A Revolution in Favor of Government: Origins of the U.S. Constitution and the Making of the American StateWhat were the intentions of the Founders? Was the American constitution designed to protect individual rights? To limit the powers of government? To curb the excesses of democracy? Or to create a robust democratic nation-state? These questions echo through today's most heated legal and political debates. In this powerful new interpretation of America's origins, Max Edling argues that the Federalists were primarily concerned with building a government that could act vigorously in defense of American interests. The Constitution transferred the powers of war making and resource extraction from the states to the national government thereby creating a nation-state invested with all the important powers of Europe's eighteenth-century "fiscal-military states." A strong centralized government, however, challenged the American people's deeply ingrained distrust of unduly concentrated authority. To secure the Constitution's adoption the Federalists had to accommodate the formation of a powerful national government to the strong current of anti-statism in the American political tradition. They did so by designing a government that would be powerful in times of crisis, but which would make only limited demands on the citizenry and have a sharply restricted presence in society. The Constitution promised the American people the benefit of government without its costs. Taking advantage of a newly published letterpress edition of the constitutional debates, A Revolution in Favor of Government recovers a neglected strand of the Federalist argument, making a persuasive case for rethinking the formation of the federal American state. |
Contents
The Elusive Meaning of the Debate over Ratification | |
European States American Contexts | |
The Ideological Response to State Expansion | |
PART TWO MILITARY POWERS 5 An Impotent Congress | |
Independence Commerce and Military Strength | |
A Government of Force | |
PART THREE FISCAL POWERS 10 Congressional Insolvency | |
Unlimited Taxation Public Credit and the Strength | |
The Costs of Government | |
A Government for Free | |
The Federalists and the Uses of Fiscal Powers | |
The Constitution the Federalists and | |
Notes | |
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administration Alexander Contee Hanson Alexander Hamilton amendment American Republic American Revolution Antifederalists argued Articles of Confederation Bailyn Bernard Bailyn Britain Brutus Carolina ratifying convention Centinel Chapel Hill citizens claim classical republicanism colonies Congress Congress’s power Constitution Constitution’s Continental Army Country debate over ratification direct taxes duties early modern Edmund Randolph eighteenth century Elliot Europe European excise executive federal government Federalist argument fiscal fiscal-military force government’s Hist historians History ibid Ideological important income Independence interest John John Smilie laws legislatures levied liberty Madison Massachusetts ratifying convention means military militia national government North Carolina North Carolina Press North Carolina ratifying Oliver Ellsworth Oxford peace establishment peacetime Pennsylvania ratifying convention political popular proposed public credit raise ratification debate reason Republican revenue Revolutionary Sinews of Power society soldiers standing army taxation treaty troops union United University of North Virginia ratifying convention Whiskey Rebellion wrote York ratifying convention