INTERPRETATIONS OF THE
CONSTITUTION (WITH SPECIFIC
MENTION OF CHARLES BEARD)
, INTRODUCTION:
• The first explanations of the origins of the Constitution, advanced by early national
historians such as George Bancroft, harmonized perfectly with this universal approval.
The document was described as a product of the whole people of the United States
acting in a moment of crisis with a unity and inspiration born of divine guidance.
Historians of the period which followed the Civil War, focusing on evolution from
Germanic origins or attempting to apply the methods of physical science, found
substitutes for the concept of divine intervention but did not suggest that the country had
been anything but unanimous in its sponsorship and ratification of the Constitution.
• Meanwhile, the proponents of economic determinism were making little progress in
persuading Americans in general and historians in particular that the dynamic ingredient
in the evolution of a society was not to be found in political beliefs, moral principles, or
racial characteristics but in the 1890’s there arose around the figure of Frederick
Jackson Turner a group which emphasized the economic basis of the political
development without subscribing to a belief in revolutionary class struggle.
, • Turner made economic explanations somewhat more native and therefore more
respectable. However, although his influence continued to grow, economic determinism
was still considered a radical doctrine of sinister implications when Charles A. Beard's
book was published, in 1913. The storm of protest with which “An Economic
Interpretation of the Constitution” was greeted had its roots in two strong American
feelings: hatred of the Marxian implications of economic determinism and a traditional
reverence for the Constitution as an expression of Democratic feeling and an instrument
of popular government.
• First, he suggested that, far from having unanimous support, the Constitution was
conceived and ratified by a small group which, by adroit manoeuvring, controlled
elections and conventions in such a way that the majority opposition to ratification was
defeated. What had drawn this group together, he held, was their property interests,
endangered by a weak central government and state governments too often controlled
by the debtor classes. Beard attempted to place this assertion on a factual basis by
analyzing the property, investments, and political beliefs of each of the delegates. Beard
estimated that their value increased by some $40,000,000 when the credit of the new
federal government was put behind them under the Hamiltonian program.
CONSTITUTION (WITH SPECIFIC
MENTION OF CHARLES BEARD)
, INTRODUCTION:
• The first explanations of the origins of the Constitution, advanced by early national
historians such as George Bancroft, harmonized perfectly with this universal approval.
The document was described as a product of the whole people of the United States
acting in a moment of crisis with a unity and inspiration born of divine guidance.
Historians of the period which followed the Civil War, focusing on evolution from
Germanic origins or attempting to apply the methods of physical science, found
substitutes for the concept of divine intervention but did not suggest that the country had
been anything but unanimous in its sponsorship and ratification of the Constitution.
• Meanwhile, the proponents of economic determinism were making little progress in
persuading Americans in general and historians in particular that the dynamic ingredient
in the evolution of a society was not to be found in political beliefs, moral principles, or
racial characteristics but in the 1890’s there arose around the figure of Frederick
Jackson Turner a group which emphasized the economic basis of the political
development without subscribing to a belief in revolutionary class struggle.
, • Turner made economic explanations somewhat more native and therefore more
respectable. However, although his influence continued to grow, economic determinism
was still considered a radical doctrine of sinister implications when Charles A. Beard's
book was published, in 1913. The storm of protest with which “An Economic
Interpretation of the Constitution” was greeted had its roots in two strong American
feelings: hatred of the Marxian implications of economic determinism and a traditional
reverence for the Constitution as an expression of Democratic feeling and an instrument
of popular government.
• First, he suggested that, far from having unanimous support, the Constitution was
conceived and ratified by a small group which, by adroit manoeuvring, controlled
elections and conventions in such a way that the majority opposition to ratification was
defeated. What had drawn this group together, he held, was their property interests,
endangered by a weak central government and state governments too often controlled
by the debtor classes. Beard attempted to place this assertion on a factual basis by
analyzing the property, investments, and political beliefs of each of the delegates. Beard
estimated that their value increased by some $40,000,000 when the credit of the new
federal government was put behind them under the Hamiltonian program.
