An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the
It is difficult to conceive of the Constitution as an economic document. It places no property qualifications on voters or offices; it gives no outward recognition of any economic groups in society; it mentions no special privileges to be conferred upon any class. It betrays no feeling, such as vibrates through the French constitution of 1791; its language is cold, formal, and severe.
The primary objective of government is making rules which determine the property relations of members of society. The law is concerned with the property relations of men and the processes by which the ownership of property passes from one person to another. Different degrees and kinds of property inevitably exist in modern society; party doctrines and “principles” originate in the sentiments and views which the possession of various kinds of property creates in the minds of the possessors; class and group divisions based on property lie at the basis of modern government; and politics and constitutional law is inevitably a reflex of these contending interests.
The concept of the Constitution as a piece of abstract legislation reflecting no group interests and recognizing no economic antagonisms is entirely false. It was an economic document drawn with superb skill by men whose property interests were immediately at stake. Nationalism was created by a wielding of economic interests that cut through state boundaries. The southern planter was as much concerned in maintaining order against slave revolts as the creditor in putting down desperate debtors.
The Constitution is essentially an economic document based upon the concept that the fundamental rights of property are anterior to government and morally beyond the reach of popular majorities. The Constitution was the work of a consolidated group whose interests knew no state boundaries and were truly national in their scope. The members of the Philadelphia Convention which drafted the Constitution were immediately, directly, and personally interested in, and derived economic advantages from, the establishment of the new system.
The Federalist presents the political science of the new system as conceived by three of the profoundest thinkers of the period,
What are the chief causes of these conflicting political forces with which the government must concern itself?
Alexander Hamilton: “All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government.”
The opposition to the Constitution almost uniformly came from non-slaveholding farmers and from debtors. No popular vote was taken directly or indirectly on the proposition to call the Convention which drafted the Constitution. A large property-less mass was, under prevailing suffrage qualifications, excluded at the outset from participation in the work of framing the Constitution. It is pretty conclusive that the Constitution was not the product of “we the people,” but of a group of economic interests which expected beneficial results from its adoption.
Bush's State of the Union Address January 2008
The strength -- the secret of our strength, the miracle of
