The Ongoing Outcome of the Great Debate

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At the beginning of this year, I began a political series about the Supreme Court and its willingness to encourage unlimited anonymous spending by the wealthiest citizens to influence the electoral system. Following a thread, which seemed as brilliant as gold (yet obviously soiled in filth), I examined the Justices' willingness to engender corruption at the national level (a topic on which The Atlantic's Matt Ford recently reiterates). The appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the court seemed likely to encourage this trend, and to understand the gathering momentum, it was necessary Gorsuch's judicial theory of Originalism. This inevitably led to the inhospitable territory where one must discuss the intent of the Constitutions creators. Of all its members, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison illuminated their intent in their essays, the Federalist Papers. And because both modern parties (but especially the Republican party) constantly try to claim the mantle of the Founding Fathers, it seemed relevant to compare their (Rs and Ds) claims to this particular Crown. Simply, whose modern governing philosophy most exemplified that of the original debaters, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists.

Before we begin, a short apology. Anyone with eyes can see I have allowed these political commentaries to lapse. This final article to conclude this long chain spanning the Supreme Court to an Federalist/Anti-Federalist modern comparison, should have been finished long ago. But personal issues reduced by time to write. This was compounded by a political lethargy aggravated by the chaos of Washington. In 2017, it seems as if the President cares not a bit for decorum, sound policy, or even common decency. It's all become like one great sporting event, where POTUS is either vanquishing your enemies on the playing field or abusing you day by day. In such an atmosphere one is inclined to abandon ideas and join the fray. I tarried over other ideas, but couldn't abandon this thread. In the end, while it would be easy to write any number of articles lambasting the president, I realized there are a superfluous number of competent people writing editorials articles about the President, and I've resolved to finally write this conclusion and move along.

SO, finally, this article will conclude this series by considering who was right about the outcome of the Constitution: the Anti-Federalists or the Federalists.

The Convention of Philadelphia, authorized only to amend the Articles of Confederation, convened because prominent citizen imagined the Articles insufficient to the challenges facing the new country. For some, the most prominent problem was the debt of United States, incurred during the Revolutionary War, and with no means to reduce it. The debt included payments for general governance, overdue salaries for the soldiers of the Revolution, and repayment for the confiscated property of displaced Loyalists (commonly known as Tories). The Treaty of Paris, signed in 1783 and marking the resolution of the Revolution, required the United States, “to provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties, which have been confiscated belonging to real British subjects; and also of the estates, rights, and properties of persons resident in districts in the possession on his Majesty's arms and who have not borne arms against the said United States”. The United States had to replace property lost by British subjects or Loyalists, but it could not compel the states to fund its efforts.

When the United States failed to fulfill this duty, the British declined to execute their own obligations under the Treaty, by refusing to return American slaves and remaining in forts on United States territory. These forts spread across the States of New York, Vermont, Ohio, and Michigan. The British even built a fort in Ohio in early 1794, though all forts were forfeited later the same year. Internally, discord brewed, as the inability of the United States to pay former soldiers inspired Daniel Shays, a Revolutionary veteran, to lead his own uprising in western Massachusetts. Alexander Hamilton, among others, worried the Articles of Confederation were inadequate to resolve these problems, and that they resulted from a weak central government, one unable to set its own spending. Though the national government could request funds from the several states, it had no means to enforce its demands, and states regularly rejected or reduced the application.

Hamilton didn't believe this was the only problem worth reviewing. A strong, centralized government would eliminate two more of his fears. One, that the states would antagonize each other economically with tariffs and taxes, and even form diplomatic accords with other foreign powers. A binding of public feeling and a reduction of state power would solve their issues. But what truly worried Hamilton was the unknown. That the nation would meet a unforeseen challenge, and find itself unprepared. A strong centralized government could surmount this challenge. The Constitution, which he helped author, would be a bulwark against these threats.

But the Anti-Federalists saw the Constitution as a freedom crushing institution. They believed it would deprive citizens of their rights and reduce the sovereignty of the states. It would curtail the state militias to auxiliaries of the national army, allow the federal government to directly tax the income of citizens, and regulate commerce between states. One component of the Federalist Papers was intended to reassure the Anti-Federalists that their predictions were hyperventilating hyperboles. Publius, the pseudonym used by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton to write the Federalist Papers, outwardly assured the public and the Anti-Federalists that the states would always have sole control of their militias, that just because the national government could institute an income tax – it never would, and any management of state economies would be minimal.

Two hundred years later it seems the Anti-Federalists were correct. The Anti-Federalists were right to believe the United States would eclipse its components. The state militias were nationalized in 1933 by the National Guard Mobilization Act which required all federally funded state militia members to enlist in the National Guard of the United States, a newly created reserve force. For seven years, states were legally barred from maintaining independent armed forces, but in 1940, Congress allowed each state to create a defense force. Today, twenty-one states from California, to Texas, to New York fund a reserve force for emergency duties, but these are only only remnants of the true state militias that won the Revolution.

The Anti-Federalists were also correct the eventual outcome of Constitutional taxation. The first income tax of three percent on incomes over eight hundred dollars (twenty-two thousand dollars today), was instituted in 1861 during the Civil War. In 1894, the Supreme Court rejected some aspects of an income tax as unconstitutional, so Congress passed the 16th amendment in 1913 giving itself unlimited power to tax income directly.

Over the last two centuries, the states have been reduced to bureaucratic auxiliaries of the United States, no longer sovereign (see Civil War), and forced to accept rule by the Federal government (see 14th Amendment). But the Anti-Federalists were wrong about one critical issue. The United States could not have passed through the trials it faced if overseen by the Articles of Confederation. A small rebellion in the backwoods of Massachusetts shook the Confederation to its core. The national government under the Articles couldn't compel the states to provide payment for its debts. These are mere sparks compared to the conflagrations the nation has had to pass through. The United States would have split over slavery without the strong bindings of a national government. Or citizens would be living in a universe like The Man in the High Castle. This very day, we need a national government to sign and enforce international treaties, work for peace among the nations, seek to eradicate nuclear weapons, and curtail the deadly effects of global warming (sadly our current government is doing the opposite of every one of these). A nation empowered by the Articles of Confederation could accomplish none of these, because it delegated only a tiny fragment of each states authority to the national government.

Did Madison or Hamilton suspect the truth? Thomas L. Pangle of the University of Chicago believes Madison was surprised by the results of the Constitution, and for evidence Dr. Pangle points to Madison's alliance with Thomas Jefferson to resist the Federalist party. Hamilton, Pangle suggests, skillfully dissembled his true intent, and since he remained an ardent Federalist, understood the outcomes of the Constitution better than his co-essayist.

We'll never know what Hamilton, Madison, Washington, Jefferson, or any founding father, would make of our current state of affairs. As citizens, we need to make our own choices, as best we comprehend them, using the best lawful means to undertake them.

For better or worse, we could not be the nation we are without the Constitution.
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