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of Detail, however, it was provided that no state without the consent of the United States should emit bills of credit. On August 28, when the convention in its consideration of the report had reached this clause, it was moved by Wilson and seconded by Sherman to make this restriction absolute, instead of permitting the states to exercise the power contingent upon the consent of the United States.' Sherman was an especially bitter opponent of fiat money. 'Mr. Sherman," Madison tells us in his Notes, "thought this a favorable crisis for crushing paper money. If the consent of the Legislature could authorize emissions of it, the friends of paper money would make every exertion to get into the Legislature in order to license it." Gorman of Massachusetts, whose state had just passed through the throes of Shays' Rebellion, was fully aware of the strength of the paper-money party, and he thought that "an absolute prohibition of paper money would rouse the most desperate opposition from its partizans." Nevertheless, the convention was so resolute in its determination to destroy paper money that Wilson's motion, making the prohibition absolute, was adopted by vote of eight states to one, with one divided." King of Massachusetts now moved that, in the words of the Ordinance of 1787 which had been recently passed by the Congress of the Confederation for the government of the Northwest Territory, a prohibition be added restraining the states from interfering in private contracts. The provision of the Ordinance in question enacted that

in the just preservation of rights and property, it is understood and declared, that no law ought ever to be made or have force in the said territory, that shall, in any manner whatever, interfere with or affect private contracts, or engagements, bona fide, and without fraud previously formed.

There was considerable discussion of King's motion. Even Gouverneur Morris, stalwart champion of the rights of property and contract though he was, thought this was going too far. "There are," he said, "a thousand laws relating to bringing

1 Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, II, 439.

Ibid., II, 439.

actions-limitations of actions . . . which affect contracts— the Judicial power of the U. S. will be a protection in cases within their jurisdiction; and within the State itself a majority must rule, whatever may be the mischief done among themselves." This view found some support in the convention, and King's motion was not voted on at this time.'

The draft constitution referred to the Committee of Style provided as an absolute prohibition that no state shall emit bills of credit.2 It contained, however, no provision respecting the impairment of the obligation of contracts by the states. Nevertheless, in the report of the Committee of Style this prohibition was included in article i, section 10, clause 1.3 Additions having been made to this clause, it was adopted by the convention without debate on September 14. Credit for the work of the Committee of Style is by general consent given to Gouverneur Morris, its chairman, but in the inclusion of this particular restriction on the states it is impossible not to suspect the influence of King who was one of its members.

McHenry, a delegate of Maryland to the convention, being later called upon to explain to the House of Delegates of Maryland the principles upon which the Constitution had been based, informed that body that it had been argued that the power to emit bills of credit ought to be left to the states, but that" this was overruled by a vast majority as the best Security that could be given for the Public faith at home and the extension of Commerce with Foreigners." Luther Martin, also of Maryland, was one of the very few members of the convention to say a good word for paper money, and the restraints placed by the Constitution upon the states in this and other matters formed one of his reasons for opposing its adoption. In his Genuine Information he wrote:

By the tenth section every State is prohibited from emitting bills of credit. As it was reported by the committee of detail, the States were

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only prohibited from emitting them without the consent of Congress; but the convention was so smitten with the paper money dread, that they insisted the prohibition should be absolute.

An exhaustive study of the evolution in the federal convention of all those clauses in the Constitution which may properly be regarded as "economic" is beyond the scope of this paper; nor is it contended that there were no compromises in the making of the economic clauses. But the provisions of the Constitution whose origins have been examined were undoubtedly of fundamental economic importance, and it has been shown that they were not the result of compromise, if we mean by that word adjustment of divergent views and interests, reached by mutual concession. At any rate the evidence here presented is sufficient to give point to a statement made in a letter written by Madison to Van Buren more than forty years after the adoption of the Constitution:

The threatening contest, in the Convention of 1787, did not, as you supposed, turn on the degree of power to be granted to the Federal Govt. but on the rule by which the States should be represented and vote in the Govt. . . . The contests and compromises, turning on the grants of power, tho' very important in some instances, were knots of a less "Gordian" character.

The great struggle in the federal convention was between the representatives of the large and the small states, and to harmonize their conflicting political interests compromise had to be invoked; concessions had to be made by each party to secure. a modus vivendi which would be reasonably satisfactory to both. But the battle was not fought on economic lines. Had the contests in the convention turned upon the questions at issue throughout the country between rich and poor, had Daniel Shays and Patrick Henry stood as leaders opposed to Madison. and Gouverneur Morris, the struggle would surely have been no less bitter, but the compromises, it may be conjectured, would have been different.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

Farrand, op. cit., III, 214.

R. L. SCHUYLER.

POLITICAL THOUGHT OF SOCIAL CLASSES

A

SIGNIFICANT feature of modern society is its heterogeneity. Herbert Spencer was among the first to stress this fact. In discussing the evolutionary process, he called attention to the fact that organisms develop from simplicity to complexity and from homogeneity to heterogeneity. Human societies seem to have followed such a course. In very early times, the social group was the simple undifferentiated horde. Now, society consists of groups within groups: nation, state, county, city, army, church, factory, labor union, school. Division of labor in industry has produced a great variety of occupation groups. The socialists have made it clear that we have the working class, the middle class and the capitalists. Another important division of modern society is that into rural and urban classes.

Professor Franklin H. Giddings has developed the idea of heterogeneity on its psychological side and has extended it into some important practical implications. He has shown that like tends to associate with like and has pointed out that the principle of grouping is on the basis of "consciousness of kind." Each of the many groups of modern heterogeneous society is constituted on the basis of like-mindedness with respect to some particular traits. As there is like-mindedness within each of these many groups, so there is a lack of like-mindedness among the different groups. The importance of this analysis lies in the fact that collective effort, expressed through government and social organization, depends upon like-mindedness. A heterogeneous society tends to split into warring factions. Each faction pursues separate and distinct ends. The peculiar achievement of civilization is the establishment of stable social organization together with the maintenance of heterogeneity of structure.

President Frank J. Goodnow has shown how significant is like-mindedness for the successful operation of government. One reason why good government is difficult in New York City

is the great heterogeneity of its population. In Austria-Hungary, also, a great hindrance to the success of government is the great number of widely differing racial groups. A few further illustrations of the relation of government to the heterogeneity of society will be considered.

In representative government, the need of representation arises because of heterogeneous groups. This is the cause of the problem of proportional representation and also of the immediately practical issue of representing urban and rural districts in legislatures in correct ratios. Another illustration is the jury system. The efficiency of the jury is directly affected by the heterogeneity of society. For instance, a jury of farmers is hardly fitted to return a verdict in some cases involving labor agitators. Juries of men have at times shown exceptional incompetence in the trials of women. The jury is essentially a sample of the general population and its justness depends on the trueness of the sample. In a heterogeneous society the chances of error in drawing a good sample are great. These illustrations show how the success of governmental institutions is affected by the heterogeneity of society.

A type of heterogeneity in society which may present peculiar difficulties for the governments of the future is the segregation of social classes occasioned by the industrial revolution. Society is divided into the capitalist class, the middle class and the working class. It is claimed that the differences between these classes are quite great, particularly the differences between the capitalist class and the working class. The preamble of the constitution of the Industrial Workers of the World begins. with this sentence: "The working class and the employing class have nothing in common." That differences do exist is made clear by the recent industrial disturbances in West Virginia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Michigan and Colorado. To some these differences appear so great that a social revolution and a class war are quite freely predicted.

It seems desirable to measure these differences. There is a frequently quoted passage from Lord Kelvin, the substance of which is that when we can measure phenomena we know something about them, and that we cannot know much about

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