> weren't people like Madison concerned with places like Rhode Island, where
> debtors had a lot of political influence not only in theory but in practice?
> Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Debtors controlled of RI legislature after 1785. Assembly made paper
money legal means of paying debts (existing contracts stipulated
payment in gold), printed paper money, placed moratoria on property
foreclosures, imposed steep inheritance tax on wealthy, expropriated
fallow tracts from large landowners. There were instances involving
debtors holding creditors captive. Some began calling state 'Rogue'
Island. Madison, no doubt, had RI in mind with his reference, in
*Federalist #10*, to 'superior force of an interested and overbearing
majority.' Michael Hoover
