I think they decided to go down this road when they decided we were going to be "the United States of America" rather than the "Confederated States of America".
@Anarchy can probably go into this without looking it up
The constitutional convention was very much a Hamiltonian coup d'etat.
Under the articles of confederation, the 13 colonies were independent states (countries) with agreement on cooperation.
England had already had several coups, and the machinary of the political means had been taken from the landed nobililty who were descended from the Norman invaders of 1066.
And sized by the emerging merchant class.
The pressures for the seizure of the political means in the colonies, were largely similar. Yes, Jefferson's declaration is full of inalienable individual natural rights, and so had the writings of the English Levelers of the 1640s
People like John Lilburne, were the first British libertarians
Unfortunately they participated in revolution, before they had done the long hard work of re legitimising the state in the minds of the majority
So the machinary of coercion and mass acceptance of it was still in place, simply to be seized by dictator. In that case it was Cromwell. In later cases we can look at Washington, Robespierre, Napoleon, Lenin and Trotsky, Mussolini, Mao, Pol Pot...
Jefferson's fine words about inalienable individual natural rights were completely ignored in what followed.
Once the property of loyalists and anyone accused of being loyalist had been seized,. Vested interest groups got lobbying for special treatment. tarriffs sprang up between the colonies, even on things as ridiculous as cabbages and firewood.
There was a mechanism under the articles of confederation for representatives of each of the 13 colonies to meet to discuss common matters, and then for all 13 colonies to ratify the proposals which came from that meeting.
That was the basis that what became the constitutional convention, met upon.
No one there had the remit to come up with a political superstate (one ring to rule them all) and any agreement was supposed to be ratified by all 13 colonies
What was pushed was for ratification by 9 or more of the 13 to bind the remainder!
(For a thorough and devastating critique of the united state Constitution, check out Lysander Spooner, the constitution of no authority - it's available as a free MP3 audio book download)
That provided for a large area to be enclosed in a single tarriff boundary
The purpose of a tarriff is to artificially increase the price that people have to pay for goods. Without a tarriff, raising prices by cartels and monopolies is impossible.
From economics 101 and supply and demand curves, it can be seen that the only way prices can be raised is by reducing supply.
The bulk of the population therefore have less goods and services available to them and must pay more for them
While only a few protected and privileged get to receive higher prices than they otherwise would have, and even they suffer from the higher prices that they must pay for the goods and services that they consume.
That was the bitter result of the Hamiltonian coup d'etat at what became known as the constitutional convention. The writings of any of the free trade liberals clearly and logically refute the Hamiltonian position, Cobden in England, Bastiat in France, John c Calhoun in America (unfortunately Calhoun was from South Carolina, so while he's great on free trade, he's also a supporter of slavery :poop::tdown:)
Following shortly after the constitution, was the "aliens and sedition act" to silence criticism and dissent - so much for a first amendment right to free speech.
And also the whiskey taxes
Politically connected individuals in upstate Pennsylvania, wanted a bigger income than they could make by their own honest initiative
They were granted permission to plunder their farming neighbours, in the name of collecting a tax on whiskey (it was a long way to transport grain to market, so they made it into whiskey, which was cheaper to transport).
Naturally, those neighbours objected, and the fe'ral army was used to crush those objections. George Washington, who was a major real estate speculator both before and after independence, even took the opportunity to show potential clients around some of the prime properties that he had for sale in the area.
Incidentally, the site of the district of criminals was based upon Washington's Potomac company. It was supposed to be the terminus of a Potomac canal. Even DC was an attempt to up the value of Washington and his cronies real estate speculation!
