[Continuing a military thread. Starts here.]
In the early 1780s a powerful group in the Continental Congress, including James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, as well as Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris, pursued expansion of Congressional power. Their priority was to achieve a revenue independent of state grants. The rhetorical focus of their campaign was military: the succesful prosecution of the war depended on Congress' effectiveness in military administration. After the war, duty to the soldiers and (more importantly) the officers who fought became a key theme, as well as the continuing security of the states. Yet this campaign faded in the middle of the 1780s without having achieved its core goal: strengthening the Continental Congress.
Does the movement for the constitution in the late-1780s represent a re-emergence of the same campaign? How similar or different were its aims, rhetoric, and support? Why did the later campaign succeed and the earlier one fail? How were the ideas and mentalities behind the earlier campaign reproduced - and how did they change - during the fallow period at mid-decade?
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