The document discusses the debate between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists regarding the role of commerce in government. The Anti-Federalists feared that commerce would threaten liberty by increasing inequality, while the Federalists saw self-interest and competition as necessary checks on corruption. While commerce can enable excess, the Federalists believed a system that harnessed natural forces like ambition and commerce could achieve both freedom and harmony. Their view that integrating facets of human nature into government was more effective than resisting them proved insightful. Commerce and liberty can converge in free markets to produce prosperity when balanced with equality and the common good.

1. A Commercial Republic | S. Grant 1
A Commercial Republic
Both the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists understood that there are natural, inevitable forces
in the world that stem from human nature; love of self, the desire for power, and the pursuit of luxury.
Where they differed was how to devise a sufficiently powerful system of government and a free society
in light of this truth. As George Mason pointed out in his "Address to the Minority of the Pennsylvania
Convention," the Articles of Confederacy weren't seen as an insufficient framework for government until
Congress failed to collect taxes to pay for the Revolutionary War. The role of the government in
commercial affairs was the beginning of the great debate over the future of the United States. The Anti-
Federalists wanted to protect a fundamental level of equality, and the Federalists sought to create new
dynamics among age-old forces.
The Anti-Federalists feared the threat that commerce posed to liberty. They believed that
relatively equal division of property was necessary for a free government. Commerce leads to
competition and augments inequalities between citizens, (Wooten 68). They also believed that
commerce in a political environment would only overpower less than perfect men and detract from
their consideration of the common good. "The progress of a commercial society begets luxury, the
parent of inequality, the foe of virtue, and the enemy to restraint;" Cato writes. "...and that ambition
and voluptuousness aided by flattery, will teach magistrates, where limits are not explicitly fixed, to
have separate and distinct interests from the people," (Wooten 62). Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that
"Men sacrifice their friends, families, and country to a religious opinion. However, we see them seek
with an almost matching zeal material wealth and moral pleasures...In their hands, political principles,
laws, and human institutions appear flexible and can be shaped at will into any combination,"
(Tocqueville, 55). This is exactly what troubled the Anti-Federalists. Like their political opponents, they
feared human nature above all else. And the Anti-Federalists reasoned that there must be positive
inducements and negative modes of accountability to secure good men in positions of authority.
The Federalists saw the inevitability of self-interest in a different manner. They felt that the only
protection against the corruption forces of self-interest were those very forces. In order to safeguard
liberty from the concentration of power "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition," (Wooten,
Federalist 51, 246). This can be seen in the federal government, where power is divided up among three
branches, and each branch depends on the other two. Elections play an important role in this dynamic.
The political positions a senator or congressman must take in order to get reelected are often not the
same as what a president must take in order to do so. Additionally, the natural occurrence of factions
naturally pits the ambitions of representatives against each other. In this sense, the Federalists were
both realists and idealists; realists in their view of human nature, and idealists in what they believed
they could achieve.
POLI 110DA | American Political Thought | Professor Selby

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The Federalists did recognize the ways in which commerce can lead to war. “…[M]en are
ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of
independent unconnected sovereignties, situated in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the
uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages," they
wrote, citing, among others, the example of Pericles (Wooten 147). But the Federalists weren't ignoring
history. On the contrary, they recognized how easily "independent unconnected sovereignties" could,
when in close proximity could come to blows over commercial interests. This is why they felt it
necessary to create a stronger federal government than that under the Articles of Confederation, not
only so that Congress could regulate trade, but also so the states would be somewhat interdependent,
connected states that would not repeat history.
The Federalists also appreciated the ability of commerce to create the prosperity needed to
sustain a government. "A nation cannot long exist without revenue," (Wooten 178). Returning to the
initial topic regarding commerce, for all its potential pitfalls, commerce was viewed as a very appealing
source of revenue for the government. "It serves," Hamilton wrote, "to vivify and invigorate the
channels of industry, and to make them flow with greater activity and copiousness...and must of
necessity render the payment of taxes easier, and facilitate the requisite supplies to the treasury,"
(Wooten 174-5).
It is true that commerce begets luxury, and luxury can lead to excess at the cost of the common
good. Right now, the United States is suffering from the effects of lack of sufficient regulation of a sector
of the economy, the housing market. Whether it was the failure of government, the insatiable greed of
Wall Street, or the troubling middle class epidemic of living beyond one's means, it was certainly the
product of our capitalist society. However, an example of this sort is not a sufficient argument against
our system as it is. It is simply one of the unfortunate costs of living in a free society -- often those in
positions of authority fall short.
But our nation was founded by men inspired by the ideas of the enlightenment who wanted to
live in a free society. But that freedom cannot truly exist unless all aspects of human nature are able to
exist in that society. Commerce has proven to be a tempering force, creating incentive and
counterbalancing political ambition by offering an alternative path to power and prosperity. It is part of
living in a free society, and as a natural force, it cannot be ignored or suppressed without a corrective
counteraction. Rather, it should be accepted as an inherent part of society, where it can be harnessed,
guided and regulated.
The concern that commerce is a persistent cause of war has only been validated in part. States
or nations will go to war when they are competing for control over a limited resource. Otherwise, the
theory of "doux commerce" has proven to be a great source of peace and restraint in foreign relations.
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3. A Commercial Republic | S. Grant 3
By giving states shared interests and creating interdependence, they are forced to deal with each other;
to compromise and negotiate because each has something the other needs. Additionally, the concept of
pluralism that the Federalists envisioned for government also applies to commerce. Commercial
freedom operates under the same principle. In a commercial republic, there will be so many competing
interests, such as those in agriculture, shipping, textiles and retail just to name a few.
Tocqueville observed the singularity of American character. He described an almost inexplicable
duality to the nature of Americans.
“The American passion for physical pleasures may well be of a violent nature, but at
least it is not blind and reason, powerless to restrain it, does direct its course...Americans
alternately display so strong and similar a passion for prosperity and freedom that one
must suppose these impulses to be united and mingled in some part of their souls.
Americans in fact do regard their freedom as the best tool and surest safeguard of their
wellbeing. They love them both, the one as a vehicle for the other," (Tocqueville 629). ”
Tocqueville also sees how possessing this "tool" of freedom galvanizes Americans to find
opportunities for themselves and to work hard for their own prosperity. He explains that this intimate
connection between self-interest and public good in their minds engages them with concern for public
matters above all else, because it is the only way to protect the freedom that ensures their continued
prosperity.
William Hazlitt said "the love of liberty is the love of others." Perhaps the love of commerce is
the love of self. But commerce is also well-organized, has an appropriate role in life, and is subject to
regulation. It is an appropriate manifestation of self-interest. It is important that both facets of human
nature are integrated into the American system. When liberty and commerce converge, free markets
produce efficiency, prosperity and growth.
This is where the Federalists had their most brilliant insight. Rather than resisting human nature
and natural forces that had been observed time and time again throughout history, they achieved both
freedom and a certain degree of harmony by constructing a system of government around these natural
forces, pitting them against each other so that they would naturally check the others. It is imperfect, as
times of great excess followed by times of great depression have taught us. But it is only as perfect as
we are, and falls short when Americans forget how closely their own prosperity is linked to freedom, a
degree of natural equality, and the common good.
POLI 110DA | American Political Thought | Professor Selby

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Works Cited
Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, John Jay, Patrick Henry, George Mason, Melancton Smith, Noah
Webster, and James Wilson. The Essential Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers. Comp. David
Wooten. Boston: Hackett Company, 2003. Print.
Tocqueville, Alexis De. Democracy in America and Two essays on America. London: Penguin, 2003. Print.
Shaw, George B. "Quotes - Democracy.Ru." Democracy.ru. Web. 29 Jan. 2010.
<http://www.democracy.ru/english/quotes.php>.
POLI 110DA | American Political Thought | Professor Selby