Constitution And Federalism: Inequality In The United States

Instances of inequality, especially in regard to status, rights, and opportunities, trace back to the birth of the nation, specifically, the constitution and Federalism. Prior to the constitutional convention of 1787, in late 1786, Daniel Shays led an armed insurrection through the Massachusetts countryside, shutting down courthouses to stop foreclosure proceedings. Colonial elites, horrified by the threat to their wealth and power, sought to reform the government, concerned with protecting their own rights. After Shays rebellion, it was clear that elites were the vulnerable minority; compounding this rhetoric, Madison, in Federalist 10 writes: “Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens...” referencing fears from Shays rebellion, “that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties...measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing …show more content…
In fact, inequality, was the heart of the most innovative, elitist, and distinctively American, justification for property restrictions: a pessimistic view of the nation’s future class structure. Even at the nation’s birth, revolutionaries were cautious of economic expansion. This theme, was voiced by Madison at the federal constitutional convention: “in future times a great majority of the people will not only be without landed but any other sort of property...they will become the tools of opulence and ambition, in which case there will be equal danger.” Madison, fearful of a nineteenth-century future in which the propertyless, possessing either too much or too little will of their own would be numerically predominant and politically powerful. Therefore, property qualifications, perpetuate inequality, functioning as a bulwark against the landless proletariat of an industrial