionPrecedents: Declaration of Independence: ‘“governments

are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and institute new government.”

A new conspiracy among the powerful to trample liberty

Shay’s RebellionPerspective of Massachusetts’ governors:

Attacks on courts are attacks on orderly government“a rebellion against reason”

Rebels threaten property – in contractual credit

Rebels plotting own rise to power, promising distribution of wealth

“this revolution has introduced so much anarchy that it will take half a century to eliminate the licentiousness of the people. The pulling down of government tends to produce a settled and habitual contempt of authority in the people.”

1780s state actions: revision to republican ideologyOld vision: elite power threatens liberty

New revision: democratically elected legislatures threaten rights of the minority to property:

Danger of a tyranny of the majority

Perceived crisis of governmentNeed authority in government to ensure social

order

Monarchy has threat of force

Republic needs people willing to accept authority of stateDemands “public virtue”

What to do without virtuous people? ADJUST GOVERNMENT TO THEIR LICENTIOUSNESS

Solution: New federal scheme of governmentReserves power to the few virtuous

individuals

Yet visibly based on popular assent

New, strengthened central government vis a vis statesHow to protect people?

1. New concept of separation of powers: checks and balances

John Jay: “the framers had not only determined that the new government should be erected by, and depend on the people; but remembering the many instances in which governments vested solely in one man, or one body of men had degenerated into tyrannies, they judged it most prudent that the three great branches of power should be committed to different hands.”

New, strengthened federal government: how to protect People?2. Ensure an “aristocracy of merit” via new representation scheme

large district method of determining representation

sift for “the best men in the country”

Filtration of talent and the electoral college

Broadening the interest of representativesFederalist no 51, James MadisonIt is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the

oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure. There are but two methods of providing against this evil: the one by creating a will in the community independent of the majority . . .; the other, by comprehending in the society so many separate descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole very improbable, if not impracticable.

The first method prevails in all governments possessing an hereditary or self-appointed authority. This, at best, is but a precarious security. . . The second method will be exemplified in the federal republic of the United States. Whilst all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority.

Antifederalist response:A new tyranny afootThe Centinel, Oct 1, 1787 . . . the people are too apt to yield an implicit assent to the opinions of those

characters, whose abilities are held in the highest esteem, and to those in whose integrity and patriotism they can confide, not considering that the love of domination is generally in proportion to talents, abilities, and superior acquirements, and that the men of the greatest purity of intention may be made instruments of despotism in the hands of the artful and designing. If it were not for the stability and attachment which time and habit gives to forms of government, it would be in the power of the enlightened and aspiring few if they should combine at any time to destroy the best establishments, and even make the people the instruments of their own subjugation. . .

[The people] must not be permitted to consider themselves as a groveling, distinct species, uninterested in the general welfare.

Contested Meanings of the Revolution – its greatest legacyRevolution as ongoing conflict and

negotiation between competing social forces over who should have power and voice

Those in power need to accommodate dissident interests to stay in power

Shays’ Rebellion: Was a moratorium declared on debt collection Taxes cut dramatically on land; raised on luxuries