fieldston american reader volume i – fall 2007 - Ethical Culture ...

Charles Beard: The ConstitutionA Minority Document (1913)The Economic Interests of Members of the ConventionA survey of the economic interests of the members of theConvention present certain conclusions:A majority of the members were lawyers by profession.Most of the members came from towns, on or near the coast,that is, from the regions in which personalty was largelyconcentrated.Not one member represented in his immediate personaleconomic interests the small farming or mechanic classes.The overwhelming majority of members, at least five-sixths,were immediately, directly, and personally interested in theoutcome of their labors at Philadelphia, and were to a greateror less extent economic beneficiaries from the adoption of theConstitution.1. Public security interests were extensively represented inthe Convention. Of the fifty-five members who attendedno less than forty appear on the Records of the TreasuryDepartment for sums varying from a few dollars up to morethan one hundred thousand dollars. . . .It is interesting to note that, with the exception of New York,and possibly Delaware, each state had one or more prominentrepresentatives in the Convention who held more than anegligible amount of securities, and who could therefore speakwith feeling and authority on the question of providing in thenew Constitution for the full discharge of the public debt....2. Personalty invested in lands for speculation was representedby at least fourteen members....3. Personalty in the form of money loaned at interest wasrepresented by at least twenty-four members. . . .4. Personalty in mercantile, manufacturing, and shippinglines was represented by at least eleven members. . . .5. Personalty in slaves was represented by at least fifteenmembers....It cannot be said, therefore, that the members of theConvention were “disinterested.” On the contrary, we areforced to accept the profoundly significant conclusion that theyknew through their personal experiences in economic affairsthe precise results which the new government that they weresetting up was designed to attain. As a group of doctrinaires,like the Frankfort assembly of 1848, they would have failedmiserably; but as practical men they were able to build the newgovernment upon the only foundations which could be stable:fundamental economic interests.The Constitution as an Economic DocumentIt is difficult for the superficial student of the Constitution,who has read only the commentaries of the legists, to conceiveof that instrument as an economic document. It places noproperty qualifications on voters or officers; it gives no outwardrecognition of any economic groups in society; it mentions nospecial privileges to be conferred upon any class. It betraysno feeling, such as vibrates through the French constitution of1791; its language is cold, formal, and severe.The true inwardness of the Constitution is not revealed by anexamination of its provisions as simple propositions of law; butby a long and careful study of the voluminous correspondenceof the period, contemporary newspapers and pamphlets, therecords of the debates in the Convention at Philadelphiaand in the several state conventions, and particularly, TheFederalist, which was widely circulated during the struggle overratification. The correspondence shows the exact character ofthe evils which the Constitution was intended to remedy; therecords of the proceedings in the Philadelphia Conventionreveal the successive steps in the building of the frameworkof the government under the pressure of economic interests;the pamphlets and newspapers disclose the ideas of thecontestants over the ratification; and The Federalist presents thepolitical science of the new system as conceived by three of theprofoundest thinkers of the period, Hamilton, Madison, andJay.Doubtless, the most illuminating of these sources on theeconomic character of the Constitution are the records of thedebates in the Convention, which have come down to us infragmentary form; and a thorough treatment of material forcesreflected in the several clauses of the instrument of governmentcreated by the grave assembly at Philadelphia would require arewriting of the history of the proceedings in the light of thegreat interests represented there. But an entire volume wouldscarcely suffice to present the results of such a survey, and anundertaking of this character is accordingly impossible here.The Federalist, on the other hand, presents in a relativelybrief and systematic form an economic interpretation of theConstitution by the men best fitted, through an intimateknowledge of the ideals of the framers, to expound thepolitical science of the new government. This wonderful pieceof argumentation by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay is in fact thefinest study in the economic interpretation of politics whichexists in any language; and whoever would understand theConstitution as an economic document need hardly go beyondit. It is true that the tone of the writers is somewhat modifiedon account of the fact that they are appealing to the voters toratify the Constitution, but at the same time they are, by theforce of circumstances, compelled to convince large economicgroups that safety and strength lie in the adoption of the newsystem.Indeed, every fundamental appeal in it is to some material andsubstantial interest. Sometimes it is to the people at large in179