A History of the American People

Congress or the congresses held under the Articles of Association. Most were planters,
landowners or merchants; a number had served in the army; there were twenty-six college
graduates-nine from Princeton alone-but probably the most important single element were the
lawyers. It was Hamilton who pointed out the significance of this, both at the time and later in
the Federalist (number 35), in one of his newspaper essays. All the Constitution-makers
distinguished between private interests and an autonomous public interest, representing
republican ideals-the res publica itself. Washington, who presided over the Convention, but who
wisely confined his activity to insuring order and decorum, stuck to his view that most men were
guided by their own private interests: to expect ordinary people, he said, to be influenced by any other principles but those of interest, is to look for what never did and I fear never will happen ... The few, therefore, who act upon Principles of Disinterestedness are, comparatively speaking, no more than a drop in the ocean.' That was true, agreed Hamilton; nonetheless, there was a class of people in society who, as alearned profession,' were disinterested-the lawyers. Unlike farmers,
planters, and merchants, they had no vested economic interest to advance and therefore formed a
natural ruling elite and ought to form the bedrock of public life. Madison complemented this
argument by asserting (a point he also repeated in the Federalist (number 10) that, whereas the
states represented local interests, the federal government and Congress represented the national
or public interest, and would mediate between them. Hence, concluded Hamilton, it would be
natural and right for state legislatures to be dominated by planters, merchants, and other interest-
groups but for the Congress to be dominated by the lawyers. Though America's ruling elite,
insofar as it still existed in the 1780s, intended for the new Constitution to provide rule by
gentlemen, what it did in fact produce was rule by lawyers-a nomiocracy.
There was a fair spectrum of opinion in the Convention. There were extreme federalists, who
wanted a centralized power almost on the lines of a European state like Britain-Gouverneur
Morris of New York, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, Rufus King of Massachusetts, and Charles
Pinckney of South Carolina. On the other hand, there were some states' rights extremists like
Luther Martin of Maryland. The existence of these two opposing groups had the effect of making
Hamilton (the pro-federalist) and Madison (who was closer to Jefferson) seem moderates, and
therefore to strengthen their influence. But the atmosphere of the Convention was positive,
constructive, and reasonable at all times. Even those who formed, as it were, the opposition-such
as Elbridge Gerry, who refused to sign the Constitution, and Edmund Raldolph, who likewise
declined to sign though, unlike Gerry, he supported ratification-were helpful rather than
obstructive. These were serious, sensible, undoctrinaire men, gathered together in a pragmatic
spirit to do something practical, and looking back on a thousand years of political traditions,
inherited from England, which had always stressed compromise and give-and-take.
The Convention moved swiftly because these practical men were aware of the need to get the
federal power right as quickly as possible. The previous autumn, a dangerous revolt of debt-
ridden farmers, many of whom had fought in the Continental Army and were well provided with
crude weapons, had developed in rural Massachusetts. Under the leadership of Daniel Shays
(1747-1825), a bankrupt farmer and former army captain, they had gathered at Springfield in
September and forced the state Supreme Court to adjourn in terror. In January Shays led 1,200
men towards the Springfield arsenal to exchange their pitchforks for muskets and seize cannon.
They were scattered, though many of them were still being hunted in February 1787, shortly
before the Convention met. The net effect of Shays' Rebellion was to force the Massachusetts
legislature to drop direct taxation, lower court fees, and make other fiscal concessions to the
mob. But it also reminded everyone attending in Philadelphia that the Confederation, as it stood,