THE CONSTITUTION, as we have seen, was made at Philadelphia by men
who had a common economic interest. They were mostly merchants, ship-
pers, lawyers, planters, speculators in land and in paper. Such men prefer
a government with sufficient authority to enforce contracts at home, and
with sufficient standing abroad to raise loans and make commercial
treaties. The frontiersmen and the small farmers (who were usually in
debt) were satisfied with the weak Confederation; but they were little
represented at Philadelphia, and their efforts to defeat ratification were a
failure.

The economic interests of the constitution-makers were not identical.
They clashed at many points; but the delegates were astute enough "to
disregard differences and concentrate on the one thing essential to their
several purposes, in this case an integrated, national, economic society of
which the sine qua non was the central authority the Constitution pro-
vided." ¹ The disregarding of differences lasted until the Constitution was
ratified and the government was safe. Then new alignments began to form
--the first sign being Madison's opposition, in the House of Representa-
tives, to the plans of the co-author of The Federalist.

Such opposition need not have bred political parties. Madison, who
feared parties and thought them unnecessary, knew that there could be no
free government without pressure groups; but he thought the groups
would form brief coalitions to deal with issues on which their interests
were alike, and would then dissolve the partnership, ready for new align-
ments and new issues. He hoped that the clash of sectional interests be-
tween the pressure groups would make it impossible to form a coalition for
radical aims. The size of America would enforce conservatism, for by the
time each group in a coalition had made the compromises which were
necessary for unity the surviving program would be cautious and un-
alarming.

Such were the hopes not only of Madison but of the majority of the
Fathers. They were right in predicting loose associations of pressure groups
and regional interests; they were right in predicting that such associations
would make for conservatism; but they were wrong in thinking that when

-82-