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In Alfred Young’s essay, “The Pressure of the People on the Framers of the Constitution,” he wrote about the influences from people that were not present at the Constitutional Convention. Young related the influences to the “ghosts” of Thomas Paine, Abraham Yates, Daniel Shays, and Thomas Peters (150). At the convention, radical democracy, new men in power, rebellion, and slaves were all current issues that the delegates were familiar with and that needed to be addressed. Young says that the delegates dealt with these issues either with coercion or accommodation. Additionally, the delegates had to balance their own political views with the needs and desires of the people, as mentioned in the post (http://sites.davidson.edu/his141/the-constitution-the-intentions-of-the-framers-and-the-realities-of-the-new-government/). The concerns of farmers and slave rebellions were handled with coercion, and the delegates “gave the national government the power to ‘suppress insurrections’ and protect the states from ‘domestic violence’” (Young 151). This method of approaching slave revolts and other rebellions does not seem to have changed much over time. The difference is that now the federal government can use force to “suppress insurrections,” whereas before, the task was delegated to individual slave owners or British officials. The federal government later abuses this power during the Whiskey Rebellion, and they use full force to put down a relatively small revolt.
Also, I found the concept of a “”mixed government”” interesting (Young 150). It seems that the founding fathers were still attempting to remain connected to their British roots by striving for “a perfect blend of ‘aristocracy’ and ‘democracy’” (Young 151). Even after the revolution, the delegates showed through the Constitution that they did not perceive Britain’s system as completely flawed when they strove to keep the idea of aristocracy alive.