From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (10 page)

An emerging sense of crisis among leaders of a nationalist bent produced in 1786 urgent calls for changing the Articles of Confederation or scrapping them altogether. The government seemed incapable of relieving the nation's commercial woes. As early as 1784, some delegates had considered asking the states to give Congress power to discriminate against British imports, but the lack of a quorum forestalled action. A congressional committee proposed in early 1785 an amendment to the Articles giving Congress power to regulate commerce. The proposal was debated but never approved, partly from southern fear of northern commercial interests, also because of a more generalized concern about expanded
federal power.
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Although some regions had begun to recover from the postwar depression, commercial problems crippled key sectors of the U.S. economy such as shipbuilding and whaling.
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Americans deeply resented the indignities heaped upon them by other nations, especially the British.

The situation in the West seemed to nationalists equally menacing. Britain defiantly clung to the Great Lakes forts and continued to exploit the fur trade. From the Canadian border to the Floridas, the United States faced the danger of Indian warfare. Indian attacks killed as many as 1,500 Kentuckians between 1783 and 1790. Two hundred Virginians died in October 1786 alone. In that same year, seven thousand Creeks threatened Savannah on the Georgia coast.
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The national government was no more effective in dealing with the Indian menace than with commercial problems. It lacked an army and the money to raise one. Its inability to secure access to the Mississippi raised further concerns about its weakness. Jay's apparent willingness to bargain away what southerners considered their birthright threatened dissolution of the Union. The crisis of 1786 posed fundamental questions about whether Congress had the power and backing to defend U.S. interests in a hostile world or even whether it could agree upon those interests that must be protected.
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Foreign policy concerns drove nationalist demands to revise the nation's form of government. By 1786, leaders were deeply concerned with the dignity, honor, and respectability of their country. In declaring themselves independent and winning their freedom from Great Britain, Americans were acutely conscious that they were conducting a novel experiment in self-government that could serve as an example to the rest of the world. Their nation's weakness in the face of foreign humiliation threatened that experiment and was therefore especially difficult to accept. Nationalists thus concluded that they must have a government strong enough to command respect abroad. Adams insisted that until the national government could prevent the states from undermining the 1783 treaty it would be impossible to negotiate with England. "Of all the nations on earth," Jefferson protested from Paris, the British "require to be treated with the most hauteur. They require to be kicked into common
good manners." The young New York firebrand Alexander Hamilton lamented that the nation was at "almost the last stage of national humiliation."
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"Is respectability in the eyes of foreign powers a safeguard against foreign encroachments?" he later asked in the
Federalist Papers.
"The imbecility of our government forbids them to treat with us," he answered.
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Over the next two years, the nationalists translated their concerns into action. In January 1786, Virginia proposed a convention to be held in Annapolis, Maryland, to deal with commercial issues. Only five states sent representatives—the host state, ironically, was not one of them—but Hamilton used the meeting to enlarge the discussions to other weaknesses of the federal system. The resolution emerging from Annapolis in September described the condition of the union as "delicate and critical" and called upon the states to send delegates to another meeting in Philadelphia to "derive such further provisions as shall appear to be necessary to render the constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union."
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Congress gave lukewarm endorsement limited to revising the Articles of Confederation.

A taxpayers' revolt in western Massachusetts led by revolutionary war veteran Daniel Shays just as representatives were preparing to go to Philadelphia provided another boost to the nationalist cause. State military forces raised for the occasion easily suppressed the uprising, but the events confirmed in the minds of nationalists and the propertied classes fears of chaos and even dissolution of the Union. Shays's Rebellion also had foreign policy implications since the rebels had reportedly discussed with the British possible separation from the Union.
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It strengthened belief in the need for a strong national government that could regulate the militia, maintain order, and hold the Union together. "We are fast verging to anarchy and confusion," Washington warned Madison in November 1786.
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The fear of anarchy, although exaggerated, was widely shared and had international implications. Jefferson in Paris worried that signs of chaos would weaken the United States in the eyes of Europeans sympathetic to
the Revolution. He and other Americans also viewed events at home in terms of what was happening in Europe. The "partition" of rebellious Poland by outside powers and the plight of the fledgling Dutch republic, divided internally and threatened from within and without, were everpresent reminders of the fragility of the American experiment.
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Nationalists viewed the American Revolution as a "new chapter in the law of nations" and often comforted themselves that their republic was "immune to the savage enmities of the Old World." By 1786, they feared that the independence of the individual states might lead to the Europeanization of America, its breakup into quarreling entities resembling the European state system. Such a condition could lead to European intervention or the reimposition of despotism. Indeed, Shays's Rebellion and separatist sentiment in Vermont seemed to some nationalists a "stalking horse for counterrevolutionary conspiracy."
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The Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. Jefferson hailed it as an "assembly of demigods." A French diplomat agreed that "we will never have seen, even in Europe, an assembly more respectable for the talents, knowledge, disinterestedness, and patriotism of those who compose it."
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In 1787, the king of Prussia intervened militarily to crush rebellion in the Netherlands and restore monarchy. The specter of Holland's misfortune clouded the meeting in Philadelphia until it ended.
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The discussions were dominated by nationalists, but debates were often heated. Crucial differences between large and small states over representation in the legislature were resolved by the "Great Compromise," which provided for equal representation in the upper house, the Senate, and proportional representation in the House of Representatives. The constitution also provided for a president to be elected every four years and a federal judiciary.

Foreign policy issues played a major role in calling the convention and would be important in the deliberations themselves. The fundamental question of the foreign policy powers to be assigned to each branch of government created ambiguities that have vexed the republic ever since. On one issue—commerce—there was little debate. Under the Confederation, the states could not agree on a uniform commercial policy. Other nations had exploited the differences. The need for a unified
federal policy "has been so often enforced and descanted upon," a New York newspaper observed, "that the whole subject appears to be worn threadbare."
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The need for federal authority to regulate commerce was the major reason the convention had been called. All plans proposed in Philadelphia gave the national government that power. A Committee of Detail assigned to Congress "the exclusive power of regulating Trade and levying imposts." Some nervous Deep South states pushed for a two-thirds vote to approve commercial legislation. Madison led the opposition, arguing that "we are laying the foundation of a great empire" and should "take a permanent view of the subject." The great issue, he insisted, was "the necessity of securing the West India trade to this country." The proposal was defeated, but the southerners extracted concessions in the form of provisions preventing any interference with the slave trade before 1808 and prohibiting export duties.
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The several branches shared power on other key foreign policy questions such as the making of treaties and diplomatic appointments. Early in the convention, delegates generally agreed that the Senate should be primarily responsible for foreign affairs. They naturally worried that an executive with too much power might replicate the monarchy from which they had just escaped. If presidential powers extended to war and peace, South Carolinian Charles Pinckney warned, it "would render the executive a monarchy of the worst kind, to wit an elected one."
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Since Congress had executive powers under the Articles, it seemed natural to many of the delegates to leave them there. The smaller Senate, composed of more experienced and presumably wiser members, would be better able to deal with foreign policy issues than the popularly elected House. Thus late in the deliberations, when such issues were finally addressed, the power to make treaties and appoint diplomats was given to the Senate.

Ultimately, such powers were shared with the executive. Some delegates believed that the president could act as a check on the Senate and might better serve "as the general Guardian of the national interest."
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Others felt that a single individual could operate more effectively than a larger legislative body and maintain the secrecy sometimes necessary in
handling foreign policy issues. The large states objected to what New York's Rufus King called "the vicious principle of representation," which made them equal with the small. Others disliked the fact that senators were elected by the state legislatures. Madison thus pushed for the president to act on these matters with the "advice and consent" of the Senate. The most controversial proposal was to require a two-thirds vote for approving treaties. The large states objected that a minority of small states could block a treaty. Madison sought to make peace treaties easier to approve by requiring a simple majority, but the two-thirds clause stuck, giving a minority a potent weapon that would be used often in the future.
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The constitutional provision that has caused the greatest controversy—the power to make war—was similarly shared yet, ironically, seems to have provoked little discussion in Philadelphia. Some delegates preferred to give the power to the president. Others, not surprisingly, feared granting such power to one person, proposing that it stay with the legislature and even with the Senate. Reflecting the spirit of compromise that marked the proceedings, Madison urged assigning to the president as commander in chief the power to "repel sudden attacks" when Congress could not act but giving Congress the power to declare war. This ambiguous compromise left the president an opening to employ military force without securing a declaration, one of the most persistent and difficult issues to emerge from the Constitution.

Submission of the document to the states for ratification set off a spirited debate, and foreign policy was central to the discussion. Indeed, the debate over the Constitution was the first in a series of recurring debates over the goals of U.S. foreign policy and the nation's proper role in the world. Those nationalists who shrewdly called themselves Federalists insisted that the weaknesses so blatantly manifest in the Articles of Confederation must be corrected if the United States was to survive and prosper in a hostile world. Those who came to be known as Antifederalists minimized external dangers and warned of the threat to American liberties from a more powerful national government and more active involvement in world affairs.

Federalists saw signs of national decline everywhere.
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Foreign troops remained on America's soil; ships in its ports flew other flags while U.S. vessels rotted at their moorings. Congress could not enforce treaties. Unpaid debts had destroyed U.S. credit abroad. The lack of respect with which the nation was treated provided the most compelling sign of U.S.
weakness. "At the peace . . . America held a most elevated rank among the powers of the earth," a Pennsylvanian lamented, "but how are the mighty fallen! disgraced have we rendered ourselves abroad and ruined at home."
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The nation's weakness made it "a prey to the nations of the earth," a defender of the Constitution declaimed. "What is there to prevent an Algerine pirate from landing on your coast, and carrying away your citizens into slavery?" a North Carolinian asked with obvious hyperbole. "You have not a single sloop of war."
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Federalists insisted that the nation's prosperity hinged on a thriving commerce and thus on access to foreign markets. They wanted the United States to take its rightful place among the world's great nations. A constitution that strengthened national power would enable the nation to address its most important foreign policy problems and command respect abroad. It would "raise us from the lowest degree of contempt, into which we are now plunged," a Massachusetts newspaper proclaimed, "to an honorable, and consequently equal station among nations."
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Some Federalists even championed the Constitution as an "inspirational instrument to the Old World," an essential means to extend to other nations the American model of republican union.
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Antifederalists took a more sanguine view of the nation's condition, a more limited view of its role in the world. They accused their foes of seeking to terrify the people by concocting "imaginary danger" and of over-promising the benefits of a new constitution. Anticipating arguments that would run throughout future foreign policy debates, they insisted that the United States because of its distance from Europe and the barrier provided by the Atlantic Ocean enjoyed unprecedented security. Should a European nation be so foolish as to attack, it would fight at a distinct disadvantage. Because of the European balance of power, other nations would come to America's aid. The United States could best exploit its geographical advantage by focusing on problems at home and providing the world "an example of a great people, who in their civil institutions hold chiefly in view, the attainment of virtue, and happiness among themselves."
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It should not seek to influence European politics or intrude in disputes beyond its borders. Southern Antifederalists took issue with the Constitution itself. They feared that assigning to a bare majority
the power to regulate commerce would benefit northern merchants at their expense. Opponents from all regions expressed concern over giving Congress unlimited power to tax. A standing army would burden the citizens economically, a Virginian warned; it "must sooner or later, establish a tyranny, not inferiour to the triumvirate . . . of Rome."
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