An economic interpretation of the constitution of the United States

484. Observations on Government, Including Some Animadversions on Mr. Adams’s Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, etc., published in 1787, by Livingston, under the pen-name of “A Farmer of New Jersey.” The pamphlet is sometimes ascribed to J. Stevens, but there is good authority for believing that Livingston is the author. It is not inconsistent with his notions on judicial control; see American Historical Review, Vol. IV, pp. 460 ff.

485. Farrand, Records, Vol. II, p. 33.

486. Farrand, Records, Vol. II, p. 36.

487. Documentary History of the Constitution, Vol. IV, p. 245.

488. Letter to Hamilton, Library of Congress, Hamilton Mss., Vol. XXIII, p. 93.

489. American Museum, Vol. IV, p. 333.

490. Steiner, Life and Correspondence, p. 527.

491. Above, p. 156. Mr. E. W. Crecraft, of Columbia University, has in preparation a dissertation on Madison’s political philosophy.

492. Farrand, Records, Vol. III, pp. 214 ff.

493. Farrand, Records, Vol. I, p. 428.

494. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 121.

495. See above, p. 128.

496. Farrand, Records, Vol. II, p. 205.

497. Farrand, Records, Vol. II, pp. 202 ff.

498. Roosevelt, Gouverneur Morris, p. 140.

499. See The Federalist, No. 51.

500. Farrand, Records, Vol. I, p. 409.

501. For an example see ibid., p. 11, note. He also entertained Washington during the sessions of the Convention. American Historical Association Report (1902), Vol. I, p. 92.

502. Beard, The Supreme Court and the Constitution, p. 37.

503. Farrand, Records, Vol. I, p. 474.

504. Ibid., Vol. III, p. 100.

505. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 248.

506. Madison Mss., Library of Congress; date of March 28, 1788.

507. Farrand, Records, Vol. I, p. 426.

508. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 122.

509. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 51 and p. 218.

510. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 136.

511. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 200.

512. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 409.

513. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 582.

514. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 249.

515. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 211.

516. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 364.

517. Farrand, Records, Vol. I, p. 48; also p. 154.

518. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 525.

519. Beard, The Supreme Court and the Constitution, p. 53.

520. Elliot, Debates, Vol. IV, p. 207.

521. Farrand, Records, Vol. I, 361.

522. Ibid., p. 72.

523. Ibid., p. 219.

524. Writings (Sparks ed., 1848), Vol. XII, p. 222; see below, p. 299.

525. Ibid., Vol. X, p. 429.

526. Ibid., Vol. X, p. 179.

527. Farrand, Records, Vol. II, pp. 201, 250.

528. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 140.

529. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 140.

531. Farrand, Vol. II, 376.

532. Farrand, Records, Vol. I, p. 49 and passim.

533. Ibid., p. 52 and passim.

534. Ibid., p. 68 and passim.

535. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 375; Vol. II, p. 125 and passim.

536. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 98; Beard, The Supreme Court and the Constitution, p. 42.

537. Lectures on Law (1804 ed.) Vol. I, pp. 398 ff.

538. Beard, The Supreme Court and the Constitution, p. 48.

539. “What they [the Convention] actually did, stripped of all fiction and verbiage, was to assume constituent powers, ordain a constitution of government and of liberty, and demand a plébiscite thereon over the heads of all existing legally organized powers. Had Julius or Napoleon committed these acts they would have been pronounced coups d’état.” Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law, Vol. I, p. 105.

540. Farrand, Records, Vol. I, p. 123.

541. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 89.

542. Farrand, Records, Vol. III, p. 137.

543. Farrand, Records, Vol. I, pp. 255 ff.; p. 283.

545. Harding, The Federal Constitution in Massachusetts, pp. 118–119.

546. The Massachusetts Centinel, January 2, 1788.

547. Batchellor, State Papers of New Hampshire, Vol. XXI, pp. 151–165; Documentary History of the Constitution, II, p. 141.

548. J. B. Walker, A History of the New Hampshire Convention, pp. 22 ff.

549. Four members are not recorded, and “there is a pretty well authenticated tradition that a certain prominent federalist of Concord gave a dinner party on the last day of the session at which several members reckoned as opposed to ratification were present and discussing the dinner when the final vote was taken.” Ibid., p. 43, note.

550. Harding, The Federal Constitution in Massachusetts, p. 67.

551. Harding, op. cit., p. 99.

552. Harding, op. cit., p. 101.

553. Documentary History of the Constitution, Vol. II, pp. 86–87; Connecticut Courant, October 22, 1787.

554. Bancroft, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 257.

555. Debates and Proceedings of the New York State Convention (1905 ed.), p. 3.

556. Bancroft, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 340.

557. Ibid., p. 340; and see below, p. 244.

558. State Papers: Miscellaneous, Vol. I, p. 7. For valuable side-lights on the opposition to the Constitution, see E. P. Smith’s essay, “The Movement towards a Second Constitutional Convention,” in Jameson, Essays in the Constitutional History of the United States, pp. 46 ff.

559. Documentary History of the Constitution, Vol. II, pp. 46 ff.

560. Bancroft, History of the Constitution of the United States, Vol. II, p. 250; Documentary History of the Constitution, Vol. II, p. 25; Delaware State Council Minutes, 1776–1792, pp. 1081–82 (Delaware Historical Society Papers); Connecticut Courant, Dec. 24, 1787.

561. See above, p. 82.

562. McMaster and Stone, Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution, p. 3.

563. McMaster and Stone, op. cit., p. 4.

564. Ibid., p. 14.

565. Ibid., p. 15.

566. McMaster and Stone, op. cit., p. 20. The following year [1788] when the ratification of the Constitution was celebrated in Philadelphia, James Wilson, in an oration on the great achievement said: “A people free and enlightened, establishing and ratifying a system of government which they have previously considered, examined, and approved! This is the spectacle which we are assembled to celebrate; and it is the most dignified one that has yet appeared on our globe.... What is the object exhibited to our contemplation? A whole people exercising its first and greatest power—performing an act of sovereignty, original and unlimited!... Happy country! May thy happiness be perpetual!” Works (1804 ed.), Vol. III, pp. 299 ff.

567. Bancroft, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 278; Votes and Proceedings of the Senate of Maryland, November Session, 1787, pp. 5 ff.

568. Ibid., p. 283.

569. Bancroft, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 316. The resolution provided that the “election shall be held in the month of March next on the first day of the court to be held for each county, city, or corporation respectively.” The qualifications of voters were “the same as those now established by law.” Blair, The Virginia Convention of 1788, Vol. I, p. 56–57. Only freeholders were eligible to seats in the Convention. Ibid., p. 56. Hening, Statutes at Large, Vol. XII, p. 462.

570. Laws of North Carolina (1821), Vol. I, p. 597; North Carolina Assembly Journals, 1785–98, p. 22.

571. Bancroft, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 349.

572. Hugh Williamson, writing to Madison on May 21, 1789, said: “Our people near the sea-coast are in great pain on the idea of being shut out from the Union. They say that unless they can continue in the coasting trade without the alien duty, they must starve with their families or remove from the state. Can no exception be made in favor of such apparent aliens for so long a period as the first of January next?” Madison Mss., Library of Congress.

573. Bancroft, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 293.

574. Documentary History of the Constitution, Vol. II, pp. 82 ff.

575. F. G. Bates, Rhode Island and the Union, pp. 192 ff.

576. Ibid., p. 197.

577. See below, p. 248.

578. See above, p. 234.

579. Ibid., p. 72.

580. Dodd, The Revision and Amendment of Constitutions; and Garner, in The American Political Science Review, February, 1907.

581. McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheaton, 316.

582. Batchellor, State Papers of New Hampshire, Vol. XXI, p. 165.

583. Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1788 (1856), p. 23.

584. Connecticut Courant, October 22, 1787.

585. Documentary History of the Constitution, Vol. II, p. 61.

586. Delaware State Council Minutes, 1776–1792, pp. 1080–1082.

587. McMaster and Stone, Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution, p. 72.

588. Votes and Proceedings of the Senate of Maryland, November Session, 1787, pp. 5 ff.

589. Above, p. 69. Blair, The Virginia Convention of 1788, Vol. I, pp. 56–57. Only freeholders could sit in the Convention.

590. North Carolina Assembly Journals, 1785–1789, p. 22.

591. Documentary History of the Constitution, Vol. II, p. 83.

592. Libby, Geographical Distribution of the Vote on the Federal Constitution, p. 26, and note.

593. Article cited below, p. 243.

594. McKinley, Suffrage Franchise in the English Colonies, p. 420.

595. Dr. J. F. Jameson, “Did the Fathers Vote,” New England Magazine, January, 1890.

596. A detailed statement of the vote in many Connecticut towns on the members of the state convention could doubtless be compiled after great labor from the local records described in the report on the public archives of Connecticut, Report of the American Historical Association for 1906, Vol. II.

597. Harding, The Federal Constitution in Massachusetts, p. 55, note 3. The Connecticut Courant gives the number as 763, December 17, 1787.

608. The Journal for June 5 reports the Anti-Federalist ticket carried in Washington County by a vote of two to one.

609. See below, p. 270.

610. See a forthcoming dissertation on this subject by Wm. Feigenbaum. There was a threat of secession on the part of some New York City interests in case the Constitution was defeated. Weight was given to this threat by the news of the ratification from New Hampshire and Virginia. The possibility of retaining New York as the seat of the new Government was used by Jay, Hamilton, and Duane as an argument in favor of ratification. James Madison, Writings, Vol. I, p. 405.

611. McMaster and Stone, op. cit., p. 460.

612. Scharf and Wescott, History of Philadelphia, Vol. I, p. 447.

613. Hartford Courant, April 28, 1788.

614. American Historical Review, Vol. V, p. 221.

615. “Appius,” To the Citizens of South Carolina (1794). Library of Congress, Duane Pamphlets, Vol. 83.

616. By a careful study of local geography and the distribution of representation this could be accurately figured out.

617. “The First Elections under the Constitution,” Iowa Journal of History and Politics, Vol. II, pp. 3 ff.

618. It will be recalled that the Constitution was put into effect without either North Carolina or Rhode Island.

619. See above, p. 248.

620. See below, p. 299.

621. Libby, op. cit., pp. 50 ff.

622. Above, Chapter V.

623. Massachusetts and the Federal Constitution (Harvard Studies).

624. Sectionalism in Virginia.

625. Libby, op. cit., pp. 7–8.

626. Ibid., p. 11.

627. Data given here are from State Papers: Finance, Vol. I, p. 442. It should be remembered that the figures would have been relatively different in 1787 on account of the union of Vermont with New Hampshire, but they are doubtless roughly correct.

628. Some painstaking research in the Treasury Department would produce valuable data toward the solution of this problem.

629. State Papers: Finance, Vol. I, p. 442 (public funds included. See p. 419).

630. See above for the table, p. 36.

631. Ms. Treasury Department: New Hampshire Loan Office Books.

632. Libby, op. cit., p. 12.

633. The Federal Constitution in Massachusetts, p. 75.

634. As to the opposition in Maine, see General Knox’s view, below, p. 301.

635. The Federal Constitution in Massachusetts, pp. 63–66.

636. State Papers: Finance, Vol. I, pp. 451. Of course some changes in distribution may have occurred between 1789 and 1792, but this may be taken as approximately correct.

637. State Papers: Finance, Vol. I, p. 443; Libby, op. cit., p. 107 for the vote.

638. Libby, op. cit., for vote, p. 107; State Papers: Finance, Vol. I. pp. 450 and 449 for taxes lists.

639. The full significance of the Worcester vote and property lists would involve an analysis of the distribution of each among the towns.

640. American Antiquarian Society Proceedings (1911), p. 65.

641. Ms. Treasury Department: Index to the Three Per Cents (Mass.). Gore, Dawes, and Phillips appear on the New Hampshire Journals and other Massachusetts Records.

642. The Index shows several holders by the name of Davis: Jonathan, James, Aaron, Susanna, John, Nathl., Joseph, Moses, Thomas, Saml., Wendell, and John G. Whether they were relatives of Caleb is not apparent. Leonard and Nathl. Jarvis also appear on the Book. Also Mary and Belcher Hancock.

643. All of these men except Wales and Warren appear on the Index to the Three Per Cents (Mass.). Wales and Warren appear on the books as holders of old certificates (Loan Office Certificates, 1779–1788, Mass.); and it does not appear when or how they disposed of their holdings.

644. See above, p. 75, note 3.

645. On September 3, 1787, the Connecticut Courant in a letter from Philadelphia (Aug. 24) says: “One of the first objects with the national government to be elected under the new constitution, it is said, will be to provide funds for the payment of the national debt, and thereby restore the credit of the United States, which has been so much impaired by the individual states. Every holder of a public security of any kind is, therefore, deeply interested in the cordial reception and speedy establishment of a vigorous continental government.”