History of the United States Constitution. George Ticknor Curtis

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ carried into practice than it had ever been in the country from which it was derived. But the fundamental principle on which they all rested, and without which they could not maintain existence, required means of defence. They were established upon the great doctrine, that it is the right of every political society to govern itself, and for the purposes of such self-government, to create such constitutions and ordain such fundamental laws as its own judgment and its own intelligent choice may find best suited to its own interests. But society can act only by an expression of the aggregate will of its members; and as there may be members who dissent from the views and determinations of the great mass of society, and it is therefore necessary to decide with whom the power of compelling obedience resides,—since there must be obedience in order that there may be peace,—nature and reason have determined that this power is to reside with a majority of the members. The American constitutions, therefore, are founded wholly upon the principle, that a majority expresses the will of the whole society, and may establish, change, and abrogate forms of government at its pleasure.254 It follows, as a necessary deduction from this fundamental doctrine, that so soon as society has acted in the formation and establishment of a government, upon this principle, no change can take place, but by a new expression of the will of society through the voice of a majority; and whether a majority desires or has actually decreed a change, is a fact that must be made certain, and can only be made certain in one of two modes,—either by the evidence and through the channels which the society has previously ordained for this purpose, or by the submission of all its members to a violent and successful revolution.

      The first constitution of Massachusetts did not designate any mode in which it was to be amended or changed. But no peaceable change can take place in any government founded on the expressed will of a majority of the people, consistently with the principle on which it had been established, until it has been ascertained, in some mode, that a change is demanded by the same authority. The vital importance of ascertaining this fact with precision was not so clearly perceived, at that early period, as it is now.

      Seizing upon the newly established doctrine, which made them the sources of all political power, the people did not at once apprehend the rule which preserves and upholds that power, and makes the doctrine itself both practicable and safe. Hence, when troubles arose, individuals were led to suppose that they had only to declare a grievance, to demand a change, and to compel a compliance with their demand by force. So far as they reasoned at all, they persuaded themselves that, as their government was the creation of the people, by their own direct act, bodies of the people could assemble in their primary capacity, and, by obstructing any of its functions which they connected with a particular grievance, produce a reform, which the people have always a right to make. By overlooking, in this manner, the only safe and legitimate mode in which the popular will can be really ascertained, they passed into the mischiefs of anarchy and rebellion, mistaking the voices of a minority for the ascertained will of society.

      To these tendencies, the recently established governments of New England, where the spirit of liberty was most vigorous, could oppose no efficient check; while, in any open outbreak, they were without any external defender, on whose power they could lean. The Confederation succeeded to the Revolutionary Congress, as we have more than once had occasion to observe, with less power than its predecessor might have exercised. It was formed by a written constitution, yet it was, strictly speaking, scarcely a government. It was a close union of the States; but it was a union from which all powers had been jealously withheld which would have enabled it to interfere with vigor and success between an insurgent minority of the people of a State and its lawful rulers. The Revolutionary Congress was once possessed of such large, indefinite powers, that, upon principles of public necessity, it might have assumed, in a great emergency, to hold a direct relation to the internal concerns of any Colony. It was, in fact, looked to, in some degree, for direction in the formation of the State governments, after it had broken the bonds of colonial allegiance to the English crown; and it might very properly have undertaken to support the governments whose establishment it had recommended. But such a relation between the early States and the continental power, though it certainly existed in 1776, was soon lost in the independent and jealous attitude which they began to occupy, and the Union rapidly assumed a position, where the character of sovereignty which it appeared to wear when it promulgated the Declaration of Independence was scarcely to be discerned. At no period in the history of the Confederation did it act upon the internal concerns or condition of a State. Its written articles of union hardly admitted of a construction which would have enabled it to do so, and certainly contained no express delegation of such a power.

      At the same time, some of the State governments, during the period of which we are treating, were singularly exposed to the dangers of anarchy. None of them had any standing forces of any consequence, three years after the peace, and the New England States had no military forces whatever but their militia. No State could call upon its neighbors for aid in quelling an insurrection, for their militia would not have obeyed the summons, if it had been issued; and no State could call upon the federal government, in such an emergency, with any certainty of success in the application.255

      In such a state of things, the year 1786 witnessed an insurrection in Massachusetts of a very dangerous character, which, from the fortunate circumstance that her counsels were then guided by a man of singular energy and firmness of character, she was just able to subdue. The remote causes of this insurrection lie too far from the path of our main subject to be more than summarily stated.

      At the close of the Revolutionary war, the State of Massachusetts was oppressed with an enormous debt. At the breaking out of that war, the debt of the Colony was less than one hundred thousand pounds. The private debt of the State, in the year 1786, was one million three hundred thousand pounds, besides two hundred and fifty thousand pounds due to the officers and soldiers of the State line of the Revolutionary army. The State's proportion of the federal debt was not less than one million and a half of pounds.256 According to the customary mode of taxation, one third of the whole debt was to be paid by the ratable polls, which scarcely exceeded ninety thousand.257 The Revolution had made the people of Massachusetts familiar with the great general doctrines of liberty and human rights; but it had given them little insight into the principles of revenue and finance, and little acquaintance with the rules of public economy. No sufficient means, therefore, to relieve the people from direct taxation, by encouraging a revival of trade and at the same time drawing from it a revenue, were devised by the legislature. The exports of the State, moreover, had suffered a fearful diminution. The fisheries, which had been a fruitful source of prosperity to the colony, had been nearly destroyed by the war, and the markets of the West Indies and of Europe were now closed to the products of this lucrative industry, by which wealth had formerly been drawn from the wastes of the ocean. The State had scarcely any other commodity to exchange for the precious metals in foreign commerce. Its agriculture yielded only a scanty support to its population, if it yielded so much; its manufactures were in a languishing condition; and its carrying trade had been driven from the seas during the war, and was afterwards annihilated by the oppressive policy of England, which succeeded the Peace. The people were every year growing poorer than they had been the year before, and taxes, onerous taxes, beyond their resources and always odious, were pressing upon them with a constantly increasing accumulation, from which the political state of the country seemed to promise no relief.258

      But the demand of the tax-gatherer was not the sole burden which individuals had to encounter. Private debts had accumulated during the war, in almost as large a ratio as the public obligations. The collection of such debts had been generally suspended, while the struggle for political freedom was going on; but that struggle being over, creditors necessarily became active, and were often obliged to be severe. Suits were multiplied in the courts of law beyond all former precedent, and the first effect of this sudden influx of litigation was to bring popular odium upon the whole machinery of justice. In a state of society approaching so nearly to a democracy, the class of debtors, if numerous, must be politically formidable. They had begun to be so before the close of the war. Their clamors and the supposed necessity of the case led the legislature, in 1782, to a violation of principle, in a law known as the Tender Act, by which executions for debt might be satisfied by certain articles of property, to be taken at an appraisement. СКАЧАТЬ