The political economy of the original Constitution.

• Author: White, G. Edward
• Position: Annual Federalist Society National Student Symposium

INTRODUCTION

There seems to be little dispute that the original Constitution of the United States--and by "original Constitution" I mean the document drafted in 1787 and ratified, along with its first Ten Amendments, in 1789 and 1791 (1)--was an economic document. It was a document containing provisions that addressed economic issues and reflected economic attitudes. But the original Constitution was by no means solely an economic document. This Article will argue that if one emphasizes the Constitution's economic dimensions, one should approach it as a document reflecting attitudes toward political economy, that is, the relationship between political theory and economic activity.

This approach is distinct from another line of scholarship that has been concerned with "economic interpretations" of the Constitution. The other line of work, first made visible by Charles Beard's An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution (2) and perpetuated by Beard's critics, (3) sought to identify the economic "interests" of the men who drafted the Constitution and to suggest that those individuals--Beard identified them as including shippers, manufacturers, and bankers--wanted a strong central government to further their interests. (4) Beard's critics, by looking more closely at the backgrounds of the Framers, concluded that some of his characterizations were faulty. For example, although Beard claimed that groups whose economic interests centered on "personalty" favored the Constitution, in opposition to those whose interests centered on "realty," some of Beard's critics demonstrated that a majority of the Framers derived most of their income from real property holdings. (5)

The difficulties with economic interpretations of the Constitution are twofold. First, the approach, which rests on an "interest group" analysis of politics and economics fashionable for a time among twentieth-century historians, is anachronistic because it projects later conceptions of the organization of American political and economic life back on to the framing period. Most wealthy Americans of the framing era derived their incomes from a form of agricultural householding, which could involve extractive agriculture, land speculation, and domestic and international commerce. (6) Agricultural households operated both as subsistence farming operations and as commercial enterprises, blurring the line between "personal" and "real" property ownership. (7) Second, the approach tends to oversimplify. The mere fact that a supporter of the Constitution could be described as having a particular economic interest hardly proves that he supported the Constitution because of that interest. There are numerous reasons why late-eighteenth-century Americans might have supported or opposed a measure intended to transform the structure of American government. Economic interpretations of the Constitution, in the hands of some historians, become another way of demonstrating those historians' preference for ascribing weighty causal significance to economic motivations in historical actors.

Thus, the central question is not whether the Constitution is susceptible of an economic interpretation. Rather, if one assumes that the original Constitution was in some respects an economic document, one must ask what sort of economic document it was. In other words, on what assumptions about economic activity was the Constitution based? And, what was the relation of those assumptions to broader assumptions about human behavior, human governance, and the course of human events that the Framers held? In short, how might one describe the political economy of the original Constitution?

1. THE "ECONOMIC" PROVISIONS OF THE ORIGINAL CONSTITUTION

   A. The Central Concerns of the Constitution's Supporters The movement to alter the form of national government in the United States arose out of two sets of concerns that surfaced among creole elites (8) between the mid-1770s and the mid-1780s as Americans fought the Revolutionary War and gained experience with state governments and the federal government of the Articles of Confederation. (9) One set of concerns centered on the Articles of Confederation government's dependence on the States. (10) Although the Continental Congress directed and financed the Revolutionary War effort, it had been largely dependent on the States in doing so because the Articles government needed the support of nine states to exercise any of its principal powers. (11) Consequently, the Articles government never found an effective way to raise money throughout the War. It issued currency, but the currency rapidly depreciated. (12) It imposed war-related taxes on the States but had difficulty collecting. (13) It relied on state militias to staff the Continental Army but had trouble keeping and paying its soldiers. (14) It never was able fully to resolve the principal disputes regarding claims to western lands that had delayed ratification of the Articles until 1781, the year that the Revolutionary War ended. (15) It was, in short, a weak body, which threatened to fragment further as America emerged as an independent nation.

   The other set of concerns animating creole elites, who led the movement to reconsider the Articles form of government, arose out of the actions of state legislatures. The newly formed state governments quickly established state constitutions along the lines of republican theory, with most of their lawmaking power centered in legislatures rather than state executives or judges. (16) The executive branch was associated with colonial governments and discredited monarchism, and the drafters of most state constitutions did not have a robust conception of judicial power. (17) The newly composed state governments were premised on the theory of governance that members of state legislatures would be representatives of the people at large and be directly accountable to them. (18) Some legislatures, most conspicuously Pennsylvania's, had no upper houses. (19)

   From the point of view of those involved in the movement that led to the Philadelphia convention, what happened in state governments in the 1780s was predictable once one attended to some "truths" about human behavior. Factions, representing groups with particular political or economic interests, formed and sought to pass laws supporting their various agendas. (20) Demagogues emerged from state legislatures and the general population and sought to rouse masses of uneducated citizens in support of causes they advanced. (21) Shays's Rebellion, in which a group of farmers in western Massachusetts physically closed the courts to prevent the execution of judgments for debts in late 1786 and early 1787, was seen by proponents of the Philadelphia convention as illustrating both factionalism and demagoguery. (22) The farmers had become enraged by measures the Massachusetts legislature passed that--following the factional interests of eastern bankers and merchants--raised taxes and refused to make paper money legal tender for the payment of debts. (23) Demagogues in the western part of the state, where the measures were generally unpopular, stirred up farmers to prevent, through extra-legal means, the enforcement of laws perceived as adverse to their interests. (24) As James Madison suggested to Edmund Randolph and George Washington, while delegates to the Philadelphia convention prepared to convene in the spring of 1787, episodes such as Shays's Rebellion illustrated that much of state legislation was "vicious," consisting of "base and selfish measures, masked by pretexts of public good and apparent expediency," and promulgated by persons from motives of "ambition" and "personal interest." (25) Finally, Madison believed, the presence of factions within legislatures tended to produce measures that favored narrow self-interest of members of those factions rather than the interests of the public at large, and this undermined "the fundamental principle of republican Government, that the majority who rule in such Governments, are the safest Guardians both of public Good and of private rights." (26)

   In addition, Madison told the delegates that state governments repeatedly supported their parochial interests in the years since independence at the expense of the Articles government. (27) He singled out the states' failure to respond to wartime requisitions made by the Continental Congress, their violations of treaties Congress had made with foreign governments, their interference with interstate commerce, their sometimes antagonistic posture to the commercial interests of one another, and the apparent lack of concern among some state legislatures for established rights of property and contract. (28)

   When Madison communicated those sentiments, members of the Philadelphia convention were ostensibly assembling only to consider strengthening the powers of the Articles government. But as the implications of Madison's comments became clear to other delegates in Philadelphia, it was apparent that he was not confining his list of the "Vices of the Political System of the United States" to the encroachment of the States on federal powers or the States' failure to support the Articles government. (29) Madison also was directing his fellow delegates' attention to some of the evils illustrated by Shays's Rebellion that were apparently inherent in unicameral republican governments. (30) Because the Articles government had a unicameral legislature, (31) merely strengthening its powers would not address those evils: a more extensive restructuring of republican government in America was in order. When the delegates began to see the evils inherent in unicameral republican governments, they recognized that separating the powers of governmental institutions--a reform initially associated with unicameral state legislatures--could be applied to the Articles government as well. (32) As it turned out, the Constitution of the United...