With these principles Marshall sharply contrasts those of the other party: "Viewing with extreme tenderness the case of the debtor, their efforts were unceasingly directed to his relief"; they were against "a faithful compliance with contracts"--such a measure they thought "too harsh to be insisted on ... and one which the people would not bear." Therefore, they favored "relaxing ... justice," suspending the collection of debts, remitting taxes. These men resisted every attempt to transfer from their own hands into those of Congress all powers that were, in reality, National. Those who held to such "lax notions of honor," were, in many States, "a decided majority of the people," and were very powerful throughout the country. Wherever they secured control, paper money, delay of justice, suspended taxes "were the fruits of their rule"; and where they were in the minority, they fought at every election for the possession of the State Governments.
In this fashion Marshall again states those antipodal philosophies from which sprang the first two American political parties. With something like skill he emphasizes the conservative and National idea thus: "No principle had been introduced [in the State Governments] which could resist the wild projects of the moment, give the people an opportunity to reflect, and allow the good sense of the nation time for exertion." The result of "this instability in principles which ought if possible to be rendered immutable, produced a long train of ills."[712] The twin spirits of repudiation and Localism on one side, contending for the mastery against the companion spirits of faith-keeping and Nationalism on the other, were from the very first, says Marshall, the source of public ill-being or well-being, as one or the other side prevailed.
Then follows a review of the unhappy economic situation which, as Marshall leaves the reader to infer, was due exclusively to the operation of the principles which he condemns by the mere statement of them.[713] So comes the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 that was deemed by many "an illegitimate meeting."[714]
Although Washington presided over, and was the most powerful influence in, the Constitutional Convention, Marshall allots only one short paragraph to that fact.[715] He enumerates the elements that prepared to resist the Constitution; and brings out clearly the essential fact that the proposed government of the Nation was, by those who opposed it, considered to be "foreign." He condenses into less than two pages his narrative of the conflict over ratification, and almost half of these few lines is devoted to comment upon "The Federalist."