KISS and the Constitution

 Reading Woody Holton's "Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution".

I'm about halfway through but already have a reaction.  It's KISS, meaning "keep it simple, stupid'.  And that's what the Constitution did, at least partially. Holton's describing the conditions of the 1780's, and the conflicts which led to the writing and adoption of the Constitution.  Holton describes things, but doesn't see them as follows:

• the state of the currency and of state finances was poor, meaning that state legislatures had tried many measures to obtain money to pay off the obligations from the Revolution and to maintain the government.  While Holton is a good writer, I found the overall picture very confusing.  
• Americans found it hard or impossible to borrow money from the British or on the Continent.  They blamed the devaluing of bond issues and paper currency for damaging American credit.

Seems to me that the Brits, the European bankers, might well have been as confused as I am.  After all, you had 13 different states doing things with no consistency.  I assume that before the Revolution each colony had a network of contacts in the UK government and the banking community which had the knowledge and background to assess what was happening in the colony. That network was disrupted by the Revolution.  The Revolution also meant more interaction among the colonies/states, calling for more knowledge and familiarity with events in the sister states.  The British Empire had had the effect of simplifying things; the Revolution undid things and created complexity.

The Constitution was a step to simplifying things again. We'd still have a decentralized banking system, but by 1800 the issues of the wartime debts were clarified as the federal government took over responsibility.