[the hot potato theory in action...]
REDEEMING THE REPUBLIC
Federalists, Taxation, and the Origins of the Constitution
Roger H. Brown
< http://www.press.jhu.edu/press/books/titles/s00/s00brre.htm >
Why were Federalists at the 1787 Philadelphia convention--ostensibly
called to revise the Articles of Confederation--so intent on scrapping
the old system and drawing up a completely new frame of government?
In Redeeming the Republic, Roger Brown focuses on state public-policy
issues to show how recurrent outbreaks of popular resistance to tax
crackdowns forced state governments to retreat from taxation,
propelling elites into support for the constitutional revolution of
1787. The Constitution, Brown contends, resulted from upper-class
dismay over the state governments' inability to tax effectively for
state and federal purposes. The Framers concluded that, without a
rebuilt, energized central government, the confederation would
experience continued monetary and fiscal turmoil until republicanism
itself became endangered.
A fresh and searching study of the hard questions that divided
Americans in these critical years and still do today, Redeeming the
Republic shows how local failures led to federalist resolve and
ultimately to a totally new frame of central government.
