The purpose of the Constitution was to end the imbecility and impotence of the Confederation Congress. The pressing need was to give the federal government enough revenue to pay enough of the war debts that the federal government could borrow again to the defend the nation against the coming threats. The Constitution is first a tax document, a pro-tax document, written by nationalists to allow the federal government to tax people and things directly without going through the states.

The tax power is a necessary explanation for the Constitution, but it is not enough. Tax did not in fact require the revolutionary changes that the Constitution made. The Hamilton package that restored the public credit asked for a pittance – a day and half of workingman's wages per capita – and taxed only those things that were supposed to be suppressed – imports and hard liquor. Land was not taxed on the federal level, despite Madison's recommendation. Hamilton's package was less burdensome both in terms of revenue and means of tax than the 1783 impost and requisition proposal that New York had vetoed. The 1783 proposal worked within the assumptions of the confederation mode and would have kept Congress as the agent of the sovereign states.

The Constitution ended the supremacy of the states and the confederation mode and replaced it with a complete three-part national government able to walk on its own legs. The sovereignty of the people replaced the sovereignty of the states.