8.2.4

Describe the political philosophy underpinning the Constitution as specified in the Federalist Papers (authored by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay) and the role of such leaders as Madison, George Washington, Roger Sherman, Gouverneur Morris, and James Wilson in the writing and ratification of the Constitution.
             The documents of the Constitutional Convention were kept secret until late September 1787. The Confederation Congress sent the finished Constitution out for ratification by state conventions named for that purpose -- not by state legislatures, many of which were antagonistic to the new document. Thus the Constitution -- which began “We the people” -- created a government with the people, and not the state legislatures, as the fundamental power.
             The Federalists were sophisticated socialites who were better established than their opponents. In the beginning of the ratification attempt, they made greater use of pamphlets and newspapers. In New York, Federalist leaders Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison constituted the forceful and abiding Federalist papers to counter doubts about the directed new government. By January 1788, conventions in Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut had ratified the Constitution.
             Men who had led the movement for the Constitution, most of whom called themselves Federalists, dominated the new national government. They were committed to making an authoritative and stable national state. This became very evident when President Washington asked Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton to offer solutions to the problems of the national debt and government finances. Hamilton proposed that the federal government presuppose the revolutionary war debts of the states and integrate them with the debt of the United States into one national debt.
             The federal government would compensate off the parts of the debt that were owed to foreigners, thus inaugurating the universal credit of the new government. Nevertheless, the new government would make the domestic debt immutable, selling government bonds that paid an endorsed high interest rate. Hamilton also suggested national banks to control treasury funds, print, and back the federal currency.
             The bank and the permanent debt would cement ties between private financiers and the government, which they would require an enlarged government command and federal taxation. Hamilton asked for a federal eradicate tax on coffee, tea, wine, and spirits. The latter included whiskey, and the excise quickly became known as the Whiskey Tax. Hamilton’s plan increased the power of the national government.
             Hamilton’s measures promised to stabilize government finances and to establish the government’s reputation internationally and its authority in every corner of the republic. They would also emotionally concentrate power in the national government. Many citizens and members of Congress mistrusted Hamilton’s plans. The verification of the bank demanded Congress to use the clause in the Constitution that enables the legislature to carry out its specified powers. The government would require a massive civil service to conduct the debt and accumulate taxes. To Madison, Jefferson, and many others, Hamilton’s plans for the sovereign government too closely reproduced the powerful British government.
             Jefferson headed the group that called themselves Democratic-Republicans. They agreed that it was necessary that the United States remain a republic of the small, property-holding farmers who, believed among themselves, were its most trustworthy citizens. Democratic-Republicans predicted a central government that was powerful enough to preserve property but not powerful or sharp enough to endanger property or other republican rights. Jefferson dreaded the national debt, the federal taxes, and the enlarged civil service that Hamilton’s plans obligated.
             When Jefferson was elected president in 1800, he obtained much of the debt that Hamilton had anticipated as an everlasting fixture of government. The Jeffersonians then exterminated federal taxes, decreased the number of government employees, and diminished the magnitude of the military. However, they did preserve the Bank of the United States. Internationally, the Jeffersonians didn’t aspire to trade the production of their plantations and farms for finished goods from other countries.
             After the American Colonies professed their Independence from Britain, a drafting of the "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union" by multitudinous Delegates was in the Process of Completion. These Articles of Confederation became the tie that would bond the recently formed United States until 1789, when the Constitution of the United States of America would finally undertake Control of the Government that was once held by the Articles.
             The fabrication of the Constitution was not, however, a diminutive and lucid Process. Heated debates, arguments, and even fighting were all implicated in its culmination. When the inestimable Document was ultimately concluded, it was still up to nine States to ratify it. It was then that Madison, Hamilton, and Jay took it upon them to console Public Support for it. They knew that with the assistance of New York, an abundance of States would follow, and accompany the essential nine-state ratification for the Constitution to take effect.


More Information:

   1.    http://class.lls.edu/~manheimk/cl1/commercex.htm
          This site describes the commerce clause.

   2.    http://federalist.freeservers.com/papers.html
          This site discusses the Federalist papers.

   3.    http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/interstatetax.htm
          This site gives information on the commerce clause.

   4.    http://class.lls.edu/~manheimk/cl1/dormant2x.htm
          This site gives information on the dormant commerce clause.