A Union of Interests

From the onset of the Revolution in 1776 to the inauguration of the federal government in 1789, American political culture was transformed. The movement for an effective continental republic is linked to economic freedom and development set off by the Revolution. "A Union of Interests" reconstructs the discourse of American federalism, a discourse grounded in the intense debate over the role of government in the regulation of the economy. The authors tie their analyses of the economic ideas and interests of the day to many of the critical problems facing the new nation after the war - jurisdictional disputes, threats of secession, and prospects for frontier settlement. The revolutionary ideology that had justified the creation of sovereign states under the Articles of Confederation seemed, they argue, increasingly artificial in light of the pressing need to create a "natural", extended republic that would be truer to the changing circumstances of the American people.
The authors aim to demonstrate that the movement for the Constitution drew upon increasingly popular political economic ideas that sought to reconcile the apparent conflicts between a national interest and the "enlightened" self-interest of citizens. One chapter argues that the Constitutional Convention was itself both a product of this broad public discussion about America's future and a contributor to it, as the founders debated the extent to which they should compromise their separate goals to fit this emerging vision.