The Constitution was a Coup: A Revisionist History of the American Counter-Revolution

Part I: The Historiographical Battleground

The history of the American Founding is frequently presented as a teleological progression from the chaos of the Revolutionary War to the stability of the Constitutional order. In this "Standard Story," the Articles of Confederation represent a period of ineptitude, economic stagnation, and perilous anarchy—a "Critical Period" where the infant nation nearly died in its cradle, saved only by the wisdom and steady hands of the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia. This narrative, crafted by the victors of 1787 and perpetuated by generations of consensus historians, serves a specific ideological function: it legitimizes the centralized state as the indispensable guardian of liberty and prosperity.

However, a robust current of revisionist scholarship—drawing from the Left-Libertarian tradition, New Left historiography, and Market Anarchist political economy—challenges this foundational myth. By synthesizing the works of Kevin Carson, Murray Rothbard, Sheldon Richman, Merrill Jensen, and Leonard Richards, a radically different picture emerges. In this view, the Constitution was not a culmination of the Revolution but a conservative counter-revolution. It was a "coup d'état" orchestrated by a coalition of public creditors, land speculators, and mercantile protectionists who sought to erect a centralized apparatus capable of enforcing artificial scarcities and privileging the "political means" of wealth accumulation over the "economic means".¹²³

This report serves to excavate this suppressed history. It posits that the "freed market"—a system of voluntary exchange unhampered by state privilege—was precisely what the Federalist elite sought to prevent. By conflating "capitalism" (the system of state-backed corporate privilege) with the "free market," the architects of the Constitution successfully framed their consolidation of power as a defense of property, when in fact it was a mechanism for the systematic expropriation of the productive classes.¹⁴

The Theoretical Lens: Conflationism and the Two Means

To understand the mechanics of this counter-revolution, one must first grasp the theoretical distinction between the "economic means" and the "political means," a concept introduced by sociologist Franz Oppenheimer and popularized by the libertarian author Albert Jay Nock. The "economic means" involves the production and exchange of wealth—labor, innovation, and voluntary trade. The "political means," conversely, involves the uncompensated appropriation of wealth produced by others—taxation, monopoly privilege, and conquest. Nock argues that the State is the organization of the political means.³⁵

The American Revolution was, at its heart, a revolt against the British Empire's use of the political means. However, as the 1780s progressed, a segment of the American elite sought to recreate the British fiscal-military state on American soil. This effort was obscured by what philosopher Roderick Long calls "conflationism."

Type of Conflationism	Definition	Role in Founding Mythology
Left-Conflationism	The error of attributing the evils of state-corporate capitalism (inequality, monopoly) to the "free market."	Used to argue that the "wild" markets of the 1780s needed taming by a central government.
Right-Conflationism	The error of defending the existing state-capitalist structure as if it were the "free market."	Used to justify the Constitution's protection of bondholders and speculators as a defense of "private property."

Table 1: The Taxonomy of Conflationism

Kevin Carson expands on this, arguing that the "swollen, hierarchical, exploitative firms that dominate our economy are the product not of the free market but of systematic government intervention".⁴ The Constitution was the foundational document that made this intervention systematic. It replaced the decentralized, developing freedom of the Confederation with a structure designed to facilitate the "political means" for a new American aristocracy.⁴⁶

Part II: Deconstructing the "Critical Period" (1781–1787)

The rationale for the Constitutional Convention rests entirely on the premise that the 1780s were a disaster. The phrase "Critical Period," coined by historian John Fiske, conjures images of interstate trade wars, worthless currency, and economic collapse. Yet, as historian Merrill Jensen demonstrated in his seminal work The New Nation, this narrative is largely a fabrication of the Federalist party line.⁷⁸

The Reality of Economic Recovery

Far from being a decade of despair, the 1780s were a time of rapid economic adjustment and robust growth. Freed from the constraints of the British Navigation Acts, American merchants displayed remarkable dynamism. They opened new trade routes to the Baltic, the Mediterranean, and, most significantly, China. The idea that commerce was "languishing" was a rhetorical device used by those who sought a strong navy to force open British ports, rather than adapting to the new reality of global trade.⁸⁹

The "chaos" of the era was often merely the messy reality of genuine self-government. Under the Articles of Confederation, the central government lacked the power to tax or regulate commerce. This "weakness" was a feature, not a bug. It meant that the people were relatively free from the burdens of a remote bureaucracy. The trade disputes that did exist between states—often cited as the primary justification for the Commerce Clause—were minor and were being resolved through interstate compacts. The Mount Vernon Conference of 1785, for example, successfully settled navigation rights between Virginia and Maryland without federal coercion.⁹

The Myth of Insolvency

The true "crisis" of the 1780s was not economic but fiscal, and it was a crisis that afflicted the state governments and the holders of public debt, not the general population. The Confederation Congress and the states had issued vast quantities of debt certificates to finance the war. By the mid-1780s, these certificates had depreciated massively, often trading at a fraction of their face value.

Most of the original holders—soldiers and small farmers—had sold these certificates to survive. They ended up in the hands of a small, concentrated group of speculators. These speculators demanded that the government pay the interest on these debts in hard currency (specie) and at face value. The "insolvency" of the Confederation was simply its inability to extract enough tax revenue from the people to satisfy these speculators.¹⁰

As Rothbard notes, "The specter of disunity and disrupting interstate tariffs was more of a bogey to sell the idea of a powerful national government than a real factor in the economy of the day".¹¹ The drive for the Constitution was fueled by the desire of public creditors to create a government with the coercive power to tax the agrarian majority and redeem their speculative holdings.³¹²

Part III: Shays' Rebellion – The Fabrication of Anarchy

If the economic stagnation of the 1780s was the passive justification for the Constitution, Shays' Rebellion was the active catalyst. In the standard history, Daniel Shays led a mob of shiftless debtors in western Massachusetts in 1786–1787, threatening to burn Boston and redistribute property. This "mob rule" terrified the nation's elite and proved that the Confederation was too weak to maintain order.¹³¹⁴

Leonard Richards' rigorous analysis in Shays's Rebellion: The American Revolution's Final Battle shatters this myth. Richards demonstrates that the rebellion was not an outbreak of anarchic debtor populism, but a principled tax revolt against a predatory state government.¹⁴¹⁵

The Anatomy of a Tax Revolt

The conflict in Massachusetts was driven by the state's decision to pay off its war debts at face value and in record time. This policy was designed to benefit the mercantile elite of Boston, who held the vast majority of the state's debt. To fund this massive transfer of wealth, the legislature led by Governor James Bowdoin imposed the heaviest tax burden in the state's history.¹⁴

Crucially, the tax structure was highly regressive: * Poll Taxes: A head tax on every male 16 years or older, regardless of income. * Property Taxes: Levied on land, impacting farmers disproportionately. * Specie Requirement: Taxes had to be paid in gold or silver, which was virtually non-existent in the agrarian west.¹⁴¹⁶

When farmers could not pay, the courts seized their land and cattle. The "rebels" were not seeking to avoid private debts to shopkeepers; they were resisting the state's confiscation of their property to enrich bondholders. Richards notes that "Taxes levied by the state were now much more oppressive... than those that had been levied by the British on the eve of the American Revolution".¹⁴

The Composition of the Insurgency

Richards' analysis of the participants reveals that they were not the "destitute rabble" of Federalist propaganda. They were respected members of their communities, many of them veterans of the Continental Army who had fought for independence only a few years prior. Daniel Shays himself was a decorated officer who had been presented with a sword by the Marquis de Lafayette.¹⁵

The rebellion was a community response—a "Regulation"—in the tradition of colonial protests against unjust authority. It was only when the state government raised a private army (funded by the merchants who stood to gain from the debt payments) that the Regulators took up arms.

The Propaganda of Order

The elite reaction to Shays' Rebellion was orchestrated hysteria. Henry Knox, the Secretary of War and a heavy land speculator himself, wrote to George Washington that the rebels "see the weakness of government" and intend to seize "the property of the United States".¹⁴ This misrepresentation was calculated to alarm Washington and draw him out of retirement to lend his immense prestige to the Constitutional Convention.

The rebellion served as the perfect pretext. It allowed the nationalists to argue that without a strong central government and a standing army, property was unsafe. But as Richards and Nock point out, the "property" they were protecting was not the farm of the yeoman, but the paper of the speculator. The Constitution was sold as a shield against mob rule, but it functioned as a sword for the creditor class.³¹⁴

Part IV: The Philadelphia Coup – A Conspiracy in Secrecy

The gathering that convened in Philadelphia in May 1787 was, by the strict letter of the law, illegal. The Continental Congress had authorized the convention for the "sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation".¹⁷ The delegates were instructed to propose amendments that would render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of the union, subject to the unanimous ratification of the thirteen state legislatures.

Instead, the delegates orchestrated a coup d'état.

The Violation of Instructions

From the outset, the Virginia delegation, led by James Madison, arrived with a plan not to revise the Articles, but to abolish them. The "Virginia Plan" proposed a consolidated national government with the power to veto state laws and coerce the states militarily. This radical departure violated the instructions of almost every delegation present.¹⁷

More egregiously, the Convention rewrote the rules of ratification. The Articles of Confederation could only be amended by unanimous consent. The new Constitution, however, declared that it would become operative upon the ratification of only nine states. Furthermore, ratification would occur via special state conventions, bypassing the state legislatures which were viewed as too democratic and hostile to the consolidation of power.¹⁸¹⁹

Sheldon Richman, in America's Counter-Revolution, describes this as a strategic maneuver to circumvent the established legal order. By shifting the venue of ratification and lowering the threshold, the Federalists rigged the game in their favor.²²⁰

The Democracy of Secrecy

The anti-democratic character of the convention was underscored by its obsession with secrecy. Upon convening, the delegates voted that "nothing spoken in the House be printed, or otherwise published or communicated." Sentries were posted at the doors, and the windows of the State House were nailed shut to prevent eavesdropping.¹⁷²¹

This secrecy allowed the delegates to speak with a candor that would have been political suicide in the public square. They openly expressed their disdain for "democracy," which they equated with the mob rule of Shays' Rebellion. Alexander Hamilton famously declared that the people are "a great beast" (though the exact phrasing is debated, the sentiment is consistent with his speeches) and advocated for a President and Senate elected for life.²²²³

The Beardian Analysis: An Economic Elite

Who were these men who conspired in secret? Charles Beard’s 1913 analysis, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, remains the essential starting point for any materialist understanding of the Convention. Beard surveyed the biographies and financial holdings of the 55 delegates and found a striking homogeneity of interest.¹²²⁴

Public Creditors: The overwhelming majority held significant amounts of depreciated public securities. A strong national government with taxing power would ensure these were paid at face value.¹⁷
Land Speculators: Men like Washington, Robert Morris, and James Wilson held vast tracts of Western land. They needed a strong government to dispossess Native Americans and enforce their titles against squatters.¹⁷¹⁰
Merchants and Shippers: They sought a government capable of enacting navigation acts and retaliating against British trade restrictions.²⁵

Beard noted that "not one member represented the small farming or mechanic class." The Convention was a meeting of the "personalty" interest—holders of paper wealth—seeking to check the power of the "realty" interest (the agrarian majority). The Constitution they produced was "essentially an economic document" designed to protect these minority interests from the "excesses" of democracy.¹⁰²⁴

Part V: Structural Consolidation and the Anti-Federalist Prophecy

The document that emerged from Philadelphia was a masterpiece of political engineering, designed to insulate the state from popular will while empowering it to act decisively on behalf of the elite. The "Anti-Federalists"—a pejorative term for those who defended the decentralized Confederation—saw through the Federalist rhetoric and issued warnings that read like prophecies of the modern American state.

The Judiciary as Leviathan

The Anti-Federalist writer "Brutus" (likely Robert Yates) focused his laser-like critique on the proposed federal judiciary. In his essays, he warned that the Supreme Court would become "exalted above all other power in the government, and subject to no controul".²⁶

Brutus argued that the power to interpret the Constitution "according to its spirit" would allow the judges to mold the government into whatever shape they pleased. He predicted that the federal courts would use this power to obliterate the sovereignty of the states, expanding federal jurisdiction until the state governments were reduced to mere administrative districts. "I question whether the world ever saw," Brutus wrote, "a court of justice invested with such immense powers, and yet placed in a situation so little responsible".²⁶²⁷

The history of the 20th century, with the Supreme Court using the Commerce Clause to justify federal regulation of everything from wheat grown for home consumption (Wickard v. Filburn) to medicinal marijuana (Gonzales v. Raich), vindicates Brutus's fears.

The Executive Monarch

Patrick Henry, the orator of the Revolution, was horrified by the creation of the Presidency. "Away with your President! We shall have a king," he thundered at the Virginia ratifying convention.²⁸ Henry argued that granting command of the standing army to a single man was an invitation to despotism. He foresaw a scenario where a President, supported by the military and a sycophantic elite, would easily crush any opposition.

Henry also critiqued the imperial ambitions inherent in the Constitution. He rejected the Federalist desire for a "great, splendid nation" that would command fear abroad. "If we admit this consolidated government," Henry warned, "it will be because we like a great, splendid one... [but] liberty is its direct end and foundation".²⁹ He understood that the pursuit of empire inevitably corrodes domestic liberty.

Mercy Otis Warren and the Aristocratic Junto

Mercy Otis Warren, writing as "A Columbian Patriot," provided a scathing psychological analysis of the counter-revolution. She observed that the American people, exhausted by war and manipulated by the "artful insinuations" of the elite, were sleepwalking into servitude.³⁰

Warren argued that the Constitution was "dangerously adapted to the purposes of an immediate aristocratic tyranny." She saw the lack of a Bill of Rights, the absence of rotation in office (term limits), and the small size of the House of Representatives as evidence of an "aristocratic junto" seizing power. Her critique highlighted the class dynamics of the ratification debate: it was a struggle between the "wealthy and ambitious" and the "industrious and middling" classes.³¹

Part VI: The Hamiltonian Program – State Capitalism Unleashed

The ratification of the Constitution in 1788 was not the end of the counter-revolution; it was merely the securing of the beachhead. The full implementation of the "political means" required the legislative program of Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury.

Hamilton is rightly identified by C4SS and other market anarchists as the founding father of American State Capitalism. His program was a systematic rejection of the free market in favor of a government-business partnership designed to "socialize cost and privatize profit".¹⁴

The Report on Manufactures: The Corporate Welfare Blueprint

In his Report on the Subject of Manufactures (1791), Hamilton laid out the logic for the corporate state. While paying lip service to Adam Smith, Hamilton argued that the "invisible hand" was insufficient for a nation seeking imperial greatness. He called for "extraordinary patronage" of the government to accelerate the growth of industry.³²

Hamilton’s proposals included: 1. Protective Tariffs: Taxes on imported goods to shield domestic manufacturers from competition, allowing them to charge higher prices to American consumers.¹⁹ 2. Bounties (Subsidies): Direct cash payments to preferred industries, funded by the taxation of the general public.²¹ 3. Industrial Espionage: Government rewards for bringing foreign technology and trade secrets to the US.³³

Crucially, Hamilton’s argument for industrialization relied on the exploitation of labor that was previously outside the wage system. He touted the employment of "women and children" who would be rendered "more useful" in factories than they were at home. He viewed the "scarcity of hands" not as a reason to pay higher wages, but as a problem to be solved by the introduction of machinery and the mobilization of child labor.³⁴³⁵

Sheldon Richman and Kevin Carson critique this report as the origin of the "infant industry" argument, which has been used ever since to justify corporate welfare. As Hamilton admitted, these measures would "sacrifice the interests of the community to those of particular classes"—a stark admission of the rent-seeking nature of his program.³²

The Bank and the Assumption

The cornerstone of Hamilton’s financial architecture was the First Bank of the United States. This private corporation, 80% owned by private investors but enjoying a government monopoly on public deposits, was a classic cartelizing device. It allowed the financial elite to profit from the public debt and manage the nation's currency for their own benefit.³⁶

Combined with the "Assumption" of state debts, Hamilton’s program was a massive wealth transfer. By assuming the state debts at face value, the federal government generated a windfall for the speculators who had bought the debt for pennies. To pay for this, Hamilton imposed excise taxes on the interior, most famously on whiskey.

The Whiskey Rebellion: Shays' Rebellion Redux

The Whiskey Rebellion (1791–1794) was the mirror image of Shays' Rebellion. Once again, western farmers were resisting a regressive tax imposed by a remote eastern elite to fund the profits of speculators. The whiskey tax was designed to favor large distillers (who paid a flat fee) while crushing small farmer-distillers.³⁷

The difference was that under the Constitution, the central government had the power to crush the resistance. Washington and Hamilton led an army of 13,000 men into western Pennsylvania—a force larger than the one that defeated the British at Yorktown—to collect the tax. This display of "energetic government" confirmed the Anti-Federalist fears: the state was now powerful enough to make war on its own citizens to enforce the privileges of the "Money Connection".³⁷

Part VII: The Great Enclosure – Land, Speculation, and Artificial Scarcity

Perhaps the most enduring legacy of the counter-revolution was the federal management of the public domain. In a "freed market," land would be acquired through occupancy and use (homesteading). However, the American state adopted a policy of "artificial scarcity" to generate revenue and benefit speculators.

The Land Ordinance of 1785 vs. The Homestead Act

The Land Ordinance of 1785 established the template. It surveyed the West into rigid townships and auctioned the land in large sections (640 acres) at prices that were prohibitive for the average family. This system effectively reserved the best land for wealthy speculation companies like the Ohio Company of Associates.³⁸³⁹

Albert Jay Nock notes that "one-third" of the Constitutional Convention delegates were land speculators. The Constitution's "Supremacy Clause" and its provision for a standing army were essential to enforce their paper claims against the realities of the frontier.³⁴⁰

It is a damning fact of American history that the Homestead Act, which provided free land to actual settlers, was delayed until 1862—nearly 80 years after the Founding. For almost a century, the federal government maintained a land monopoly that forced settlers to pay tribute to speculators or become wage laborers in the East. This "artificial scarcity" of land was the prerequisite for the development of industrial capitalism, as it closed off the exit option for labor.⁶⁴¹

Feature	Land Ordinance (1785) System	Homestead Act (1862) System
Price	Auction ($1.00 - $2.00/acre min)	Free (small filing fee)
Minimum Unit	640 acres (Section)	160 acres (Quarter Section)
Primary Beneficiary	Speculators / Land Companies	Actual Settlers / Families
Economic Effect	Artificial Scarcity / Concentration	Broad Distribution / Agrarianism

Table 2: Two Visions of the Public Domain

Part VIII: Conclusion – The Persistence of the Counter-Revolution

The narrative presented here—supported by the research of Carson, Jensen, Richards, Nock, and Beard—suggests that the United States was founded not on the principles of the "freed market," but on the principles of State Capitalism. The Constitution was the instrument by which a coalition of mercantile, financial, and landed elites consolidated their power against the agrarian democracy of the Confederation period.

This counter-revolution established the "political means" as the dominant force in American life. The "swollen, hierarchical firms" of today, protected by intellectual property laws, regulatory barriers, and subsidies, are the direct lineal descendants of the chartered monopolies and protected industries envisioned by Hamilton.⁴[^42]

For the modern observer, this history serves as a critical corrective. It reveals that the struggle for a truly free society is not a matter of returning to the "original intent" of the Founders, for that intent was often oligarchic. Rather, it is a matter of rediscovering the radical, decentralized libertarianism that the Founders sought to suppress—the spirit of the Regulators, the Anti-Federalists, and the Levellers. It is a call to dismantle the "Iron Fist" of the state that hides behind the "Invisible Hand" of the market.