Cronyism

CHAPTER 3

THE US CONSTITUTION: THE TRIUMPH OF POWER

The Postwar Depression

After the Revolutionary War, the country faced an economic crisis that interventionists used to launch another constitutional drive. Most historians attribute the 1780s economic disturbances to the weak Articles of Confederation, arguing that they led to poor economic growth and therefore the drive for stronger government was for the public interest. In reality, the Articles limited special-interest legislation. Difficulties in the early 1780s came from the war’s aftermath, and postwar interventions delayed recovery. Furthermore, the second—and this time successful—counterrevolution was really a crony putsch.

Strong evidence suggests that the American economy did not return to its pre-war levels until the beginning of the nineteenth century. First, industries had to recover from wartime destruction and rebuild damaged infrastructure. Second, manufacturers needed to experience a harsh but necessary correction: when peace arrived, Great Britain’s better quality and lower-priced manufacturing exports returned to American shores. Consequently, Americans had to reallocate labor and other resources away from eastern manufacturing and back to agriculture and westward settlement. Third, Great Britain now restricted its purchases of American exports, forcing a redirection of exports to continental Europe and Asia. All three of these factors— recovering from wartime destruction, reallocating resources used in wartime production, and suffering from coercive foreign trade legislation—produced a postwar depression in 1784.

Postwar tax and monetary policies aggravated this depression and hampered a quick recovery. The crucial problem for the federal and state governments was how to service their massive war debts. Unable to raise taxes, the Confederation Congress tried to prod states for requisitions. States attempted to fund their debts and make requisition payments by raising taxes and printing money, imposing distortions and misallocations onto an already depressed economy.

States raised taxes by roughly three to six times their prewar levels and used an estimated 50 to 90 percent of tax revenue for debt repayment. Revenue from state tariffs was low, so most of this money came internally from excise and property taxes. Citizens complained loudly about the severe tax burdens they usually had to pay in specie. For example, the average citizen’s taxes in Massachusetts increased from 2 to 10 percent of their income. Oligarchs designed the burden to regressively saddle poor interior farmers the most; they paid around 33 percent. The Massachusetts legislature needed the high taxes to pay the state debt at twice its prevailing market value to benefit speculators. The taxes eventually led to a severe tax revolt known as Shays’ Rebellion from the fall of 1786 to early 1787. The sharp increase in Massachusetts’ and other states’ taxes reduced incentives to save and produce, thereby delaying recovery from the depression. On the other hand, Virginia paid off its debt at market values and state congressman Patrick Henry successfully pushed for lower taxes.

Seven states—Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island—also printed money in 1785 and 1786 to pay off debts. While the printed money did reduce real debt burdens, some of these states also enacted legal tender laws. The result, Gresham’s Law, aggravated the depression. In addition, higher prices caused by inflated credit by the three monopolistic state banks—the Bank of North America, the Bank of New York (BONY, est. 1784), and the Massachusetts Bank (est. 1784)—artificially increased imports, causing a specie outflow that forced the banks to contract credit. It was the first real instance of the price–specie flow mechanism in the United States, an important self-correcting response of the free market articulated by Enlightenment economists and anti-bank Americans. When the banks contracted in 1784 and 1785 an additional readjustment process had to occur.

Therefore, the depression inevitably resulted from a destructive war and government policies—foreign trade legislation, high taxes, debt monetization, and bank inflation. A stronger central government would not have been able to change any of these factors. However, despite this depression of the mid-1780s, many contemporaries still considered the period a time of growth. In fact, the 1780s experienced one of the greatest increases in population out of any decade in US history. Thus, by April 1786, Secretary of the Confederation Congress Charles Thomson could write to Thomas Jefferson, Minister to France, and declare that

[t]here is not upon the face of the earth a body of people more happy or rising into consequence with more rapid stride. . . . Population is encreasing, new houses building, new lands clearing, new settlements forming, and new manufacture establishing with a rapidity beyond conception.

Thomson’s statement was a promising description of the young republic’s capitalistic future.

The United States could have avoided raising taxes and printing money, and hence part of the depression, by repudiating its debts. The repudiation would not have hurt initial bond recipients because the vast majority had already sold their securities to speculators. Moreover, repudiation would have weakened the various governments’ credit among domestic and foreign lenders, handicapping their borrowing capabilities and channeling savings to private industry. Some contemporaries argued for such a plan. In April 1786, “A Non-Impost Man” astutely wrote in the American Herald, “[T]he debt need not be paid; national credit is a proud fancy; funds are the means to betray our liberties; a revenue impoverishes the people; and the wisdom of Congress is the ambition of despots.” The Confederation Congress could have also divided up the federal debt among the states for retirement at realistic market values. Once again, some contemporaries argued for this, such as a special committee at the Confederation Congress in August 1786.

However, the United States eschewed both options and the federal and state debts, like the depression, provided the ultimate justification for a new central government. This time the reactionaries succeeded.

The Reactionary Forces Regroup

In the 1780s, various groups favored a government stronger than the Articles of Confederation that could dispense special privileges, surpassing the previous followers of Robert Morris.

Revolutionary War holdovers constituted the most prominent group. The Confederation owed money to debt holders and ex-military officers connected with the Society of the Cincinnati. Virginia’s James Madison, who wanted the federal and state debts funded at par, crucially pushed the 1783 impost through Congress. In contrast to Madison, radicals argued against a central taxing power and supported dividing the debt among the states. Despite their efforts, the states submitted to the amendment.

In Virginia, nationalists ardently backed the proposal. However, while Henry wavered, George Mason and Richard Henry Lee fiercely resisted. In the end, after Mason relented and George Washington exerted his influence, Virginia ratified in late 1783. Even Rhode Island relented in early 1786, over the protests of David Howell, and by August only New York remained. But the increasingly radicalized Governor George Clinton and his loyal political machine controlled the state. Clinton’s critics argued that he wanted to protect the revenue accrued from the state’s high tariffs. In reality, New York’s tariffs ranged around 5 percent, similar to those of other states, and New York City enjoyed little competition with nearby ports.

The Clintonian Abraham Yates led the state’s opposition. Once the taxing power, “the only object of tyrants,” was granted to the federal government, “it [would] eventually draw into its vortex all other powers” and destroy the people’s liberties. Alexander Hamilton and Philip Schuyler fought vigorously but failed to persuade Clintonians to abide by the impost’s proposed terms. Once again the Article’s unanimity requirement stymied any effort to centralize power through a national tax. Debt holders and military officials went back to the drawing board.

The Articles also prevented the accrual of power in other ways, frustrating new special-interest groups. Recent events greatly distressed the banking interests. By 1783, the BONA had lost the Confederation’s privileges and Pennsylvania radicals, led by William Findley and John Smilie, repealed its state charter in 1785 on constitutional grounds. Although reactionaries regained the legislature in 1786 and granted another charter, the corporation now possessed fewer privileges. Furthermore, Pennsylvania’s paper money competed with the BONA’s notes. Banking interests, led by Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, and James Wilson, desired to reestablish the crony partnership.

Other business interests experienced setbacks. Inefficient northern manufacturers and shippers clamored for state tariffs and navigation laws to block other states’ products and Great Britain’s goods and ships. However, interstate competition minimized actual regulations: if one state imposed high restrictions, other states undercut them to acquire additional imports. In addition, the South’s limited manufacturing and shipping motivated the region to pass milder regulations. On the national level, unanimity and supermajority requirements neutered mercantilist proposals: New York had defeated the 1783 impost and Congressman Lee successfully defeated a navigation act in 1785. Northern manufacturers and shippers wanted to outlaw state competition and set one large net to ensure uniform protection.

Proponents of internal improvements failed to secure enough state subsidies. Washington, a particularly frustrated advocate, worked with transportation companies that wanted to improve westward navigation. He knew national assistance would foster centralization and increase his own wealth through higher stock prices and land values. Washington and others supported increased taxing power and authority to finance such improvements.

Similarly, various groups yearned for a strong army and navy. Since the end of the Revolutionary War, the reactionary Hamilton and Washington supported a standing army, but the radical Congressmen Elbridge Gerry, Howell, and Lee blocked such proposals. Statists magnified their demands when Daniel Shays and others erupted in open rebellion against Massachusetts’ onerous taxes. Although Massachusetts suppressed the rebellion, and men such as Jefferson remained unalarmed, the turmoil worried the reactionaries. Hamilton, Rufus King, and Henry Knox, the Confederation’s Secretary at War and the Society of the Cincinnati’s secretary, strongly castigated the rebels and urged for a stronger government that could suppress resistance.

Furthermore, reactionary land speculators and merchants recognized that a reinvigorated military could coercively open up trade and territory, particularly in the Northwest, West Indies, Southwest, and Mediterranean Sea. After the war, land speculators lobbied the Confederation Congress to set a high minimum price and plot sizes for western lands to block out settlers. Consequently, the Ordinance of 1785 set the minimum price at $1 per acre and the tract size at 640 acres. The land speculators then lobbied Congress and secured large land grants, particularly in the Northwest, payable in cheap government debt. However, the British refused to leave their northwestern forts, because Americans had failed to pay prewar debts. Americans considered the obligations unjust, arguing that Great Britain’s mercantilist regulations had forced them to borrow. Land speculators wanted a powerful army that could force the British to leave the Northwest.

Merchants also eyed Britain’s West Indies’ ports, which remained closed to American goods because of the debt controversy. They pushed for a navy that could incentivize the British to change their mind.

Spain also refused to allow navigation on the Mississippi River, though it generously welcomed other trade arrangements, particularly the Jay-Gardoqui Treaty of 1786. But the proposed treaty did not secure the Mississippi, hurting land speculators and merchants. Furthermore, the stalemate caused Kentucky and Tennessee to toy with secession from Virginia and North Carolina, and prominent southern politicians to flirt with a southern confederation. One such politician was Governor Patrick Henry, who scorned the proposed treaty and believed it a northern plot to confine settlement in the East. When some New England reactionaries subtly threatened to form their own confederation to intimidate the South, Henry’s hostility to centralized government increased. Interventionists wanted a nationalizing resolution on the Mississippi issue to stop secession and Henry’s resistance. One option was a large army.

In the Mediterranean, the Barbary States of North Africa (Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli) had always demanded tribute from American vessels. Previously, Great Britain paid them. But while the Confederation Congress conducted a favorable peace treaty with Morocco in 1787, the other Barbary States demanded higher taxes. Minister to France Jefferson, usually cognizant of the cost of war, urged armed confrontation. Far more cogent was Minister to Great Britain John Adams, who wisely noted that tribute was less expensive than war. Secretary for Foreign Affairs John Jay, reactionary to the core, hoped to exploit the opportunity and develop a strong navy.

By 1786 and 1787, the Articles’ discipline provided only two options: the states’ rights Confederation must remain permanently weak or break up. Secession could possibly lead to separate New England, Mid-Atlantic, southern, and western confederacies. Such libertarian decentralization would promote competition and weaken governments’ ability to pass centralizing taxes, regulations, and subsidies to benefit favored interests. Recognizing that this would ruin their plans, reactionaries realized it was now or never.

The Constitutional Convention

The United States Constitution is often treated as a hallowed document for saving the country from the brink of total destruction. Even many modern-day proponents of limited government consider it a significant check on cronyism. In reality, the Constitution was nothing more than the continuation of previous efforts to establish an American Old Order. It only acquired its laissez-faire meaning because of later strategic interpretations by libertarians.

In the mid-1780s the political spectrum coalesced into two groups. The reactionaries became bona fide nationalists, desiring to replace the confederation with a new government that could over-power the states and enact mercantilism. These nationalists swelled their ranks with the various disgruntled groups. On the other hand, the champions of liberty, who vigorously supported independence, became federalists. They secretly desired to either split up the confederation, maintain the weak Articles, or slightly strengthen them with amendments. Power would be spread out across the governments; hence the term federalism. Above all, these libertarians believed states’ rights provided the best bulwark against special privileges. Nationalists hailed from the seaboard, federalists from the western regions of the states.

Three factors assured the nationalists’ victory despite their minority status. First, the bulk of the country’s prominent men supported nationalism, and these men closely communicated with each other. Second, some of the radical leadership had shifted into the nationalist camp, cornering federalist leaders into the defensive. Third, and most importantly, the nationalists deliberately lied to the public. Their most crucial obfuscation was to not call themselves nationalists, anathema to the public, but instead “Federalists” even though they secretly desired to crush states’ rights. They called the true federalists “Anti-federalists” to sour their viewpoint in the public’s mind. The linguistic sleight of hand was complete: Federalists championed a stronger national government while Antifederalists stood for a weaker national government.

In January 1786, the reactionary Madison proposed in the Virginia legislature a convention to strengthen Congress’ regulatory powers. At the time, Patrick Henry was hesitatingly sympathetic, sending out a circular letter to the other governors. However, in September only a small group of Federalist delegates from five states met in Annapolis, Maryland. Despite this setback, Madison worked with Hamilton and planned for another convention, meeting next May in Philadelphia, to discuss legal amendments to the Articles.

Federalists dominated the Philadelphia Convention because many Antifederalists disastrously declined to attend. Thus, many prominent Virginia and Massachusetts Antifederalists—Lee, Henry, Sam Adams, and John Hancock—were absent and only Mason and Gerry attended. Henry refused to participate because he “smelt a rat.” In addition, the radical theoretician Jefferson still served as Minister to France. Furthermore, Clinton absented and the staunchly Antifederal Rhode Island refused to send any delegates. Only a few hardcore libertarians attended: the obscure Clintonians Robert Yates and John Lansing, the nephew of Abraham Yates and the mayor of Albany, respectively, and Luther Martin, Maryland’s attorney general. Despite their best efforts, the three would leave in disgust before the convention ended. These radicals, along with the more moderate Mason and Gerry, could not match the Federalists’ heavy artillery: Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, and Wilson of Pennsylvania; Hamilton of New York; Madison and Washington of Virginia; and the wealthy planters Charles Pinckney and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina.

The Federalist-dominated Constitutional Convention quickly scrapped the Articles and devised an entirely new government. Unsurprisingly, Robert Morris’ ambit—Gouverneur Morris, Wilson, and Madison—played the largest role. Hamilton played a smaller part because Yates and Lansing continually outvoted him in the New York delegation and other Federalists balked at his monarchical tendencies. Robert Morris also sat on the sidelines because he knew his extensive involvement would generate too much controversy. Overall, the convention’s Constitution laid the foundations for a corrupt American Empire.

To begin, the Federalists gave their new system the necessary political, legal, and military infrastructure. Instead of the Confederation’s unicameral legislature, the new government contained three branches—a bicameral legislature, an executive, and a supreme judiciary—equipped with a host of formidable powers. Politicians possessed long terms with no limits, creating an oligarchical elite shielded from rotation in office. Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris even favored life tenure for some executive and legislative positions, though the convention only gave life tenure to the judicial branch.

A single president led the executive branch and could indefinitely win reelection by an Electoral College remote from state legislatures or congressional control. He had the power to veto legislation (susceptible to a two-thirds override), a colonial relic that made it harder to pass anti-crony reforms; create a formidable bureaucracy; and command the military. Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, Madison, and Wilson advocated for a powerful executive against Mason’s protests, who believed it would establish a monarchy. Hamilton and Wilson even wanted to give the executive an absolute veto, which would have erected an impenetrable bulwark against reform. Overall, the Federalists knew that a strong executive branch was indispensable for cronyism.

A bicameral Congress possessed the unlimited power to tax, regulate, spend, and raise standing armies, all constitutionally justified by vague clauses. The Supremacy Clause made federal edicts “the supreme Law of the Land”; the general welfare clause sanctioned the collection of taxes, payment of debts, and provision “for the common Defence and general Welfare”; and the necessary and proper clause allowed for “all Laws which shall be necessary and proper.” Politicians and legal scholars later scrutinized these clauses, but at the convention relatively little debate occurred. The Federalists recognized the broad clauses easily facilitated special-interest legislation, shrewdly realizing that enumeration of such privilege granting would increase hostility toward the Constitution.

Martin introduced a weakened supremacy clause as a response to Madison’s proposed congressional veto over any state’s legislation. Although Martin intended the supremacy clause to limit power, the convention strengthened it so much that Martin ended up denouncing the final version as “worse than useless.” The convention approved the necessary and proper clause with little debate, though Gerry and Mason bitterly objected. Federalists strengthened the Articles’ general welfare clauses. Men such as Gouverneur Morris and Wilson recognized that if those clauses allowed the Confederation Congress to charter the Bank of North America, a stronger clause could do far more. The ultra-reactionaries, from John Dickinson to the present, knew that vague clauses played an indispensable role in enhancing the central government’s power.

Finally, an elite Supreme Court, appointed by the president for life, lorded over the judicial branch and could review state and federal laws’ constitutionality. In addition, Madison and Wilson enabled Congress to establish inferior courts to aid the Supreme Court. Through judicial review, the federal system would be the final arbiter of all constitutional questions, a fatal blow to states’ rights. No real mechanism existed to check the unelected judges, nor could states and other federal branches challenge the judiciary’s decisions. This monopolization of legal services indispensably furthered cronyism.

One by one all the special interests received what they wanted. When it came to the debt speculators, Congress would assume the Confederation’s debts. Furthermore, Madison and Hamilton successfully argued that the Constitution remain silent on state debts to provoke less opposition. Federalists then linked Congress’ taxing power to payment of the public debt and general welfare. If Congress assumed federal as well as state debts at par, speculators would make a killing.

The Constitution also enshrined monetary mercantilism. The coinage clause authorized Congress to “coin money” and make legal tender laws in specie, thereby regulating the money supply. In addition to a clause authorizing borrowing money, the Constitution initially allowed Congress to issue “bills on the credit of the United States” (i.e., paper money). However, the Convention struck this paper money clause out. Gouverneur Morris argued that the lack of explicit enumeration just restricted issuance to a “responsible minister,” while Nathaniel Gorham of Massachusetts and Madison recognized that the Constitution still implied “safe” emissions. Crucially though, the Federalists made the prohibition of state paper money explicit, largely due to BONA stockholders Robert Morris and Gouverneur Morris. Pennsylvania’s delegation wanted the Constitution to block out the competition of state paper money and instead funnel crony monetary privileges to their own banking interests.

Quite crucially, the Federalists also secured the ability to charter a new central bank. Gouverneur Morris argued that the general welfare clause authorized Congress to grant “exclusive privileges to trading companies.” When Madison proposed explicit enumeration, Wilson remarked that such power was “already included in the power to regulate trade,” to Mason’s dismay. The ultra-Federalists, the major players behind the constitutional drive, knew the vague clauses could always do the dirty work, just like with the BONA during the Revolutionary War.

The Federalists did not leave out the manufacturers and shippers. The convention outlawed interstate tariffs, granting vague interstate regulatory oversight (the commerce clause) to only a simple majority in both chambers. This made it easier for Congress to cast a mercantilist net on all states to benefit select business groups. Some southern delegates bitterly protested the simple majority, such as the Federalist Charles Pinckney and the Antifederalists Martin and Mason. However, as Gorham bluntly explained: “If the Government is to be so fettered as to be unable to relieve the Eastern States what motive can they have to join in it.” The Constitution allowed the North to finally enact its preferred redistribution.

Proponents of internal improvements secured successes as well. Armed with vast taxing capabilities, the delegates empowered Congress “to establish Post Offices and post Roads,” an opening wedge for subsidized public works. Although the delegates voted down a clause that explicitly enumerated the power to build “canals where deemed necessary,” Gouverneur Morris and Wilson realized the broad clauses could perform the heavy lifting.

Finally, land speculators and other proponents of a strong army and navy got their way. Congress could finance a military, and the president could command the army, enlist state militias, and govern any war departments Congress might establish. Gerry and Martin bitterly protested the pro-military provisions but to no avail: the Federalists adamantly demanded the expansionist commercial interests receive their military polity. Gouverneur Morris even wanted a simple majority for the Senate to ratify peace treaties instead of the agreed-upon two-thirds requirement to encourage Congress to declare war for the Mississippi River. Murray Rothbard remarks that Morris’ desire “was a clear-cut indication of the neglected role that the power for aggressive war and any adventurous foreign policy played in the drive for the new Constitution.” After all, as John Rutledge of South Carolina remarked, “[w]e are laying the foundation for a great empire.”

As an extra sop to land speculators, Rufus King, Wilson, and Madison prevented the states from passing a “Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts.” Wilson, an attorney for Robert Morris, wanted to protect monopolistic corporate charters like that of the BONA. Federalists eagerly expected to use this contract clause to shield land grants.

The major debates at the Constitutional Convention concerned who would control the Constitution’s powers, particularly through representation in the bicameral Congress: greater political representation would increase a region’s ability to control special-interest legislation. Large-state Federalists, such as Madison, Gouverneur Morris, and Wilson, squabbled bitterly with small-state Federalists, particularly Connecticut’s Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, over states’ proportional or equal representation. Concurrently, northern and southern states vehemently debated the political representation of slaves, which impacted the North’s ability to pass tariffs and navigation acts.

After much debate, everyone shook hands. First, the Constitution sanctioned equal representation in the Senate (the upper oligarchical house) and proportional representation in the House (the lower democratic house) to give large and small states approximate parity. Second, and quite fatefully, the Constitution based House apportionment on the free population and three-fifths of slaves. Many envisioned that this clause, in conjunction with projected population trends, ensured southern dominance. Clearly, the North subsidized southern slavery in return for easier passage of tariffs and navigation acts in the short term. Hamilton later candidly admitted that the slave compromise resulted from the “spirit of accommodation which governed the convention; and without this indulgence no union could possibly have been formed.”

A related debate involved the country’s first “corrupt bargain.” The convention strengthened southern slavery through a twenty-year protection of the slave trade. In return, the North could enact mercantilist tariffs and navigation acts through a simple majority vote. Further-more, the Constitution contained a fugitive slave clause that required states to return escaped slaves, thereby socializing the enforcement costs of slaveholding. Antifederal Luther Martin was especially critical of the Constitution’s pro-slavery features, considering the document an “insult to that God . . . who views with equal eye the poor African slave and his American master.”The Constitution reduced anti-slavery sentiments and codified slavery across the country.

The entire Constitution looked limited, democratic, and responsive to the people. In reality, it empowered a small elite, crippled states’ rights, and created the groundwork for an Old Order American Empire. The Constitution was an especially suffocating document without any bill of rights that protected personal liberties and reserved power to the states.

Importantly, the Constitutional Convention was outside the Articles’ amendment procedure. When the Annapolis Convention called for the Philadelphia meeting, they stated that its purpose was to revise the Articles and report any revisions “to the United States in Congress assembled, as when agreed to by them, and afterwards confirmed by the Legislatures of every State.” The Confederation Congress only agreed to the Philadelphia meeting “for the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation . . . and reporting to the United States in Congress assembled and to the States respectively such alterations and amendments.” However, once the convention began, the delegates pledged a secrecy rule and quickly created an entirely new governmental structure. While one could charitably interpret the Constitution as an “amendment,” Congress and the state legislatures still needed to ratify it. Instead, the Federalists decided to send the Constitution to state conventions. The reason, as admitted by Gouverneur Morris and Madison, was simple: it ensured a higher chance of ratification. Moreover, the Constitutional Convention scrapped unanimity, deciding that only nine out of the thirteen states (roughly three-fourths) needed to ratify.

Many contemporaries recognized the bloodless coup d’état for special-interest spoils. In 1789, Abraham Yates, with only some rhetorical flair, accurately described the “legal revisions”:

The meeting at Philadelphia in 1787 for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, got the name of a Convention (I believe before long that of a Conspiracy would have been more Significant), [and] paid no more regard to their orders and credentials than Caesar when he passed the Rubicon. Under an Injunction of Secrecy they carried on their works of Darkness until the Constitution passed their usurping hands.

The Ratification Debates

Thanks to control of news outlets, malapportionment of delegates, and convention chicanery, Federalists rammed the Constitution through a resistant public. Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York put up fierce resistance, but not enough.

Once the convention finished in September 1787, only three remaining delegates refused to sign: Gerry, Mason, and Virginia Governor Edmund Randolph. They argued for a second constitutional convention and important structural amendments restricting taxation, regulations, standing armies, the ability to charter monopolies, and the vague clauses. Shrewdly, the Federalists realized that these proposals would cripple the new government’s power, if not torpedo it altogether, and denied the need for additional work—the public-spirited Great Men in Philadelphia had accomplished everything.

After the state legislatures received the Constitution in the fall, Federalists racked up their first major victory in Pennsylvania, where Wilson pushed for hasty ratification. Although infrequently discussed, the politics surrounding ratification were thoroughly crony. The states did not unanimously enter into the new government, ratification arose against the people’s wishes, and the people could not amend the Constitution. In fact, while the population of some states clearly supported the Federalists, a majority of the population did not agree with the Constitution, a stark contrast with the mass-movement American Revolution.

First, the Federalists maintained a massive advantage in the public relations department. They controlled the major newspapers and post offices, allowing them to delay, tamper with, or outright destroy Antifederalist mail. For example, between the critical New York and Virginia, Federalist communication took six to fourteen days to arrive while Antifederalist communication required six to ten weeks. The Federalist media organs also suppressed dissension at the ratification conventions. Nationalists spread the lie that the new “federal” government would be limited in The Federalist Papers, propaganda pieces written by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay. They waxed eloquently about the limited nature of the proposed government, including its taxing capabilities, vague clauses, and how states would retain their sovereignty. Many fell for the blatant lies, believing the Constitution strictly enumerated powers.

On the other hand, prescient Antifederalist writings criticized the Constitution. Pennsylvania’s Address of the Minority warned of a standing army funded through a vast bureaucracy of tax collectors, and Massachusetts’ “Agrippa” preached laissez-faire and criticized Congress’ unlimited power over trade, taxes, and commerce. Letters from the Federal Farmer in Virginia and New York’s Cato (potentially written by Lee and Clinton, respectively) stressed the benefits of small republics, warned of consolidation, and attacked the vague powers. Lastly, “Brutus” in New York criticized the necessary and proper clause. The author, channeling Adam Smith, castigated Congress’ ability to incur a burdensome national debt. These writers, not Hamilton and Madison’s divinized Federalist Papers, spoke the truth.

Second, delegate malapportionment privileged the Federalists. Political representation of districts for state legislatures and the conventions heavily benefitted the eastern commercial districts. This favored the Federalists at the expense of the western and more numerous Antifederalistist districts. If accurate representation occurred, the Antifederal areas would have sent more delegates to the conventions and the Federal areas less. In some states the malapportionment remained egregious: in South Carolina, the percent of the population represented by convention delegates voting for the Constitution only totaled 39 percent. In the crucial battleground states of Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York the numbers were the underwhelming 53, 50, and 34 percent. Importantly, even these numbers overstate support, because they assume the delegates voting for the Constitution actually represented their constituents’ wishes, and many did not.

Third, at the conventions the Federalists employed blatant lies, bribery, and dirty tricks to sway the radical moderates, the cautious Antifederalist-Federalist hybrid. In particular, they mendaciously promised structural amendments after ratification, particularly explicit enumeration and constraints on taxes, borrowing, and standing armies. This pledge became necessary after Pennsylvania radicals William Findley, John Smilie, and the Swiss immigrant Albert Gallatin protested ratification. Of course, promising something after ratification is much different than enacting it beforehand, and the Federalists quickly reneged on their agreement. Furthermore, Federalists corrupted key delegates with prospects of government power.

The first battleground state, Massachusetts, was replete with such dirty tricks. In January 1788, the convention opened with Antifederalist strength at 60 percent. However, most Antifederalist delegates were poor westerners, and Federalists managed to prevent the election of Gerry. On the other hand, Federalist delegates had notable backgrounds. A prominent example was Fisher Ames, a member of the ultra statist Essex Junto, a group of reactionary and privilege-seeking merchants and lawyers around Boston. Crucially, the state only paid for the western delegates’ trips to the convention, and wealthy Federalists offered to pay their return trips only if they ratified. Predictably, in many cases the Federalists never paid the delegates, or provided only a fraction of the reimbursement.

The Federalists also bribed and lied to prominent Antifederalist leaders. They promised John Hancock, the Antifederalist governor, either the presidency or vice presidency if he supported the Constitution and proposed various amendments—amendments that the Federalists gave him—for enactment after ratification. The corrupted Hancock fell for the trick, causing one Federalist to write: “Hancock is the ostensible puppet in proposing amendments; but they are the product of the Feds in concert.” Hancock’s support influenced crucial Antifederal delegates, and along with the betrayal of other important leaders such as Sam Adams, the Massachusetts convention ratified the Constitution in February. Federalist stratagems secured this victory.

These three reasons—media control, malapportionment, and dirty tactics—assured a Federalist triumph. In June 1788, when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify, the new government illegally went into effect. New Hampshire’s convention had actually met earlier in the year and planned to reject the Constitution until Federalists adjourned the meeting. Washington, upset at the adjournment, worried that the people might realize that the Constitution was not as popular “as they had been taught to believe.” Fortunately, his secretary reported that amendments did the trick in New Hampshire, which “were drawn up more with a view of softening & conciliating the . . . opposition than from an expectation that they would ever be engrafted in the Constitution.”

But, four states still failed to ratify: North Carolina, Rhode Island, Virginia, and New York. Federalists recognized that they needed Virginia and New York, the Antifederalist strongholds informally and ineffectively allied, for the new government’s inauguration in 1789.

In Virginia, Henry, Mason, and Lee put up a good fight. Henry intuitively perceived that ratification impacted the great conflict between freedom and coercion, between an Empire of Liberty and an Empire of Power:

If we admit this consolidated government, it will be because we like a great, splendid one. Some way or other we must be a great and mighty empire; we must have an army, and a navy . . . the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is about to convert this country into a powerful and mighty empire.

In Maryland, Martin emphasized a similar theme and declared that the Constitution would create “one great and extensive empire,” but his efforts were for naught.

Some historians have argued that Henry and other Virginian Antifederalists opposed the Constitution to covertly protect slavery. This is not true. Like many southern libertarians, Henry abhorred slavery. He had worked to end Virginia’s importation of slaves and ease manumission laws but did not know how to end the practice. At the convention, Henry admittedly argued that the Constitution could theoretically abolish slavery through its taxing power and general welfare clause. However, Henry’s “slavery scare” remonstrance was a last-ditch effort to sway Federalists and radical moderates, and his proposed amendments made no mention of slavery. That Henry and others wanted restrictions on taxing power to prevent Congress from levying taxes on slaves is unsurprising: slaves were southerners’ most valuable property. The fact that large slave-owning politicians in the Deep South states of South Carolina and Georgia, particularly Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, unhesitatingly supported ratification demonstrates that pro-slavery forces supported the Constitution. In reality, Henry was genuinely concerned about liberty.

In the end, the Virginia Antifederalists could not surmount the betrayal of Governor Edmund Randolph, whom Federalists corrupted with the prospect of future employment; the threatened secession of the Federalists’ Northern Neck region; and the lure of amendments after ratification. Over bitter opposition, in June enough wavering radical-moderates took the bait and ratified the Constitution by a margin of five votes. The feat was remarkable considering that 60 percent of the state’s population was Antifederalist. Crucially, the radical moderate Jefferson, still away in France, supported the Constitution because of his friend Madison. However, Jefferson wanted structural amendments after ratification to constrain the government and achieve his Empire of Liberty.

New York experienced a similar situation. While Governor Clinton and his loyal machine steadfastly opposed the Constitution, they recognized the uphill battle: by the summer of 1788 the choice was to either join the new union or remain outside of it. In May, Clinton tried to cooperate with Randolph to coordinate strategies and insist on amendments before ratification, but by this time the apostate Randolph mendaciously concealed Clinton’s efforts at the Virginia convention. In New York, Antifederalists pushed hard for restrictive amendments, such as conditional ratification that allowed for possible secession, but Hamilton deep-sixed resistance. On this point, he read a letter to the Antifederalists written by Madison. “The Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and forever,” wrote Madison, “[I]t has been so adopted by the other states. . . . In short, any condition what-ever must vitiate the ratification.” Madison and Hamilton would not allow any secession whatsoever.

At the convention and in the press, Hamilton concealed his monarchical tendencies while waxing eloquently on the need for a formidable American Empire. In addition to Hamilton’s strong-arming, district malapportionment and betrayal of Antifederalist delegates overwhelmed the opposition. Furthermore, like Virginia’s Northern Neck, New York City, the capital of the existing Confederation Congress, threatened to secede. The motive was clear: if New York did not join, the capital would have to move and the city would lose the subsidies and privileges bestowed on the seat of power. In the end, staunchly Antifederalist New York barely ratified in July, by a razor-thin margin of two votes. But Antifederalists at least forced the Federalists to send a circular letter to other states requesting that Congress call a second constitutional convention. In addition, Governor Clinton planned to run for the vice presidency to secure restrictive amendments, anathema to Hamilton and the New York Federalists.

In the summer of 1788 the old Confederation Congress, over the objections of Congressman Abraham Yates of New York, realized that the putsch had succeeded. The old Congress decided that the new Congress would assemble in March 1789. In addition, while they had not settled on a permanent capital, the temporary capital—to Hamilton’s delight and Madison’s chagrin—remained in New York City. States would hold elections in the fall of 1788.

The congressional results were a bloodbath: the Antifederalists only won eleven of fifty-nine House seats and two of twenty-two Senate seats. The only two Antifederalist senators hailed from Virginia: Lee and the aging William Grayson. Henry deprived Madison of a Senate seat, but could not stop his nemesis from snatching a House spot at the expense of the Antifederalist James Monroe. The Federalists secured such crushing victories, because Federalists had won state elections and thus controlled the state legislatures. This allowed them to elect their own choices for senators and mandate at-large elections for members of the House instead of local district elections. At-large elections were insulated from the local constituencies and benefitted charismatic candidates, who tended to be Federalists. Virginia was an exception and Henry drew Madison’s district so that it encompassed a large number of Antifederalist voters. Overall, the Federalists amassed enough representation in the elections to pass their special-interest legislation in the new Congress.

Originally, the state legislatures decided how the Electoral College would be elected, such as by some form of popular vote or by state legislatures. The predominant choice was the latter. After electors were chosen, each cast two votes for president and the candidate with the majority would become president and the runner-up vice president. Washington, the legendary general of the Revolution, was guaranteed the exalted presidency. Since Washington hailed from southern Virginia, the electors felt obligated to choose a vice president from a major northern state. The Federalists realized that Pennsylvania was out of the question because of its proximity to Virginia and the only viable New Yorker was the staunchly Antifederalist George Clinton. This left Massachusetts, and the realistic choices were Governor Hancock and (now) Congressman John Adams. Although Hancock literally sold out for the vice presidency, he was still too Antifederalist and the Federalists easily double-crossed him. On the other hand, the reactionary Adams now exhibited monarchical and aristocratic tendencies. The choice was easy: the Federalists picked Adams.

Still, Hamilton, a major power broker in the Electoral College, suspiciously eyed the former radical. In January 1789 he wrote to Wilson: “[F]or God’s sake . . . if risk is to be run on one side or on the other can we hesitate where it ought to be preferred?” Hamilton was convinced that Adams could not be trusted, a fateful prediction that eventually proved correct. Therefore, to guarantee that Adams would not somehow miraculously win over Washington, Hamilton arranged for numerous delegates to “throw away” their votes instead. Washington won the presidency with sixty-nine electoral votes over Adams’ thirty-four.

The Electoral College chose Washington and Adams in February, and in early March congressmen trickled into New York City. After Washington’s inauguration, the new government effectively sprung into existence. The Federalists had successfully muscled through their mercantilist and empire-building Constitution against the will of the people. Power decisively triumphed over liberty.

Prime Minister Madison

By spring 1789, the Federalist coup was complete. The new government created by the Constitution supplanted the Articles of Confederation and only insignificant North Carolina and Rhode Island remained outside the Union. Antifederalism was permanently weakened in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, Martin returned to legal work, Henry brooded in Virginia, and Governor Clinton defended his control of New York against Hamilton. Their next step was a second constitutional convention that could devise the promised restrictive amendments. Unfortunately, the Federalists totally controlled the politically machinery and no laissez-faire coalition could stop them.

In the first year Madison exerted enormous influence over the politically inept Washington and Congress’ legislation. In essence, he became the de facto prime minister, tallying a long list of goals. So far, only President Washington, Congress, and remnant posts from the confederation existed and the government lacked real executive and judicial branches. Most importantly, there was no money. Or, in the eloquent words of Congressman and Essex Junto man Ames, “[M]oney is power, a permanent revenue is permanent power.” Consequently, Madison and the Federalists moved to secure funding. Everyone agreed that revenue would primarily be raised by import duties and a navigation act, legislation the Constitution could secure more easily than the Articles.

In April, after Congress achieved a quorum, Madison introduced a revenue bill, provoking a sectional tension. Northern manufacturers wailed for protection while southern planters called for low rates. As the leading congressman, Madison tried to balance these concerns, but he surprisingly leaned to the North. The result, the Tariff Act of 1789, passed in July by an unrecorded vote. The law intended to raise revenue and protect industry, and rates as a percentage of total imports averaged 12.5 percent. In addition, Congress passed the Tonnage Act later in the month. This navigation act not only raised revenue but also shielded domestic shipping interests from foreign competition. While American ships had to pay six cents a ton on entry into a US port (and only once a year if employed in the fisheries or coastal trade), every foreign ship needed to pay fifty cents a ton. In the perceptive words of John Miller, Madison clearly “attempted to erect one all-embracing mercantilist system in place of the thirteen different systems that had hitherto existed in the United States.” But these policies siphoned the spoils to the North, much to southerners’ dismay.

Aside from raising revenue, Madison secured another stratagem to aggrandize central power: bill of rights amendments. This would deliver the coup de grâce to the reform opposition. It was not guaranteed that Henry and the other Antifederalists would stay on the out-side. The New York convention circular letter that urged for a second constitutional convention and structural amendments gained ground in Virginia, North Carolina, and Rhode Island. To make matters worse, Henry and other Virginia Antifederalists devised a backup plan: they planned to buy southwestern lands claimed by Georgia and secede. Virginia’s Antifederalist congressman, Theodrick Bland, hoped Henry’s endeavors would create “an asylum from tyranny.”

Madison realized the realistic possibility of these threats and wanted to nip them in the bud with amendments. However, his goal was not to pass structural amendments that crippled the Constitution but instead a bill of rights focusing on personal liberties such as freedom of speech and trials by jury. While these were certainly laudatory, Madison knew they would not weaken the Constitution. Moreover, these amendments would split the states’ rights resistance by convincing many disgruntled Antifederalists that the new government was truly limited. In the words of Madison to Jefferson, his amendments would separate “the well meaning from the designing opponents . . . and give to the Government its due popularity and stability.” Madison also maintained a personal interest: a former foe of any amendments whatsoever, the electioneering Virginian had promised his constituents amendments.

Consequently, after Washington hinted that amendments could not be structural in his inaugural address (which Madison helped him write), the Virginia congressman introduced personal liberty amendments in May. Madison shrewdly made his announcement before Bland could introduce a resolution calling for a second constitutional convention. He skillfully navigated them through the House, deflecting criticism from arch-Federalists such as Ames who scorned the need for any amendments and disgruntled Antifederalists, particularly South Carolina’s Thomas Tucker, who understood Madison’s plan. The amendments met similar enemies in the Senate, particularly Federalist Senator Robert Morris and Antifederalists Lee and Grayson. The latter fumed to Henry that Madison intended “unquestionably to break the spirit of the Antifederalist party by divisions.” But in September Congress jointly approved the bill of rights amendments and sent them to the states for ratification. Three-fourths were required to consent.

Madison knew he had triumphed. In New York, the fiery Abraham Yates juxtaposed the “unimportant and trivial” personal liberty amendments with the promised structural amendments that were “intended either to explain or to restrict certain dangerous powers expressly or impliedly lodged in Congress.” Jefferson supported the amendments, though he still wanted structural amendments, particularly explicit prohibitions on monopoly grants and standing armies. The only structural amendment was what became the Tenth Amendment, which stated that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This wording was similar to Article Two of the former Articles. But crucial differences existed. When Tucker, seconded by Gerry, tried to include the word “expressly,” Madison sneered at such enumeration. “It was impossible to confine a government to the exercise of express powers,” the Virginian lectured, “there must necessarily be admitted powers by implication, unless the Constitution descended to recount every minutiae.” Once again, the new government would look federal when in reality it remained national, letting cronyism in through the back door.

Madison’s plan worked. Opposition to the new Constitution melted away once Antifederalists realized they had officially lost. After adjourning its convention in August 1788, heavily Antifederalist North Carolina met again in November 1789 and ratified the Constitution under intense Federalist propaganda emphasizing the bill of rights amendments. Henry was furious because North Carolina also ceded Tennessee to Congress, violating the rights of the actual settlers. He suffered another devastating setback in August 1790 after President Washington signed a treaty with Indians, invalidating the agreement between Georgia and the land company Henry participated in.

Even staunchly Antifederal Rhode Island ratified the Constitution. The little state refused to call a convention until early 1790 after the governor relented. But Antifederals adjourned the convention until late May. The US Senate responded by passing draconian trade legislation prohibiting all trade with Rhode Island. The appalled Senator William Maclay of Pennsylvania considered the threatened legislation the method of a tyrant, “meant to be Used the same Way That a Robber does a dagger or a Highwayman a pistol.” It strategically pended in the House as Rhode Island “decided” its next steps. The little state barely relented with a 34-32 vote.

In December 1791, after Rhode Island and the independent country of Vermont joined the Union, Virginia became the eleventh state to ratify the Bill of Rights and thereby put it into effect. Mason and Senator Lee admitted the need to compromise; in the latter’s words, “if we cannot gain the whole loaf, we shall at least have some bread.” Defeated, the Virginia Antifederalist leadership suffered ignominious endings: Senator Grayson died in 1790, Henry returned to private law in 1791, Mason passed away in 1792, and Senator Lee followed in 1794. Madison achieved another victory for cronyism by crushing the reformers.

Madison also used the Constitution to disburse privileges with the virtual creation of the executive and judicial branches. The executive branch would insulate bureaucrats and their regulations from the legislature and rotation in office. In May 1789, New Jersey’s Federalist Congressman Elias Boudinot proposed the creation of executive departments, concentrating on a secretary of the treasury to manage the nation’s finances. The battle in the House swirled around whether a group or a single person would run the department. Antifederalist Gerry argued for a board to defuse power, but Madison insisted that a single man would be more efficient. Madison won and only one secretary would manage the proposed Treasury Department.

Madison soon advocated the creation of war and foreign affairs departments to oversee the nation’s military and international relations. The intense House debate focused on whether the president, who had the constitutional ability to appoint department heads with the Senate’s consent, also had the ability to fire department heads without the Senate. Madison, ever fearful of the power of the Senate (i.e., state legislatures), interpreted the Constitution broadly and argued that the president alone had the removal power. Once again, Gerry defended the opposite view and maintained that the states had to consent to removal.

Debate continued in the Senate until the upper house voted in July. The result could not have been more suspenseful: a dead tie. Predictably, the reactionary Vice President Adams voted for the ability to fire appointees at will, a power he hoped to exercise in the future. In response to this momentous decision, Senator Grayson thundered “consolidation is the object of the New Government, and the first attempt will be to destroy the Senate, as they are the Representatives of the State legislatures.” Grayson was right: the beginning of an independent executive bureaucracy had sprung into existence.

Thus, Congress created the Treasury, War, and Foreign Affairs Departments (soon called the Department of State), along with the position of attorney general. When Washington appointed the heads, once again “Prime Minister” Madison assisted. Those knowledgeable correctly assumed that Knox would resume his position as Secretary of War. Washington initially wanted the arch-reactionary Jay to lead the State Department, but after Jay expressed his desire to serve on the new Supreme Court, the offer went to Jefferson, currently still abroad. Former governor of Virginia Edmund Randolph, Washington’s close friend and a lawyer who betrayed his Antifederalist allies, received the attorney general position. Washington offered Robert Morris the powerful position of Secretary of Treasury. However, both Morris and Madison envisioned Hamilton for the job. To top the list off, the president appointed Gouverneur Morris as a “special agent” to Great Britain to secure favorable commercial arrangements. Washington’s appointments, save the radical moderate Jefferson, were ardent Federalists.

Madison also supported the creation of the federal judiciary system. At first glance, the judiciary may seem separate from an analysis of cronyism. In reality, it was closely related: a strong oligarchical judiciary that could sanction the constitutionality of controversial legislation would be crucial to building a new American mercantilism. The Antifederalists had feared such a system, correctly believing that a federal court bureaucracy would transfer legal power from the states to the central government and monopolize law. It even worried those Federalists who feared that the creation of inferior courts would be going too far.

In April 1789, Connecticut’s Federalist senator Ellsworth drafted a bill to create a Supreme Court with six justices and a system of lower courts. Madison played his part by adamantly denying that state courts could be trusted to enforce federal laws. Even Gerry supported the bill once he realized there was little hope of structurally amending the Constitution. In September, Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789, creating an entirely new legal structure de novo. It would take time for the court system to grow in power, but as Albert Jay Nock trenchantly pointed out, “of all the legislative measures enacted to implement the new constitution, the one best calculated to ensure a rapid and steady progress in the centralization of political power was the Judiciary Act of 1789.”

Washington shrewdly appointed three men from the South and three men from the North to the Supreme Court. For Chief Justice he chose the arch reactionary Jay, who believed that “those who own the country ought to govern it.” Robert Morris’ ally Wilson also secured a justiceship and exerted considerable influence. Just like his executive appointments, Washington’s Supreme Court choices were ultra-Federalist men.

By fall 1789, Congress’ first session had ended. Madison breathed life into the Constitution by enacting highly coveted sources of revenue the Articles previously denied, crushing Antifederalist opposition through the limp Bill of Rights, and establishing an independent executive bureaucracy and judicial system. He was at the peak of his power in the Federalist forces. However, much work remained, such as settling on the nation’s permanent capital and figuring out debt assumption. Matters would rapidly change as Madison’s old ally, Treasury Secretary Hamilton, brainstormed financial plans. It was now his turn to use the Constitution.

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George Van Cleve, We Have Not a Government (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017).

Jeremy Atack and Peter Passell, A New Economic View of American History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1994), pp. 112–15; Allan Kulikoff, “Such Things Ought Not to Be,” in The World of the Revolutionary American Republic, ed. Andrew Shankman (New York: Routledge, 2014), pp. 134–64; Peter Lindert and Jeffrey Williamson, “American Incomes Before and After the Revolution,” Journal of Economic History (September 2013): 725–65; Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, vol. 5, The New Republic, 1784–1791 (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2019), pp. 47–51.

Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 66–81.

Max Edling and Mark Kaplanoff, “Alexander’s Fiscal Reform,” William and Mary Quarterly (October 2004): 720; Jon Kukla, Patrick Henry (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017), pp. 273–76; Kulikoff, “Such Things,” 149; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 68–69, 71–72, 111–26; Van Cleve, Not a Government, p. 76.

Pauline Maier, Ratification (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1020), pp. 224, 521; Curtis Nettels, The Emergence of a National Economy (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962), pp. 77–78; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 52–56, 73–77.

Gordon Wood, Empire of Liberty (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 14. See also Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, p. 125.

James Philbin, “The Political Economy of the Antifederalists,” Journal of Libertarian Studies (Fall 1994): 99.

Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, “The Consequences of a United States Default or Repudiation,” in Economic and Political Change after Crisis, ed. Stephen Balch and Benjamin Powell (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 108–13; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 66–72, 78–81.

Jackson Main, The Anti-federalists (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina, 2004), p. 79.

Irving Brant, James Madison, Father of the Constitution (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1950), pp. 306–07; Douglas A. Irwin, Clashing over Commerce (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017), p. 56; Maier, Ratification, pp. 324, 340, 536; Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, vols. 1–4 (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2019), p. 1521; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 60–65, 135; William Zornow, “New York Tariff Policies,” New York History (January 1956): 44, 49, 61.

Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 54–56, 73–74.

Irwin, Clashing over Commerce, p. 56; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 57–65.

David Gordon, “George Washington,” in Reassessing the Presidency, ed. John V. Denson (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2001), pp. 36–37; John Larson, Internal Improvement (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina, 2001), pp, 10–20; Norman Risjord, Chesapeake Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), pp. 240–47; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, p. 130.

Richard Kohn, Eagle and Sword (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), pp. 45–72; Roth-bard, Conceived in Liberty, 1–4, p. 1524; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 111–26, 137.

Michael Klarman, The Framers’ Coup (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. pp. 349–50; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 85–92.

Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 48, 105–07, 127, 306.

Kukla, Patrick Henry, pp. 285–306; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 93–104.

Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 60, 105–07.

James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1962).

Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 128–29.

Kukla, Patrick Henry, p. 304; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 129–32.

Kukla, Patrick Henry, p. 320.

John Kaminski, George Clinton (Madison, WI: Madison House Publishers, 1993), p. 119; Forrest McDonald, We The People (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958), pp. 80–81; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 133–40, 212, 249.

Klarman, Framers’ Coup, pp. 167–68; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 145–52, 154–57, 162, 164, 167, 178, 185, 190–91.

William Watkins, Crossroads for Liberty (Oakland, CA: Independent Institute, 2016), pp. 241–42, 248.

Bill Kauffman, Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2008), p. 52.

Ibid., pp. 52–53; Klarman, Framers’ Coup, pp. 152, 670; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 187–88.

Richard Ellis, The Jeffersonian Crisis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 7–12; Klarman, Framers’ Coup, pp. 159–61; John Miller, Hamilton and the Growth of the New Nation (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), pp. 201–03; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 156–57, 162, 206.

Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 186–87; Klarman, Framers’ Coup, pp. 383–84.

S. Breckinridge, “Monetary Power and the Constitutional Convention,” in Henry Holzer, Government’s Money Monopoly (New York: Books in Focus, 1981), p. 37.

Ibid., p. 37.

Robert Natelson, “Paper Money and the Original Understanding of the Coinage Clause,” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy (Summer 2008): 1054, 1056.

Breckinridge, “Monetary Power,” pp. 35–42; Farley Grubb, “Creating the U.S. Dollar Currency Union,” American Economic Review (December 2003): 1788, 1790; Natelson, “Paper Money,” pp. 1051–79.

Max Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1911), pp. 529–30.

Ibid., p. 616.

Steven Calabresi and Larissa Leibowitz, “Monopolies and the Constitution,” Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (Summer 2013): 1009; Farrand, Convention of 1787, pp. 615–16; Calvin Johnson, “The Dubious Enumerated Power Doctrine,” Constitutional Commentary (2005): 55–58.

Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 196.

Calvin Johnson, “The Panda’s Thumb,” William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal (October 2004): 1–56; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 192–98.

Watkins, Crossroads for Liberty, p. 241.

Farrand, Convention of 1787, p. 615. See also Brant, James Madison, Father, pp. 149– 50; Johnson, “Enumerated Power Doctrine,” pp. 55–58.

Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, p. 207.

Ibid., p. 196.

Watkins, Crossroads for Liberty, p. 243.

Merrill Jensen, The Articles of Confederation (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1940), p. 176; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 185–86, 189–91, 206–07.

Klarman, Framers’ Coup, p. 303.

Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, p. 192.

Ibid., p. 198.

Andrew P. Napolitano, Dred Scott’s Revenge (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2009), pp. 36–40; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 159–76, 192–98.

Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, p. 132.

Ibid., p. 138.

Ibid., pp. 146, 157, 199–203, 211–12.

Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, p. 273.

Calabresi and Leibowitz, “Monopolies and the Constitution,” p. 1009; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 201–02, 212–13.

Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 217–18, 221–30.

Dumas Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty (Boston: Little, Brown, 1962), p. 397; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 216–18, 228–29, 237–38, 255–56, 268– 70; Thomas Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 97; Robert Wright, One Nation Under Debt (New York: McGraw Hill, 2008), pp. 102–03, 118.

Charles Roll, “We, Some of the People,” Journal of American History (June 1969): 21–40; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, p. 218.

Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 226–30, 243–44; Gregory May, Jefferson’s Treasure (Washington, DC: Regnery History, 2018), pp. 6, 18–21.

Klarman, Framers’ Coup, p. 439.

Maier, Ratification, pp. 192, 212, 516; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 236–46.

Main, Anti-federalists, p. 211.

Maier, Ratification, p. 317. See also Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 234–35, 253–54.

Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, p. 263.

Ibid., p. 263.

Robin Einhorn, “Patrick Henry’s Case Against the Constitution,” Journal of the Early Republic (Winter 2002): 549–73.

Klarman, Framers’ Coup, pp. 297–304; Kukla, Patrick Henry, pp. 122–26, 238–40, 374, 506–07; Maier, Ratification, pp. 294–97.

Klarman, Framers’ Coup, p. 468; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 255–66.

Klarman, Framers’ Coup, p. 507.

Kaminski, George Clinton, pp. 148–78; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 255–57, 267–81.

Klarman, Framers’ Coup, pp. 559, 568, 623; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 265–66, 282–83.

Manning Dauer, The Adams Federalists (Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins Press, 1953), p. 81.

Klarman, Framers’ Coup, pp. 622–23; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 284–87; Watkins, Crossroads for Liberty, p. 243.

Fergus Bordewich, The First Congress (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016), p. 74.

Miller, Alexander Hamilton, p. 222.

Historical Statistics of the United States, Millennial Edition, vol. 5, ed. Richard Sutch and Susan Carter. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 510; John Miller, The Federalist Era (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), pp. 14–19; Irwin, Clashing over Commerce, pp. 73–77; Nettels, Emergence of a National Economy, pp. 109–11.

Thomas Kidd, Patrick Henry (New York: Basic Book, 2011), p. 219. See also pp. 218– 20; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 297.

Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, p. 298.

Robert Rutland, The Birth of the Bill of Rights (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1962), p. 208.

Alfred Young, The Democratic Republicans of New York (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1967), p. 154.

Watkins, Crossroads for Liberty, p. 251.

Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, p. 300.

Miller, Federalist Era, pp. 66–67.

Bordewich, First Congress, p. 16; Calabresi and Leibowitz, “Monopolies and the Constitution,” pp. 1009–12; David Moss, Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2017), p. 55; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 297–301; Rutland, Bill of Rights, p. 202; Watkins, Crossroads for Liberty, pp. 227, 248.

Bordewich, First Congress, p. 235.

Bordewich, First Congress, p. 48; Kidd, Patrick Henry, pp. 219–20; Klarman, Framers’ Coup, pp. 517–30; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 288–94.

Henry Mayer, A Son of Thunder (New York: Grove Press, 1991), p. 460.

Klarman, Framers’ Coup, pp. 590–91; Kukla, Patrick Henry, p. 356; Mayer, Son of Thunder, pp. 460–61, 468; Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, 5, pp. 107, 300–01.

Bordewich, First Congress, p. 105.

Bordewich, First Congress, pp. 56–64, 95–98, 104–05; Miller, Federalist Era, pp. 26–27.

Miller, Federalist Era, p. 3.

Bordewich, First Congress, pp. 59, 95, 160; Philip Burch, Elites in American History, vol. 1 (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1981), p. 49.

Albert Jay Nock, Our Enemy, The State (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2010), p. 169.

Miller, Federalist Era, p. 32.

Bordewich, First Congress, pp. 105–12, 141–43; Burch, Elites in American History, 1, pp. 60–61; Miller, Federalist Era, pp. 28–32; Nock, Our Enemy, pp. 169–70; Wood, Empire of Liberty, pp. 408–11.