David C. Hendrickson

“When Americans began their Revolution,” David C. Hendrickson argues in his intriguing 2003 book Peace Pact, “they were far from constituting a unified nation” (p.257). Indeed, Hendrickson views the Constitutional Convention of 1787 as something very closely resembling an international treaty negotiation. The emissaries who met in Philadelphia represented twelve states with widely disparate economies, cultures, and political perspectives, each of which jealously guarded its pretensions to sovereignty. What these men accomplished during that warm Pennsylvania summer was the drafting of a Constitution that provided for a “republic of different republics and a nation of many nations” (p.258).
In Henderson’s view, the critical period was, to be sure, critical. While some historians have dismissed the fears of anarchy and ruin raised by the Federalists prior to the convention as self-serving propaganda, Hendrickson remains convinced that the Federalists “said what they meant, and meant what they said” (p.177). It had become apparent to them that the government operating under the much-maligned Articles of Confederation would be unable to resolve looming regional disputes over slavery, taxation, commerce, territorial acquisition, and access to the Mississippi. Failure to settle these questions would lead inevitably to “the emergence of a system of regional confederacies, and thence on to anarchy, war, and despotism” (p. 177).
How real was this threat? The Anti-federalists of the time were certainly skeptical. Patrick Henry labeled the predictions of internecine war as “ludicrous in the extreme” (p. 12). Likewise, as Hendrickson concedes, many twentieth-century historians have questioned the role of sectional controversies in the founding. Nevertheless, Hendrickson effectively argues that, at a minimum, the perception of the threat was genuine. The framers of the Constitution, schooled in Classical history, had only to look at the example of the Grecian city-states to see how internal disunion led inevitably to foreign domination. The self-destruction of the American union was considered a fait accompli in Europe, and in America there was no “important statement of the case for the Constitution that does not pose the alternative simply and starkly as being of one between peace and war” (p. 7).
With this unnerving prospect looming over the proceedings, the Constitutional Convention served as a diplomatic laboratory, an “experiment in international cooperation” (p. 257). The federal system that emerged was not so very different from the “balance of power” system employed in Europe. The elaborate series of compromises hammered out by the founders amounted not only to a new plan for union, but also an international agreement arrived at by potential adversaries - a peace pact.
Hendrickson’s analysis is compelling, and even presents a new paradigm for studying the founding. However, it might be useful to return to the question of whether this “treaty negotiation” was necessary at all. Even if one assumes the honest motives of the Federalists, the environment of impending crisis they created appears exaggerated. The Articles of Confederation were seriously flawed, and, unless amended, were almost certainly inadequate to the governance of the emerging republic. Yet, there was much to recommend the oft-disparaged document.
Comparing the Articles to the governments of Europe was, in Jefferson’s view, like comparing “heaven and hell.” They represented a model of what a loose confederation of states should be, and if Congress was handcuffed by the constitution’s inadequacies, they nevertheless managed to pass some supremely farsighted pieces of legislation. For example, the Land Ordinance of 1785, which provided for the orderly settlement of the Old Northwest, was produced under the auspices of the Articles. Similarly, the Northwest Ordinance, which Hendrickson posits was crucial to the successful creation of the Constitution, was passed by Congress three days prior to the beginning of the Constitutional Convention.
It could also be argued that, perceptions aside, the issues that prompted the convention were less than critical. Shays’s Rebellion had proved a tempest in a teapot. There was serious discussion of an amendment giving Congress control of commerce. Shipping had largely regained its place in the commercial world, and most of the colonies were no longer printing paper currency. If conditions had been as grim as the foes of the Articles of Confederation had painted, the move for a new constitution would hardly have encountered such heated opposition.
The convention did go forward, however, and the remarkable document that was produced – Hendrickson’s “Peace Pact” – continues to govern what has become the most wealthy and powerful nation in human history.… (més)