The makers of the constitution, according to Charles Beard

(class-based analysis)

-- Emphasis on strength, efficiency, and social control in government

- Generally rich with significant assets in securities ( teacher’s note – Hamilton wasn’t, Madison was probably closer to middle class)

-- Opponents of the Articles included a large number of former royalists who supported the class system of England (teacher’s note – Hamilton was born penniless and would likely not have embraced any class system that would have blocked social mobility + he wasn’t really that rich)

-- Traders, financiers, manufacturers who didn’t like the Articles and wanted a system that would better serve their interests.

Specific complaints:

            Holders of government securities didn’t like that they weren’t getting interest

            Owners of western lands wanted greater order on the frontier

            Traders wanted to stop interference with interstate commerce

            Creditors made about the intentional inflation pursued by some states

Hamilton – proposed at the Annapolis convention in 1786 (which was convened to discuss tariffs) that there be a meeting in Philadelphia for May 1787 to revise the Articles of Confederation – but his real goal was to throw them out and didn’t want to signal his intent

            He and the other constitutionalists feared that majority rule within the states would lead to oppression of minority interests (especially their property interests)

They sought to balance the fear of despotism with their fear of the “onslaught of the majority”

            The delegates were chosen by the state legislatures – they were generally the representatives of elite interests and radicals were not invited

In the constitution itself:

            There was a great deal of discussion of property requirements for voting – it never made it in only because there was not agreement on the details and the understanding that it would never be ratified (teacher’s note – most discussion on property requirements focused on requirements for elected officials, not the voters)

            Instead other methods were invented to foil the popular will:

                        Checks and balances were created to foil the popular will

                        Senate was seen as a bastion of elite rights

                        The judiciary was not elected

                        Article I, Section 10

“No state shall . . . coin money; emit Bills of Credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts . . .  (or pass laws) impairing the Obligation of Contracts. . .

            The Federalist papers contain much language that complains of a fickle and foolish public

But how to get it passed?

            The state legislatures would not diminish their own power (and under the articles all 13 would have to agree) – so delegates were directly elected by the voters and only 9 out of 13 states have to agree

Meanwhile the anti-constitutionalists

            Emphasis on popular will and personal liberty

Generally not rich

Government is best that governs least with occasional discord better than government tyranny

The Constitution as a compact with slavery

(Race-based)

The Northerners were duped into embedding slavery protections by Southern states (specifically Charles Pinckney from S. Carolina) that threatened to walk away from the convention without such agreements.

Madion’s notes on July 23, 1787 that Pinckney states:

“[He] reminded the convention that if the committee should fail to insert some security to the Southern states against an emancipation of slaves, and taxes on exports, he should be bound by duty to his state to vote against their report.”

 Critics maintain that no one state (or group of states) would have lasted long outside of the trade and military protection of the US and any threats were hollow. (Gordon Lloyd of Peperdine University maintains that confidence that the South was bluffing is naive in that errant states could have easily have found allies in Spain, France, or England who wanted to maintain a presence in the region)

3/5^th compromise (Article I, Section I, Clause 3) – rewards the Southern states for slavery by expanding their number of representatives in the House (teacher’s note – the 3/5 compromise was intended more as an incentive for the Carolinas and Georgia to support Madison’s vision of a non-state-based Senate) it was proposed by a slavery opponent from Pennsylvania. The 3/5^th number came from a failed proposal (in 1783) under the Articles of Confederation that a state’s wealth be taxed is such a way that slaves be counted for 3/5^th their value

Importation clause – (Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1) “The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person” – Originally this was set at 1800 with the blessing of large slave states like Virgina, but smaller states like S. Carloina, N. Carolina, and Georgia objected and pushed to make it 1808. Madison notes that “twenty years will produce all the mischief that can be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves” The matter passes 7-4 on August 25, 1787

Eli Whitney patents cotton gin in 1794, which immediately expands the cotton trade from 180,000 tons in 1793 to 6 million tons in 1795. By 1810 the South will produce 93 million pounds. From 1790 to 1808 the Southern states will import 80,000 slaves.

Fugitive Slave Clause (Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3) “No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, But shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be dues”

Obligates the Northern states to extradite escaped slaves back to the South. The laws of one state, the clause says, cannot excuse a person from "Service or Labour" in another state. The clause requires that the state in which an escaped slave is found has to deliver them to the state he or she escaped from "on Claim of the Party."

Ambiguities: slavery is never expressly mentioned in the Constitution. Madison (who was from Virginia and had slaves) noted that he “thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men” (August 25, 1787)

Virginians Jefferson and Washington both expressed repugnance at the practice of slavery and Washington freed his slaves on his death. Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration of Independence condemned the King for introducing slavery into the colonies, but the language was removed by the Continental Congress.

Slave importation was banned January 1, 1808.

Founding Fathers: A reform in Caucus in Action

(Constitution as a Pragmatic document)

Thesis:

The founding fathers were “…not only revolutionaries, but they were also democrats.”

I. Historians have evolved their analysis of the founding fathers from brilliant selfless heroes (possibly inspired by the divine) to self-interested capitalists

The truth is that they were skilled democratic politicians committed to working within a democratic framework. The convention should not be seen as a capitalist conspiracy but a nationalist reform caucus seeking popular approval

II. Roche believes that there is one fundamental truth about the founding fathers: they were superb democratic politicians.

            Roche believes that historians have made the Convention appear as a counter revolutionary junta and the constitution as a sudden overthrow of government by a small group of people.

The fathers were political men, dedicated to working within a democratic framework. -- if the founding fathers were “plotting” anything it was to establish a more centralized government than what existed under the Articles.

Roche argues that the goals of the framers were “subversive” but could only have succeeded if the people of the United States endorsed it by standardized procedures.

The challenge to the founders: how to convince the states to weaken themselves

These men were driven by a variety of interests, but were willing to compromise those interests on behalf of an emerging ideal

The constitutionalists had a continental perspective while their opponents perspective had only a state perspective (hence not as much concern for foreign policy, national prestige – result: able to use budding nationalism)

Other advantages:

            George Washington, the energy and talent of their leadership, keep opponents on defensive, American nationalism

While the founders were ideologically consistent on the need for a stronger central government they disagreed on structural reforms

Federalist papers make the constitution appear to be an intellectually cohesive document – this hides the compromises that make up the document

            Best example is federalism where Madison’s Virginia plan essentially cut the federal government completely from the states by allowing the federal legislature to negate almost all acts of state legislatures – but the founders need to bring a package back home that they can sell – small states in particular objected to the possibility of getting squashed – While Madison had the votes to pass the Virginia plan but to do so would have meant that the document would never get ratified –

Much of the compromises that occurred were based not on political philosophy but on pragmatic political realities – so we get the senate seats being divided along state boundaries, the decision on how to allocate electoral college votes is left to state legislatures, small states getting a bonus # of electoral college votes