Limited Government

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Thomas Jefferson accurately represented the executing them in a tyrannical manner as well. In his convictions of his fellow colonists when he famous draft of a constitution for the commonwealth observed in the Declaration of Independence that of Massachusetts, Adams declared that the a government, to be considered legitimate, must be “legislative, executive and judicial power shall be based on the consent of the people and respect their placed in separate departments, to the end that it natural rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of might be a government of laws, and not of men.” happiness.”Along with other leading members of the This document, along with his Defence of the founding generation, Jefferson Constitutions of Government of understood that these principles the United States of America, dictated that the government be containing a strong case for checks given only limited powers that, and balances in government, ideally, are carefully described in were well known to the delegates written charters or constitutions. who attended the Constitutional Modern theorists like John Convention of 1787. Locke and the Baron de James Wilson, one of the Montesquieu had been making foremost legal scholars of the the case for limited government founding period and a delegate and separation of powers during from Pennsylvania at the the century prior to the American Constitutional Convention, agreed Revolution. Colonial Americans with Adams’ insistence that the were quite familiar with Locke’s power of government should be argument from his Two Treatises divided to the end of advancing of Government that “Absolute the peace and happiness of the Arbitrary Power, or Governing without settled people. In the words of Wilson, “In government, standing Laws, can neither of them consist with the the perfection of the whole depends on the balance ends of Society and Government....”Locke added of the parts, and the balance of the parts consists in that the reason people “quit the freedom of the the independent exercise of their separate powers, state of Nature [is] to preserve their Lives, Liberties and, when their powers are separately exercised, and Fortunes.”Civil society has no higher end than then in their mutual influence and operation on to provide for the safety and happiness of the one another. Each part acts and is acted upon, people, and this is best done under a system of supports and is supported, regulates and is known rules or laws that apply equally to “the regulated by the rest.” Rich and Poor,...the Favorite at Court, and the Both the Articles of Confederation and the Country Man at plough.”For his part, Montesquieu Constitution of the United States provided for argued that only where governmental power is governments with limited powers. As John Jay had limited in scope, and then parceled out among discovered as America’s secretary of foreign affairs, different departments, will people be free from the power of the central government was severely oppression. Constitutional government, for limited under the Articles and, hence, could be modern natural rights theorists, should be limited trusted to a unitary legislative department. Fear of government dedicated to the comfortable governmental tyranny and a desire to preserve the preservation of the people—that is, to their power enjoyed by the new states resulted in the security, freedom, and prosperity. creation of a central government that could not John Adams echoed the beliefs of many effectively oversee interstate commerce or do other Americans when he argued that only by creating a things that were critical to ensuring the safety and balance of forces within the government could the happiness of the people. In a letter to Edmund people hope to escape despotism and misery. An Randolph at the end of 1786, George Washington

unchecked legislature, he observed, would be bemoaned the “awful situation of our affairs” © The Bill of Rights Institute capable not only of making tyrannical laws, but of which he attributed to “the want of sufficient power

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in the foederal head.”Washington quickly joined the this chamber are tied so closely to the people by movement to create a new governmental system short terms and small districts. that was equal to “the exigencies of Union,” to In addition to matching powers and quote from the instructions given the delegates to governmental responsibilities, the delegates were the Constitutional Convention of 1787. careful to position each department to “check and The Constitution of 1787 grew out of a plan balance” the other departments. Examples are drafted largely by James Madison during the winter the executive’s veto power, the congressional and spring before the Convention. The “Virginia impeachment power, and the judicial review power Plan” proposed a central government that was entrusted to the Supreme Court, the only national supreme over the states. Evidence that the national court formally established by the Constitution. government was to be entrusted with considerable Although in good Lockean fashion the legislative power could be found in the provisions for a department was designed to be the preeminent bicameral legislature and department, it was still independent executive and subjected to checks by the judicial departments. There was never any doubt in their other branches of the The delegates who minds that they should create a government. Separation of attended the Constitutional powers as well as the system Convention were sufficiently government of “delegated and of checks and balances were versed in modern political enumerated” powers . . . devices for reducing the threat theory to understand that of governmental tyranny, not they would have to divide excluding legislative tyranny. the power of the national government if they However, the constitutional arrangement, put intended to entrust it with real authority over the into its final wording by Gouverneur Morris, was lives of the people and the states. They understood not driven entirely by a desire to eliminate the the dangers of imparting considerable political threat of tyrannical government. The system of power to a unitary sovereign. In this connection, separated and divided powers also was intended to there was never any doubt in their minds that they promote competence in government. The should create a government of “delegated and president can employ his veto not only to check enumerated” powers, that is, that the government legislative action that he considers irresponsible, should only be entrusted with specified but to provoke Congress to improve a legislative (enumerated) powers that derived directly from enactment. The Senate can use its authority to the people. While they worried about the ratify presidential nominations of cabinet officers “turbulence and follies” of democracy, they or judges to ensure that qualified candidates are recognized that government had to be based on the named to fill these positions. consent of the people to be legitimate. Writing in Federalist No. 9, Alexander Hamilton The Virginia Plan anticipated the bicameral identified the principle of separated and divided legislature and independent executive and judicial powers, along with checks and balances, as among departments found in the United States Constitution the inventions of the new science of politics that today. Building on Madison’s model, the delegates had made republican government defensible. assigned responsibilities to the departments based Madison described in Federalist No. 51 the benefits on their peculiar characteristics. The six-year term of the governmental arrangement represented in of senators, for example, seemed to make this a the new Constitution: “In the compound republic proper institution to involve in foreign policy (e.g., of America, the power surrendered by the people is ratification of treaties) since senators would have first divided between two distinct governments, more time than members of the House of and then the portion allotted to each subdivided Representatives to acquaint themselves with among distinct and separate departments. Hence a international affairs and their longer terms and double security arises to the rights of the people. larger constituencies (entire states) also would give The different governments will control each other, them more freedom to attend to matters other at the same time that each will be controlled by than the immediate interests of constituents back itself.” Significantly, Anti-Federalists as well as home. The House of Representatives was entrusted Federalists agreed that governmental powers

© The Bill of Rights Institute with the important power to initiate revenue should be limited and that these powers should be (taxation) bills precisely because the members of subject to internal as well as external checks.

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It is important to emphasize that the Framers desires of the people are held in check by the settled on an arrangement that divided yet blended Constitution. The political system still meets the the legislative, executive, and judicial powers. This criteria of democratic government, however, since facilitates interdepartmental checking while the people hold the power, through their promoting mature deliberation. Their aim was to representatives, to amend the Constitution. create a decent and competent democracy, something The paradigm of constitutional government beyond mere non-tyrannical government. They embraced by the American people in 1787, that is, placed the whole of the government, and even the limited government based on the consent of the people, under constitutional limitations. The people and committed to the protection of Constitution is the supreme law of the land, not fundamental rights, has become the dominant model the enactments of Congress or the order of the throughout the world. The rhetoric of rights, whether president or the momentary will of the people. As couched in the language of natural rights or human Chief Justice Marshall declared in Marbury v. rights, is universally appealing. Also universally Madison (1803), “The distinction between a accepted is the argument that rights are most secure government with limited and unlimited powers is when governmental powers are limited in scope abolished, if those limits do not confine the persons and subject to internal and external checks. on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited David E. Marion, Ph.D. and acts allowed, are of equal obligation.” Even the Hampden-Sydney College

Suggestions for Further Reading Frohnen, Bruce (ed.). The American Republic: Primary Sources. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002. Kurland, Philip B. and Ralph Lerner (eds.) The Founders’ Constitution. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987. Mansfield, Harvey C., Jr. Taming the Prince. New York: The Free Press, 1989. McDonald, Forrest. A Constitutional History of the United States. New York: Franklin Watts, 1982. Storing, Herbert J. What the Anti-Federalists Were For. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. Wood, Gordon. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787. New York: W.W. Norton, 1969. © The Bill of Rights Institute

Founders and the Constitution: In Their Own Words—Volume 2 02 005-007 Found2 Liberty 9/13/07 10:30 AM Page 5

LIBERTY

Liberty was the central political principle of the This common law understanding of liberty American Revolution. As Patrick Henry, one of its was central to the seventeenth-century struggles staunchest supporters, famously intoned,“Give me against the Stuart monarchy. Prominent jurists and liberty or give me death.” Henry was not alone Parliamentarians such as Edward Coke (1552–1634) in his rhetorical fervor. Indeed, no ideal was took the lead in the attempt to limit what they saw proclaimed more often in the eighteenth-century as the illegal and arbitrary nature of the Stuarts’ rule. Anglo-American world than liberty. This struggle culminated in the Glorious Revolution The idea of liberty defended of 1689 and the triumph of by the American Founders came Parliamentary authority over the from several sources. The most Crown. For champions of English venerable was English common liberty, the result of this century- law. Beginning in the late long struggle was the achievement medieval period, writers in the of political liberty. They further common law tradition developed argued that, as a result of this an understanding of liberty struggle, Britain in the eighteenth which held that English subjects century had the freest constitution were free because they lived in the world. According to the under a system of laws which French writer Montesquieu even the Crown was bound to (1689–1755), Britain was “the respect. Leading English jurists only nation in the world, where argued that these legal limits on political and civil liberty” was “the royal power protected the direct end of the constitution.” subject’s liberty by limiting the arbitrary use of This seventeenth century struggle between political power. royal power and the subject’s liberties made a great Under English common law, liberty also impression on the American Founders. They consisted in the subject enjoying certain fundamental absorbed its lessons about the nature and importance rights to life, liberty and property. William Blackstone of liberty through their reading of English history (1723–1780), the leading common lawyer of the as well as through their instruction in English law. eighteenth century, argued that these rights allowed A second and equally influential understanding an English subject to be the “entire master of his of liberty was also forged in the constitutional own conduct, except in those points wherein the battles of the seventeenth century: the idea that public good requires some direction or restraint . . .” liberty was a natural right pertaining to all. The For Blackstone, these English rights further protected foremost exponent of this understanding of liberty the subjects’ liberty by making them secure in their in the English-speaking world was John Locke persons from arbitrary search and seizure, and by (1632–1704). Locke’s political ideas were part of a ensuring that their property could not be taken wider European political and legal movement which from them without due process of law. argued that there were certain rights that all men In order to preserve these fundamental rights, were entitled to irrespective of social class or creed. the English common law allowed the subject the Like the common lawyers, Locke saw liberty as right to consent to the laws that bound him by centrally about the enjoyment of certain rights. electing representatives to Parliament whose consent However, he universalized the older English the monarch had to obtain before acting. understanding of liberty, arguing that it applied to Common lawyers in the seventeenth and all persons, and not just to English subjects. Locke eighteenth centuries did not view these rights and also expanded the contemporary understanding of the liberty they protected as the gift or grant of the liberty by arguing that it included other rights— monarch; rather, they believed that they were an in particular a right to religious toleration (or

© The Bill of Rights Institute Englishmen’s “birthright,” something that inhered liberty of conscience), as well as a right to resist in each subject and that therefore could not be governments that violated liberty. In addition, taken away by royal prerogative. Locke argued that the traditional English common

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law right to property was also a natural right, and hindering him from enjoying what he himself was an important part of the subject’s liberty. enjoys.” Cato was the pseudonym for two British Locke began his political theory by arguing that writers, John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon. liberty was the natural state of mankind. According Their co-authored Cato’s Letters (1720–1723) were to Locke, all men are “naturally” in a “State of widely read in the American colonies. perfect Freedom to order” their “Actions, and On the eve of the American Revolution, then, dispose of their Possessions, and Persons as they the received understanding of liberty in the Anglo- think fit, within the bounds of the Law of Nature, American world was a powerful amalgam of both without asking leave, or depending upon the Will the English common law and the liberal ideas of of any other Man.” writers like Locke and Cato. On this view, liberty However, Locke did not argue that this natural meant being able to act freely, secure in your basic liberty was a license to do whatever we want. rights, unhindered by the coercive actions of others, “Freedom is not,” he argued, and subject only to the “A Liberty for every Man to limitation of such laws as you do what he lists (For who have consented to. Central to could be free, when every No ideal was proclaimed more often this idea of liberty was the other Man’s humour might in the eighteenth-century right to hold property and to domineer over him?).” Anglo-American world than liberty. have it secure from arbitrary Rather, Locke held that since seizure. In addition, under the all men are “equal and influence of Locke, liberty was independent, no one ought increasingly being seen on to harm another in his Life, health, Liberty, or both sides of the Atlantic as a universal right, one Possessions.” According to Locke, each of us has not limited to English subjects. Equally influential “an uncontroulable Liberty to dispose of our was Locke’s argument that if a government violated persons and possession,” but we do not have the its citizens’ liberty the people could resist the right to interfere with the equal liberty of others to government’s edicts and create a new political do the same. authority. However, despite the gains that had been In Locke’s political theory, men enter into made since the seventeenth century, many society and form governments to better preserve Englishmen in the eighteenth century still worried this natural liberty. When they do so, they create a that liberty was fragile and would always be political system where the natural law limits on endangered by the ambitions of powerful men. liberty in the state of nature are translated into a Since the first settlements were established legal regime of rights. In such a system, Locke in the early seventeenth century, the American argued, each person retains his “Liberty to dispose, colonists shared in this English understanding of and order, as he lists, his Person, Actions, liberty. In particular, they believed that they had Possession, and his whole Property, within the taken their English rights with them when they Allowance of those Laws under which he is; and crossed the Atlantic. It was on the basis of these therein not to be subject to the arbitrary Will of rights that they made a case for their freedom as another, but freely follow his own.” colonists under the Crown. In addition, in the For Locke, as for the common lawyers, the rule eighteenth century, the colonists were increasingly of law was necessary for liberty. In Locke’s view, influenced by the Lockean idea that liberty was a “the end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to natural right. As a result, when they were confronted preserve and enlarge Freedom.”According to Locke, with the policies of the British Crown and Parliament “Where there is no Law, there is no Freedom. For in the 1760s and 1770s to tax and legislate for them Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from without their consent, the colonists viewed them as others which cannot be, where there is no law.” an attack on their liberty. Building on both the English common law and In response, the colonists argued that these on Locke’s ideas, the eighteenth-century English British taxes and regulations were illegal because they writer Cato argued “that liberty is the unalienable violated fundamental rights. They were particularly right of mankind.” It is “the power which every resistant to the claims of the British Parliament, as Man has over his own Actions, and his Right to expressed in the Declaratory Act of 1766, to legislate

enjoy the Fruit of his Labour, Art, and Industry, as for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” By 1774, © The Bill of Rights Institute far as by it he hurts not the Society, or any following the Boston Tea Party organized by Samuel members of it, by taking from any Member or by Adams and John Hancock, and the subsequent

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Coercive Acts, many leading colonists such as Since there was widespread consensus among Thomas Paine and James Otis argued that they had the Founders that liberty required the protection of a natural right to govern themselves, and that such rights and the rule of law, much of the political a right was the only protection for their liberty. In debate in the crucial decades following the American addition to several essays in defense of rights, Revolution revolved around the question of which including Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, institutional arrangements best supported liberty. John Dickinson wrote the first patriotic song,“The Was liberty best protected by strong state Liberty Song.” governments jealously guarding the people’s liberties This colonial thinking about liberty and rights from excessive federal authority, as leading Anti- culminated in the Declaration of Independence Federalists like George Mason contended; or, was issued by the Continental Congress in 1776, which an extended federal republic best able to preserve proclaimed that, because their liberty was the freedom of all, as leading Federalists like James endangered, the colonists had a natural right to Madison and Alexander Hamilton argued? resist the English King and Parliament. The era of the American Revolution also gave Having made a revolution in the name of liberty, birth to a further series of important debates about the American challenge was to create a form of liberty. Was slavery, as some Americans in the government that preserved liberty better than the eighteenth century were beginning to recognize, an vaunted British constitution had done. In doing so, unjust infringement upon the liberty of African the founders turned to the ancient ideal of republican Americans? Were women, long deprived of basic self-government, arguing that it alone could preserve legal rights, also entitled to have equal liberty with the people’s liberty. They further argued that the their male fellow citizens? By making a Revolution modern understanding of liberty as the possession of in its name, the Founders ensured that debates rights needed to be a central part of any proper about the nature and extent of liberty would republican government. Beginning in 1776, in the remain at the center of the American experiment midst of the Revolutionary War, all of the former in self-government. colonies began to construct republican governments Craig Yirush, Ph.D. which rested on the people’s consent and which University of California, Los Angeles included bills of rights to protect the people’s liberty.

Suggestions for Further Reading Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967. Kammen, Michael. Spheres of Liberty: Changing Perceptions of Liberty in American Culture. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986. Reid, John Phillip. The Concept of Liberty in the Age of the American Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. Skinner, Quentin. Liberty Before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Wood, Gordon. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969. © The Bill of Rights Institute

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© The Bill of Rights Institute nsz n motne Thisburgeoning commercial in size andimportance. and CharlesTown (Charleston)—grew Philadelphia, New York, cities—Boston, the maincolonial port In addition, century. intheeighteenth enormously thecolonial economies grew allof networks, theseextensive Atlantic trading As aresult of sugarislands. produce Caribbean theBritish with and trading sellingtimber, were buildingships, theNew colonies England century, the eighteenth by and, also involved world; thewider with intrade economy agricultural which was had aflourishing intheMiddle colonies farmers wheat); indigo, rice, produced valuablestaplecrops (tobacco, forexport colonies Southern The andEurope. Britain with trade inagrowing transatlantic engaging othercolonies as well with as theirsurplus trading they produced more thanwasneededforsubsistence, In allregions, commercial agriculture. colonial were farmers in engaged increasingly rural, overwhelmingly the populationwasstill Although inproductionheavily engaged andtrade. coloniesBritish in wereAmerica prosperous places the By century, themid-eighteenth themselves. where could they come andmake abetter lifefor settlers saw asaplaceAmerica andEuropean British Revolution, the untiltheeve of century settlements intheearlyseventeenth From thefirst enterprises. ascommercial inpart originated Founding. centuries before the American and European thinkers inthetwo societies thatanimated English commercial of the legitimacy argumentsabout the important aswell as before theRevolution, coloniesAmerican inthecentury commercial played activity inthe to understandboththerole that we need attitudestoward commerce, the Founders’ In order to understand in thelate century. eighteenth problemsthe central thatconfronted theFounders republican government andcommerce wasoneof therelationship between and commercial activity, anationdedicated to free enterprise example of United themodern Although States isthepreeminent The American colonies The American 9: 1A ae17 Page AM 51 Commerce o eeoeo h eet”destinedto be the “saved”“elect,” you were oneof To that dosowasasign work hard andprosper. Godwanted to people According to Puritanism, commercial activity. provided ajustificationof commercial society. a provided which supported alegalinfrastructure common theEnglish law person andproperty, By of stressing thesanctity subject’s consent. the governments without from takingproperty seizure byit protected preventing from arbitrary andwhich which itsaw ascentral to liberty, rights, property common law of stressed theimportance English of Thelongtradition British Atlantic. theeighteenth-century commercial world of intellectual justificationfortheincreasingly population from theirlands. theNative American depended ontheremoval of thecolonies theever- economyexpanding of agricultural In addition, manufactured goods. andEuropeEngland inexchange for lucrative staplecrops thatthecolonies soldto these slaves were responsible forproducing the astheRevolution approached, And, over theworld. their growing wealth to purchase goodsfrom all were alsoconsumer societiesthateagerlyused Boston involved infar-flung commercial ventures. powerful andwealthy menlike John Hancock in with alsohadalargemerchantsociety class, Seventeenth-century English Puritanism also Seventeenth-century English provided thought of Several strands The pre-Revolutionary coloniesAmerican oteNwWrd Once there, to theNew World. slaves African the movement of on profit wasfoundedinpart suchcolonists engagedinwith The Atlantic thatthe trade side. had adark however, activity, class societiesintheworld. referred to themasthefirstmiddle many have historians modern thesecolonies that of prosperity such wasthewidespread Indeed, in thisconsumerism. abletoincreasingly participate political andeconomic elite were settlers notincludedinthe white a growing number of Commerce l fthiscommercial All of 5017- 05 2 onesCmec 7/17/04 Commerce Founders 021 inequality, constant warfare, and religious fanaticism. andreligious constant warfare, inequality, were characterized by feudal andaristocratic argued, they ageswhich, to previous as superior commercialthe modern world lived inwhich they thesethinkers celebrated All of benefiting society. private wealth sought werewho simultaneously andthatthose that self-interest wasbeneficent, argued in thesameyear asthe Revolution, American writing and economist Adam Smith (1723–1790), philosopher Themoral andthearts. science, living, standards of higher relations amongnations, peaceful liberty, politicalandreligious fostering were themostconducive to human well-being, and civilization constituted stageof thehighest arguedthatcommercial They societies commerce. madeasimilardefenseof century the eighteenth Many in Scottish writers thanwar. peoples rather by among peaceful fostering trade prejudices” arguedthatcommerce (1689–1755) “cures destructive TheFrench Montesquieu writer commercial societies. offered who asophisticated defenseof writers Enlightenment eighteenth-century influential group of an Founders hadalsoencountered theideasof and deeplycommercial. Protestant, themselves viewed increasingly asfree, the Atlantic century intheeighteenth sides of onboth people English seventeenth-century ideas, Building on these thatitwassinful. denunciations commercial in activity Locke helpedto legit making thiscase, By andexchange. eschewed private property did thosesocietieswhich greater wealthforallthan produced arguing thatthey on private property by commercial societiesbased Locke defended own labor. by their to private property aright generated they rather, by thestate; rights property were individuals notgiven According to Locke, anindividual’s to property. right theoretical defenseof Locke offered anelaborate In addition, and trade. to engageinproduction includingtheliberty person, the of itplaced avalueontheliberty common law, Like the justification foracommercial society. alsoprovided andproperty, to liberty right a natural hisideasabout andinparticular Locke (1632–1704), past theRevolution. remained apowerful force in lifewellAmerican Puritan This work ethic and not “damned.” ytetm fteRvlto,the American theRevolution, By thetimeof John writer theEnglish of The politicaltheory Founders andtheConstitution: InTheirOwnWords—VolumeFounders 1 h aeo age-old the face of 9: od sowas asignthat you were one do To codn oPrtns,Godwanted According toPuritanism, 1A ae18 Page AM 51 fthe “elect,” destinedtobe “saved”of people towork hardandprosper. n not“damned.” and imize fConfederation brought thesequestions about of Continental Congress underthe operating Articles the both thenewstate governments andthatof by them.” begreatlypromoted might thepeople happiness of arguingthat “the century), intheeighteenth laws” onconsumptionlegal restrictions (called “sumptuary John Adams for openlycalled state governments, lawmakers inthenewlyindependentrepublican aguidefor in1776, onGovernment” “Thoughts Writing hisinfluential andself-interest. to luxury one lesslikely to succumb citizenry, more virtuous would fromthis withdrawal alsocreate trade a somecolonists arguedthat commerce, of critique andtheclassicalrepublicanboth theChristian on Drawing inthe1760sand1770s. agreements colonies organized nonimportation widespread the In theirattempts economy, to theBritish harm anticommercial sentiments inthecolonial populace. commercialthe eighteenth-century world. banking andpublicprivate debtthatsupported commercial thenewinstitutionsof be suspiciousof themto theideasledsomeof In particular, century. influenced theFounders inthelate eighteenth commerce to republican government dangers of classicalideasaboutthe These for thepublicgood. there wasanindependentcitizenry ensuring asameansto theend of primarily didso they rights, thinkers defendedproperty To theextent thatrepublican gain. material of self-interest would produce citizens overly concerned dedicated toargued thatasociety commerce and They shared asimilarskepticism aboutcommerce. Greece andRome who the republican thinkers of thatof with thought combined intheFounders’ critique thisChristian years after independence, In the usury. Keayne oncharges of wasputontrial themerchant Robert in theseventeenth century, In New England used to denounce moneymaking. could be even initsPuritan form, Christianity, commerce. Founders were supportive notall of olwn h eouin theexperience of Following theRevolution, The Revolution initiallyfostered these theideasthatinfluenced the However, too focusedonthepursuit peoplewere would belostif thatliberty worrying luxury, of about thepoliticaleffects concernedparticularly republican thinkers were classical These public good. insufficiently attentive to the private matters and with aal facting capable of that

the relationship between republican governments in the knowledge that they would be able to reap and commercial activity to the fore. By ending the the benefits of their labor. old British trading system, the Revolution also Although the new Constitution laid the ushered in a debate about the commercial relations groundwork for an extended commercial republic, between the United States and the rest of the world. it did not end the debates among the Founders The newly independent United States faced over the legitimacy of commerce. In the 1790s, the severe economic difficulties in the 1780s. The Federalists argued for a government-led program states found themselves with limited access to the of commercial expansion, involving investments in lucrative British markets. They also owed money to infrastructure as well as the creation of a national those who had financed the war. But the Continental banking system. However, the Democratic- Congress lacked the legal power to compel the state Republican Party under Thomas Jefferson was governments to agree on a common commercial much more divided on the merits of commercial policy. It also lacked the republicanism. One strand authority to requisition the of Jeffersonian thought was taxes necessary to pay off the Although the new Constitution laid the skeptical of extensive Revolutionary War debt groundwork for an extended commercial commercial activity, from the state governments. republic, it did not end the debates preferring instead a society Robert Morris, who served among the Founders over the of independent yeoman as Congress’ superintendent farmers whose landed status of finance from 1781–1783, legitimacy of commerce. would give them a secure was reduced to pleading material base for republican with the state governors to send money to the citizenship. In making this argument, the national government. Jeffersonians echoed the republican thinkers of The war had also left the individual states with antiquity who valued landed property over large debts to repay. In order to pay these debts off, commercial property because it alone enabled the many states raised taxes and issued paper money virtuous citizen to act in the public interest. This that rapidly depreciated. In addition, many of the aspect of Jeffersonian thought was also skeptical of states began to interfere with the free movements manufacturing and wage labor, fearing that a of goods within the United States. populace engaged in such pursuits would not be able The drafting of the new Constitution in to obtain the independence required of republican Philadelphia in 1787 set out to address the economic citizens. Finally, Jeffersonians were very concerned problems of the 1780s by creating a national about the modern institutions of banking and government that would have the authority to impose public and private debt, fearing that they would taxes, regulate foreign trade, and, most importantly, enable powerful men to undermine republican create a common commercial policy between the government by setting up an aristocracy of money. various state governments. In the Federalist Papers, However, Jeffersonian thought also had a James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, the most strong laissez-faire element, one that became prominent defenders of the new Constitution, increasingly important as the eighteenth century argued forcefully that the federal government came to a close. Although still preferring needed these expanded powers in order to create a commercial agriculture over manufacturing, large free trading area within the continental Jeffersonians were ardently in favor of free labor, United States. They, along with their coauthor free trade, and free markets. On this view, John Jay, also argued for a vigorous commercial commerce was a liberating, even equalizing force, policy to open up markets for foreign trade. allowing the common people to benefit from the In making these arguments, the framers were fruits of their own labor. In addition, this heavily influenced by the Enlightenment defense of Jeffersonian policy of laissez-faire was very commerce discussed above. The Framers further skeptical of the Federalist plans for extensive state- argued that republican government, by allowing directed commerce, preferring instead to let both political and economic freedom, would foster individuals make their own economic decisions. virtuous behavior in its citizens. Freed from the This element of the Jeffersonian attitude toward burden of supporting monarchs and aristocrats, commerce expressed the powerful desire of the

© The Bill of Rights Institute ordinary people in a republic would have the American populace for material improvement, a incentive to be industrious and productive, secure desire which had deep roots in the colonial past.

Commerce 5017- 05 2 onesCmec 7/17/04 Commerce Founders 021 oeie eedda nepeso fthe sometimes defendedasanexpression of andonethatwas commercial activity, of form slavery profitable asitbecameanincreasingly of free theinstitution menandfree laborclashedwith of thisvision expanded west, liberty” “empire of asJefferson’s However, one’s labor. of the fruits andto enjoy to property own included theright Most agreed thatrepublicanAmericans liberty commercial activity. of debates aboutthepropriety McCoy, Drew R. Drew McCoy, andPractice “Commerce intheNew Principle In andCharacter.” The Thinking Revolutionary: Ralph. Lerner, Stephen. Innes, Christine. Heyrman, plb,Joyce. Appleby, Suggestions Reading for Further esn John R. Nelson, Jefferson’s electionin1800didnotendthese Republic. 1995. Norton &Co., W. 1690–1750. 1984. University Press, atmr,M. on okn nvriyPes 1987. Johns Hopkins University Press, Md.: Baltimore, 1982. Co., taa ..:CrelUiest rs,1987. Cornell University Press, : N.Y. Ithaca, aiaimadaNwSca re:TeRpbia iino the1790s. Capitalism andaNew Order: The Republican Social Vision of Creating the Commonwealth: The Economic Culture of Puritan New Puritan England. Creating theCommonwealth: The EconomicCulture of iet n rpry oiia cnm n oiyaigi h e ain 1789–1812. Political andProperty: Liberty Economy andPolicymaking intheNew Nation, The ElusiveRepublic: Political Economy inJeffersonian America. e ok .W otn&C. 1984. Norton &Co., W. W. New York: Founders andtheConstitution: InTheirOwnWords—VolumeFounders 1 omreadClue h aiieCmuiiso Colonial Massachusetts, Commerce andCulture: Communities of The Maritime 9: 1A ae20 Page AM 51 States well into thenineteenth century. commercialquestions intheincreasingly United state of andthedesirability intervention intheeconomy remained pressing free trade, of theissue banks, therole of in arepublican society, manufacturing theplace of thequestionof labor, therelationship between slaverywith andfree Along commitment toAmerican private property. New York: W. W. Norton & Norton W. W. New York: nvriyo aiona Los Angeles California, University of New York: New York New York: New e ok W. New York: ri iuh Ph.D. Craig Yirush,