Politically Incorrect Guide To The Constitution (Politically Incorrect Guides) Read Online Free PDF Page A

requisitions, then, it must have been
because they were selfish and unpatriotic. Federalists claimed that only
a stronger government could solve the "problem" of a government that
just barely had enough money and coercive power to do what it was
intended to do and did not have the
resources to do much of anything else.
(What a wonderful problem!)
    But the Federalist version leaves out
some important facts. For instance, the total
amount of voluntary state contributions supposedly owed to the Confederation by the
states in 1788 exceeded the amount of gold
and silver (that is, money) in the entire
United States! And political scientist Keith L. Dougherty has demonstrated that the states actually contributed more to the war effort than any
rational choice model would predict.

    Federalists in the Continental and Confederation Congresses repeatedly attempted to get the states to cede more power to Congress. In each
case, they were unsuccessful: Americans from New Hampshire to Georgia simply refused. They did not want to trade one distant, unaccountable authority in the British Parliament for another in a more powerful
American Congress. Especially heroic on this score was little Rhode
Island, which refused to ratify a tariff amendment when all twelve other
states did. Virginia responded by repealing its ratification, and for Federalists, that was the last straw.
    The campaign for a stronger federal government grew-even when
King George III admitted defeat. But he admitted defeat to the "sovereign
and independent states." As Article I of the Treaty of Paris put it, "His
Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland,
Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to be free, sovereign and independent States; that he treats with them as such, and for
himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the Government, propriety and territorial rights of the same, and every part thereof."
Note that King George was required by the terms of the treaty not to admit
that "America" was independent or that "the United States" was independent, but that the thirteen named states were independent.
    Interestingly, in Article V, the American commissioners undertook on
behalf of Congress to implore the states to restore confiscated rights and
property to Loyalists. This provision, which never bore the fruit the
British hoped for, recognized the constitutional situation of the American states-independent not only of Great Britain, but also of each other.
Article VII said that there would be a "perpetual" peace between Great
Britain and the United States-which meant that the treaty did not have
a fixed expiration date.

Reforming the Confederation
    In 1785, the states of Maryland and Virginia appointed delegates to a conference to meet at George Washington's home, Mount Vernon, on the
Potomac River. Their task was to negotiate an arrangement for sharing the
river-establishing each state's navigation and taxing rights. The conference failed-Virginia's delegates didn't show-but a new meeting was set
for the following year at Annapolis. This time, the goal was a reform of
the Confederation.
    When only five states sent delegates to the Annapolis Convention of
1786, leading figures like Alexander Hamilton of New York and James
Madison of Virginia called for a new convention to take place the following summer in Philadelphia.
    Why would a new convention meet in 1787? The Federalists told the
state governments that its purpose would be to propose amendments to
the Articles of Confederation. Rhode Island, which had no interest in strengthening the Confederation, did not send a delegation. New York,
where Governor George Clinton and the majority of the legislature were
skeptical of the Federalists, sent a moderately pro-reform three-man