Volume 40, Number 20 · December 2, 1993
Power to the People?
By Edmund S. Morgan
The Debate on the Constitution: Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches, Articles, and Letters During the Struggle over Ratification
edited by Bernard Bailyn
Library of America, Part II: January to August 1788, 1,175 pp., $70.00 boxed set
In 1787 many Americans were convinced that the 'perpetual union' they had created in winning independence was collapsing. Six years earlier in the Articles of Confederation the thirteen state governments had surrendered extensive powers to a congress of delegates from each state legislature. Six years had proved the powers surrendered to be not enough. With no power to tax or to enforce its decrees, the Congress had been helpless to restore the credit of a nation heavily indebted to foreign powers, helpless to halt runaway inflation, helpless to prevent trade wars among the states. The famous convention of 1787 met in Philadelphia to define the additional powers needed to enable Congress to do its job effectively. Instead, the convention proposed a brand new national government. In the year that followed publication of its proposals in September, Americans had to decide, state by state, whether to abandon the old Articles of Confederation for this new Constitution, which was to go into operation when and if nine of the thirteen states approved it. Within a year ten states had done so.
Review, 3614 words
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