vention which framed the Constitution, it was very early declared, that the Confederation had neither constitutional power, nor means, to interfere in case of a rebellion in any State.1 This generation can scarcely depict to itself the alarm which these disturbances spread through the country, and the extreme peril to which the whole fabric of society in New England was exposed. The numbers of the disaffected in Massachusetts amounted to one fifth of the inhabitants in several of the populous counties. Their doctrines and purposes were embraced by many young, active, and desperate men in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, and the whole of this faction in the four States was capable of furnishing a body of twelve or fifteen thousand men, bent on annihilating property, and cancelling all debts, public and private.2 But this great peril was not without beneficial consequences. It displayed, at a critical moment, when a project of amending the Federal Constitution for other purposes was encountering much opposition, a more dangerous deficiency than any to which the public mind had hitherto been turned. While thoughtful and considerate men were speculating upon the causes of diminished prosperity and the general feebleness of the system of government, a gulf suddenly yawned beneath their feet, threatening 1 Ibid. 127. 2 This was the estimate of their numbers formed by General Knox, on careful inquiry, and by him given 35 VOL. I. to General Washington. See a letter from General Washington to Mr. Madison. Works, IX. 207. ruin to the whole social fabric. It was but a short time before, that the people of this country had shed their blood to obtain constitutions of their own choice and making. Now, they seemed as ready to overturn them as they had once been to extort from tyranny the power of creating and erecting them in its place. It was manifest, that to achieve the independence of a country is but half of the great undertaking of liberty;- that, after freedom, there must come security, order, the wise disposal of power, and great institutions on which society may repose in safety. It was clear, that the Federal Union alone could certainly uphold the liberty which it had gained for the people of the States, and that, to enable it to do so, it must become a government.1 From his retreat at Mount Vernon, Washington observed the progress of these disorders with intense anxiety. To him, they carried the strongest evidence of a want of energy in the system of the Federal Union. They did more than all things else to convince him that "a liberal and energetic constitution, well checked and well watched to prevent encroachments, might restore us to that degree of respectability and consequence to which we had the fairest prospect of attaining."2 1 Washington, writing to Henry Lee in Congress, October 31, 1786, says: "You talk, my good sir, of employing influence to appease the present tumults in Massachusetts. I know not where that influence is to be found, or, if attainable, that it would be a proper remedy for He was kept accu the disorders. Influence is not gov- rately informed of the state of things in New England, and the probability that he would be obliged to come forward, and take an active part in the support of order against civil discord, was directly intimated to him.1 He had foreseen the possibility of this; but the successful issue of the struggle relieved him from the contemplation of this painful task, and left to him only the duty of giving the whole weight of his influence and presence in the Convention, which was to assemble in the following May, for the revision of the Federal Constitution. 1 Ibid. 221. CHAPTER IV. ORIGIN AND NECESSITY OF THE POWER TO REGULATE COMMERCE. AMONG all the causes which led to the establishment of the Constitution of the United States, there is none more important, and none that is less appreciated at the present day, than the inability of the Confederation to manage the foreign commerce of the country. We have seen that, when the Articles of Confederation were proposed for adoption by the States, the State of New Jersey remonstrated against the absence of all provision for placing the foreign trade of the States under the regulation of the federal government. But this remonstrance was without effect, and the instrument went into operation in 1781, with no other restriction upon the powers of the States to regulate trade according to their pleasure, than a prohibition against levying imposts or duties which would interfere with the treaties then proposed. While the war continued, the subject was of comparatively little importance. But the return of peace found this country capable of becoming a great commercial, as well as agricultural nation; and it could not be overlooked, that its government possessed very inadequate means for establishing such relations with foreign powers as would best develop its resources and conduce to its internal harmony and prosperity. How early this great interest had attracted the attention of those who were most capable of enlarged and statesmanlike views of the actual nature of the Union and the wants of the States, there are perhaps as yet before the world no sufficient means of determining. We know, however, that, before the peace, Hamilton saw clearly that it was essential for the United States to be vested with a general superintendence of trade, both for purposes of revenue and regulation; that he foresaw the encouragement of our own products and manufactures, by means of general prohibitions of particular articles and a judicious arrangement of duties, and that this could only be effected by a central authority; and that the due observance of any commercial treaty which the United States might make with a foreign power could not be expected, if the different States retained the regulation of their own trade, and thus held the practical construction of treaties in their own hands.1 But it does not appear that, among the other principal statesmen of the Revolution, these ideas had made much progress, until the entire incapacity of the Confederation to negotiate advantageous commercial treaties, for want of adequate power to en 1 Life of Hamilton, II. 233, 234. See also his resolutions on the defects of the federal government, intended to be offered in Congress in 1783, and especially the eighth resolution. Works of Hamilton, II. 269. |