540 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



game, caught his fish, made his soap and candles, dressed and cured his leather, 

 spun and wove, did his carpentering, and sometimes his smithing. He made what 

 he ate, wore and lived in, and he made and held his own opinions. His philosophj 

 was that of the lonely, self-contained farmhouse.2 



This philosophy constituted the idealism of a nation and found ex- 

 pression in the Revolution. Fairly within the spirit of the times was the 

 thought that every man should be given an even chance to realize the 

 best there is in him, and that the strong ought not to use their strength 

 or cunning to despoil the weak. This thought is implied in many of 

 the grounds on which the king of Great Britain was indicted. To equal- 

 ity in some such sense as this the signers of the Declaration of Inde- 

 pendence pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. 



The Constitution 



The Revolutionary "War was attended with a good deal of turbulence 

 and insecurity of life and property. The property of many of the Loy- 

 alists was confiscated and they themselves were forced into exile. Xor 

 was the condition of affairs satisfactory in the years following the treaty 

 of Paris in 1783. The governmental system was notoriously out of ac- 

 cord with the demands of the economic situation. The central govern- 

 ment was dependent upon the states for support and its credit was at 

 low ebb. The revolutionary bills of credit reached the last stages of de- 

 preciation. Some of the states levied hostile tariffs against each other, 

 or were at loggerheads over the control of the navigable rivers which 

 separated them. The tariff policies and schedules of the several states 

 were woefully lacking in unity. English statesmen questioned the abil- 

 ity of congress to enforce the provisions of any commercial agreement 

 that might be entered into, and Spain continued to claim both banks of 

 the Mississippi.^ The result was that many tired of the ideal of equal- 

 ity. Moreover, the "hard times" which followed the Revolution and 

 the return of some of the Loyalists contributed to the reaction. 



The framing and adopting of the constitution were the logical out- 

 come of the situation. The new government was given the unquestioned 

 power to levy and collect the taxes needed for its own support, and was 

 granted the exclusive power over interstate and foreign commerce. The 

 treaty-making power and the control of the monetary system of the 

 country were definitely and firmly lodged in its hands. These grants 

 of power did much toward making the new government a tower of 

 strength, and that property was thereby rendered more secure there can 

 be no doubt. The cause of equality was also advanced. Federal con- 

 trol of interstate and foreign commerce opened wide the door of indus- 



2 Walter E. Weyl, ' ' The New Democracy, ' ' p. 37. 



s Kathcrine Coman, * ' Industrial History of the United States, ' ' new and 

 revised edition, 1910, pp. 115-116. 



