The Framers thought these problems came from the mercenary new men who now inhabited the state houses in America, a second string of ill-educated populists who were deaf to the national interest and all too ready to advance wasteful local interests.21 Not long before, the Patriots had fought against corruption by shifting power closer to the people. Now, in an ironic twist, the remedy for corruption would be to concentrate power in the central government. To remedy state corruption, Madison proposed a federal veto power over state laws—the same power that the British Board of Trade in
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