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I The Problem of Interpretation
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I The Problem of Interpretation T HE ARTICLES of Confederation have been assigned one of the most inglorious roles in American history. They have been treated as the product of ignorance and inexperience and the parent of chaos; hence the necessity for a new constitution in 1787 to save the country from ruin. In so interpreting the first constitution of the United States and the history of the country during its existence, historians have accepted a tradition established by the Federalist Party. They have not stopped to consider that the Federalist Party was organized to destroy a constitution embodying ideals of self-government and economic practice that were naturally abhorrent to those elements in American society of which that party was the political expression. The Federalist Party, as none knew better than John Adams, was the party of "the education, the talents, the virtues, and the property of the country." 1 As such it had no faith in the democracy made possible by the Articles of Confederation. In the Convention of 1787 Edmund Randolph pointed out that the framers of the Confederation were wise and great men, but that "human rights were the chief knowledge of the time." Since then, he said, "our chief danger arises from the democratic parts of our constitutions. It is a maxim which I hold incontrovertible, that the powers of government exercised by the people swallows up the other branches. None of the constitutions have provided sufficient checks against the democracy. The feeble Senate of Virginia is a phantom. Maryland has a more powerful senate, but the late distractions in that State, have discovered that is not powerful enough. The check established in the constitution of New 1 John Adams to Benjamin Stoddert, March 31, 1801, in Tbe Works of lobn Adums, edited by Charles F. Adams (10 vols., Boston, 1850--56), 9:582. See also Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of tbe Constitution of tbe United States (New York, 1925), passim. Corroboration is likewise to be found in so conservative a work as Albert Beveridge's Tbe Life of Jobn Manball (4 vols., Boston, 1916), 1:312-313. 4 The Articles of Confederation York and Massachusetts is yet a stronger barrier against democracy , but they all seem insufficient." 2 Alexander Hamilton was in profound agreement, and his views are equally illuminating of the character and purpose of the Federalist Party. "All communities," he said in the convention, "divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well-born, the other the mass of the people"; if the rich and the well-born are given a permanent share in the government, they will ever after oppose any change in its form. He had only contempt for the popular belief that the voice of the people was the voice of God. The people, he said, seldom judge rightly.3 In The Federalist he took the position that government had been instituted to provide "constraint" because "the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice." 4 John Jay did not elaborate his beliefs to the same extent as did his fellow Federalists, but contented himself with his favorite maxim that "the people who own the country ought to govern it." 5 Men who believed thus undertook to convince their countrymen of the inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation. They pictured the Confederation period as one of chaos, born solely of the existing form of government. Many contemporaries were so convinced, and posterity has seldom questioned their partisan interpretation. The Federalist papers were only one portion of the propaganda 6 for the Constitution of 1787 which later historians 2 Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (3 vols., New Haven, 1911), 1:26--27. Madison's essay No. IO in The Federalist is further proof that the founding fathers were consciously at work to destroy what they recognized as democracy and its evils. In that essay Madison demonstrates the advantages of a republic over a democracy. • Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, I: 299. • The Federalist, No. 15. "Frank Monaghan, John Jay (New York, 1935), 323. • The development of Federalist propaganda may be traced in the contemporary press. Items with a tinge of special pleading began to appear before the convention met, continued during its deliberations, and burst forth in full strength once the Constitution was presented to the electorate. A few examples will suffice. On May 16, 1787, the Pennsylvania Gazette pictured...