THE CONFLICT OF ADMINISTRATIONS 143 



short of this solution, while the confederation as it stood was fit neither 

 for war nor for peace." 



The problem confronting the people of America in 1783 was the 

 conversion of a voluntary league of states into a firm union. They 

 needed to be first awakened to the necessity of organization and the 

 adoption of a national policy; and after this the instrument of agree- 

 ment must be drafted and the government established. It is not neces- 

 sary at this time to discuss the detailed story of the constitution's 

 making. From the beginning of its inception, men took opposite views 

 as to the rights of the individual states and the nature of the powers 

 that should be given to the central government. Those who upheld the 

 idea of state's rights feared in their hearts the rule of the people. They 

 argued for state representation in the national congress while maintain- 

 ing that federal authority should be reduced to a minimum. The 

 federalists, on the other hand, insisted upon a broad interpretation of 

 the powers of the national government, thereby creating a controversy 

 which furnished the basis of modern party relations, until materially 

 modified by the tendency, brought about by the civil war, to discuss the 

 import of questions rather than functions of government. The same 

 motive, however, which caused men to turn to the states in the earlier 

 day now causes them, in a measure, to look to the federal government, 

 since it is believed that, in some degree at least, the rule of the people 

 can be materially modified. 



For a period of nearly thirty years after the civil war government 

 in the United States, both federal and commonwealth, was used largely 

 as an agency for the promotion of wealth. Special privileges came to 

 overshadow common rights, and many problems were left untouched 

 because in the opinion of the courts of the day the federal government 

 had no authority over them, and the states by the constitution were not 

 authorized to deal with such problems. But as industry has grown in 

 immensity and spread its organization from commonwealth to common- 

 wealth, producing a series of new problems in the movement of com- 

 merce from state to state, there has arisen a friction and questioned 

 authority between the two branches of government in the United States. 

 The constitution of the United States provided that the states should 

 have all the rights of government, with the exception of the right of 

 secession, impliedly determined by the results of the civil war, those 

 powers which the constitution expressly confers on the federal govern- 

 ment, and those which the constitution withholds from the states. It 

 did not take many years for shrewd lawyers to discover that there 

 existed in the interpretations of the two court systems a "twilight 

 zone," as it has been picturesquely put by one of America's party 

 leaders. 



The specific powers of the federal government were determined 

 narrowly, while the general powers of the state were interpreted specif- 



