All this unsettlement in economics and politics could not fail to bring about a reconsideration of the fundamentals in the American constitutional system--particularly the distribution of powers between the Federal and state governments, which is made by a constitution drafted when economic conditions were totally different from what they are to-day. In fact, during the closing years of the nineteenth century there appeared, here and there in American political literature, evidence of a discontent with the Federal system scarcely less keen and critical than that which was manifested with the Articles of Confederation during those years of our history which John Fiske has denominated "The Critical Period." Manufacturing interests which, at the time the Federal Constitution was framed, were so local in character as to be excluded entirely from the control of the Federal government had now become national or at all events sectional, having absolutely no relation to state lines. As Professor Leacock remarks, "The central fact of the situation is that economically and industrially the United States is one country or at best one country with four or five great subdivisions, while politically it is broken into a division of jurisdictions holding sway to a great extent over its economic life, but corresponding to no real division either of race, of history, of unity, of settlement, or of commercial interest."[76] For example, in 1900 the boot and shoe industry, instead of being liberally distributed among the several states, was so concentrated, that out of the total product 44.9 per cent was produced by Massachusetts; nearly one half of the agricultural implements for that year were made in Illinois; two thirds of the glass of the whole country was made in Pennsylvania and Indiana; while Pennsylvania alone produced 54 per cent of the iron and steel manufactured. The political significance of this situation was simply this: the nation on which each of these specialized industries depended for its existence had practically no power through the national government to legislate relative to them; but in each case a single legislature representing a small fraction of the people connected with the industry in question possesses the power of control.