One of these lesions of the written word, that
which interpreted a clause so as to give the President power over
removals from office, Madison himself had favoured.
This first constitutional debate also outlined the geographical
sectionalism which has penetrated and influenced every feature of
American political as well as commercial and social life. The Northern
and Middle States contained the cities, made up of the trading class,
whose capital was chiefly in ready money. The capital of the rural
dwellers of the South was in land and slaves, not easily converted
into cash. The latter became the borrowing, the former the lending
section. The spirit of unionism was engendered in the first by reason
of their urban life, their commercial employment, and their frequent
contact in business. The feeling of individualism was as naturally
bred in the latter by their rural surroundings, their agricultural
occupation, and the self-reliance induced by their solitary environment.
The opposition to the Constitution in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New
York, and Pennsylvania had been confined almost entirely to the country.
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