ABSTRACT
The Constitution was essentially an economic document based upon the concept that the fundamental private rights of property are anterior to government and morally beyond the reach of popular majorities. The members of the Philadelphia Convention which drafted the Constitution were, with a few exceptions, immediately, directly, and personally interested in, and derived economic advantages from, the establishment of the new system. The contest over the Constitution in Massachusetts was a sharp conflict between the personalty interests on the one hand and the small farmers and debtors on the other, and this fact seems to have been recognized by every thoughtful leader on both sides. Knox had formulated this view of the conflict, indeed, early in the struggle over ratification; the Federalist agitators were busy with appeals to practical economic interests. In the absence of social actual conflict over the Constitution we can hardly expect to find any consideration of the subject by contemporary writers of note.
