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An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States

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Jumping to the end of Charles Beard's book, his conclusions state the following:

i) The US constitution was enacted to protect the interests of: a) the moneyed classes (the rich), b) the bond and stock holding classes (the rich speculators), c) the manufacturing interests (rich capitalists), and trade and shipping interests (the rich capitalist speculators).

ii) The constitution was the result of an elite group of men representing the aforementioned interests.

iii) The constitutional convention held in Philadelphia was organized undemocratically by the aforementioned elite group of men to secure the aforementioned interests.

iv) Those not holding the aforementioned interests (the poor) were excluded from participation in the constitutional process.

v) Those participating in the Philadelphia convention personally benefited from the outcome of that convention (the constitution).

vi) The US constitution is a document protecting private property rights over that of a democratic people and/or its government.

vii) These assertions are on record as evidenced by the property and monetary interests of those who proposed and passed the US constitution.

viii) In the ratification of the US constitution, 3/4 of the qualified voters were excluded by some means or another, aiding the 1/4 who benefited from the passage of the constitution.

ix) The ratification of the US constitution was further narrowed down to where only 1/6 of the qualified voters participated in its passing.

x) Therefore, the majority of qualified voters did not participate in the ratification of the US constitution.

xi) This 1/6 who ratified the constitution were the same minority who held large holdings in money, bonds and stocks, manufacturing, and trade and shipping.

xii) The main societal divisions in the ratification of the US constitution were among classes cited in i) and the farming and debtor classes at that time.

xiii) The constitution was therefore not created by "the people," but by the those motivated by the monetary interests cited in i).

To see why Beard thought this you must read this book, which is a laundry list of those participating in the Philadelphia convention and the ratification process, and a catalogue of their documented monetary interests.

After reading Beard, then you can read the introduction by Forrest McDonald holding Beard's thesis up to the crucible of historical criticism.

After reading Beard and McDonald you can begin to reflect on the implications of Beard's materialist hypothesis and the host of corroborating and refuting philosophical considerations, then form your own conclusions, then repeat the cycle over and over.

This is probably a good departure point to begin examining your personal beliefs and expectations of what it means to be an American.

Beard's origional thesis form 1913 remains that the forming of the United States Constitution was an effort by the economic well-to-do of the newly formed American social class to establish a government that would protect their interests and raise the value of the government's obligations in their possessions. Beard's goal is simply to re-establish the idea of the aforementioned economic interests as the primary, not secondary cause of the U. S. Constitution. Through a topical analysis of interests, that seem contrary to the work of his historical mentors, Beard weaves his interpretation of the economic history. Throughout his book Beard consistantly refers to his work as fragmentary, but it appears extensively researched through primary documents such as the Federalist Papers, early Treasury Department records, and Madison's convension notes. Beard does an excellent job in presenting all necessary facts for the reader to follow his argument. Little, if any information is left to the supposition of the reader. Whereas the work can be dry at times, it does provide scholars with alternative, not necessarily new, interpretations of early American historical events.

Beard was a courageous man, not afraid to say the truth, not afraid to look into reality of American life and see the abuse of power, the denial of justice, and the real social interests at stake. This book establishes the real context of the constitution, displacing the usual hero worship of the "founders" as demigods and showing them as real men who served their class interests. Beard situates the constitutional convention in the great social struggles that went on in the period after the achievement of independence. Without such an understanding the struggle over the adoption of the constitution, and the role of the Bill of Rights are simply not understandable.

Post independence America was a place of economic crisis for the farmers, workers, and small tradesmen who had been the bulwark of the revolutionary struggle. Montarization of economic exchange in villages and towns where a large amount of the exchange had been based on barter, a massive inflation, and a growth of the power of the banks and other money lenders spread like a plague, particularly in the Northern States, especially New England. Farmers were losing their land; tradesmen were losing their shops; goods not made on the farms and villages became too expensive for many working people and farmers.

The power of the state governments, squarely in the hands of the merchants and planters, stood behind the seizure of the lands of farmers who could no longer pay the banks and merchants. Farmers and small tradesmen rose against this. Desperate farmers and their supporters shut down courts that met to authorize confiscation of farms. With no Bill of Rights, in Massachusetts set up kangaroo courts made up of merchants and bankers that made no attempt to be fair to the farmers. Newspapers and speakers who criticized the state government and the banks and big merchants were charged with treason.

Full-scale civil war broke out in Massachusetts, with the plebian rebels coming close--it is said only prevented by the delay of one detachment by a snowstorm--to seizing the national arsenal in Springfield. It was these threats to property that threatened the power of the wealthy and the order that had been established after the revolution. This is why the constitutional convention gathered, not some abstract interest in more ethereal and philosophical forms of government.

Whatever is said about divine motivations, the constitutional convention which gathered the wealthy and powerful, would have had to have been a bunch of insane dreamers, not to have had the interests of their wealth and power first in their minds in this situation. This Beard shows with abundant documentation.

Beard documents that this was by and large a gathering of the wealthy men of the country who had profited from the revolution and who had profited by the economic disaster farmers and tradesmen faced by buying up certificates for land in compensation for services to the revolution, many farmers and tradesmen had to sell in order to keep their own land. Beard indicates that the concern for a secure state that could safeguard these interests was the dominant question for constitutional convention. He also notes that the few delegates who were sympathetic to the popular struggle opposed the constitution. Others among the leaders of the American Revolution who opposed this trend stayed away.

Beard's book has been pilloried because it challenges the public myth about the constitution and the government that is needed to maintain the continued rule of the wealthy and powerful

The constitutional convention did not write a democratic constitution. There is no provision for national elections. There are only provisions for the state legislatures to select electors that would meet to select the president in what the constitutional convention thought would be another gathering of the wealthy and powerful.

The Bill of Rights was not part of the constitution they wrote or proposed. This was not an oversight, but because the authors of the constitution did not support these rights or democracy as it is understood today. As I mentioned above, in Massachusetts rather than a "jury of their peers," farmer rebels were tried by juries packed with merchants and bankers; rebels in Western farming communities like Springfield and Pittsfield were tried by juries from Boston. In states like Connecticut and Massachusetts, the Congregationalist church was an established church and membership in it was required to vote. Writers and speakers could be charged with treason for attacking the state governments.

Most people in the United States opposed the constitution that came out of the Philadelphia convention. Many cited as "founders" opposed it. The bill of rights was proposed as a compromise addition to safeguard the rights of the popular majority. Without it, the constitution would not have passed.

Even so, many provisions of the Bill of Rights were not actively enforced, some until the 20th Century. The establishment of religion continued in Connecticut and Massachusetts as states until 1820s and 1830s, and establishment of the Congregational churches by town government continued in many areas of New England until the late 19th and in a few places the early 20th century!!! Massachusetts's courts still charged and convicted newspapers for blasphemy in the 1840s.

Popular voting without property, religious, or other qualifications was not me insured in this constitution. This came only with the amendments others that followed the Civil War, which Beard famously termed The Second American Revolution.

Beard tells the real story here. For that, he was pilloried. Similarly, during and after WWII he documented, using congressional hearing testimony for the most part, how Roosevelt took the US into the Second World War. Again he was pilloried with new attacks generated against this book, even though this was written decades before.

We are lucky for a man like Beard who wasn't afraid to tell the truth, even when the truth clashed with myths that are propagated in the interests of the billionaires who run this society.

Charles Beard caused a minor scandal when this book was published in 1913. He argued that the Founding Fathers had foisted the Constitution on the country in order to protect their property interests in land and public securities. This was strong medicine 90 years ago when the public still thought of the Founders as demigods rather than conspiratorial politicians.

Despite its age, the book reads well and is refreshingly iconoclastic. Since rightwing politicians and jurists still talk as if the Constitution had a divine origin, Beard's message hasn't lost its relevance. However, there's no denying that his book is a one-sided lawyer's brief, which selects and presents only the evidence that supports its thesis while ignoring everything else. No one who has read The Federalist would even recognize Beard's description of it.

Modern readers who want a balanced and comprehensive history of the origins of the Constitution should look to books by Forrest MacDonald or other historians.

Charles Beard's thesis held sway for decades --and was not attacked in a significant way until after his death in 1948. Major critics were Robert E. Brown (1956) and Forrest McDonald (1958). It should be noted that Charles Beard greatly angered the liberal Establishment in the 1940s with his strong criticism re how Franklin Roosevelt manipulated the US into World War II and provoked the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor.

A new book due out in July 2002 -- Robert McGuire's "To Form A More Perfect Union: A New Economic Interpretation of the United States Constitution" will supposedly show that Beard was right re the Founding Fathers/Constitution and his critics were wrong.

This book was first issued in 1913 during the Progressive Party era. Theodore Roosevelt questioned the power of the judiciary to declare laws unconstitutional and suggested the people should have the right to recall that decision (`Introduction to the 1935 Edition'). [Abraham Lincoln had similar concerns.] James Madison wrote Federalist Number 10 to speak on how politics are based on economic interests. In the late 19th century historian talked about "state's rights" or "a strong central government". Charles A. Beard investigated the original sources and found the discussions over economic interests. His book was praised by Progressives and condemned by conservative Republicans. Beard just gathered the facts in an impartial manner. This is not a biased outlook (p.xlvx). The idea of economics affecting politics is in Aristotle's writings and the Federalist paper No. 10. You can decide for yourself what part economics plays in "protective tariffs, foreign trade, transportation, industry, commerce, labor, agriculture, and the nature of the Constitution itself" (p.xlix)! [Your local newspaper may report on zoning changes but not who benefits from them.] Ignoring economic issues in history leads to confusion (p.lii).

Law is primarily concerned with the ownership of property and the way it is passed from one person to another. Different kinds of property creates different classes with different views (Chapter I). Investigating the economic interests of the supporters and opponents of the Federal Constitution will test Beard's theory (p.17). Chapter II lists the difficulties in learning about the state and continental public securities and their owners, and other facts. Merchants and manufacturers wanted a protective tariff. Four powerful groups wanted a new government: the money powers, holders of public securities, manufacturers and shippers, and speculators in western lands (Chapter III). The men who wanted the new Constitution chose to have it ratified by state legislators rather than popular vote (Chapter IV). Property qualifications limited the electorate.

Chapter V discusses the economic interests of the convention members. Would they benefit under the new Constitution? Were they working under the guidance of abstract principles of political science? Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey was a notorious speculator (p.86). Alexander Hamilton organized the groups to support the new Constitution (p.101). George Washington was the richest man in the US (p.144). The Constitution was created by lawyers and the wealthy (p.151). "The Federalist" shows an economic interpretation of the Constitution (Chapter VI). The Supreme Court was designed to check the Legislature (p.163). Chapter VII discusses the political doctrines of the convention members. The Constitution was a compromise by a committee. It was a revolutionary plan (Chapter VIII), but would be ratified by popular votes for delegates to a state convention. Chapter IX discusses the percentage who voted. Large numbers were anxious for betterment (p.251). Many would benefit from the Constitution (Chapter X). Many who fought in the War of 1775 supported the Constitution (pp.276-278). The small farmers on the frontier rejected the Constitution (p.285). The arguments from that time discussed the economic conflicts (Chapter XI) due to Treaties, paper money, and contracts. Those who worked the soil were generally opposed to the Constitution, those who were merchants of bankers favored the Constitution. This latter group adopted a Constitution that served their interests (pp.324-325).
The `Introduction' by Forrest McDonald notes that political events are incomprehensible unless they are considered in the context of their social and economic realities. [Names and dates are "barren".] More research since the 1940s has modified some of the views in this book.

To better grasp the true history of our country, please read this book. Cultural and societal myths tend to grow over the ages and the myth of the Founders is no exception. Beard studied the founders and used their own writings in developing his theory. Along with the 'Federalist Papers' and the 'Anti-Federalist Papers' Beard has captured the true nature of the making of the Constitution. Beard does not attack nor condemn the Constitution or those that drafted it. He merely puts into its true historic prespective and removes the Founders from the elysian fields of mythology. Please read this book and you might want to also consider reading it along with C Wright Mills 'The Power Elites' and Suzanne Keller's 'Beyond the Ruling Class.' All three books put into perspective why the current economic chaos of 2008-09, as well as all past economic crisis, resulted in the bank and corporate bailouts while unemployment, foreclosures and depletion of retirement and pensions still flounder. It also explains as to why the Corporation was later proclaimed by the courts to exist as a person and enjoy the protections of the Constitution. Charles Beard was no myth nor a crank historian, as some would want you to believe.

At least one reviewer has complained about what dry reading this book makes, especially the chapter entitled "The Economic Interests of the Members of the Convention," which consists of seventy or so pages (roughly a quarter of the volume) of biographical sketches--some in thumbnail form, others (such as that, understandably so, on Hamilton) a few pages long--of the men who took part, as the title makes clear, in the Constitutional Convention.

At first I was inclined to agree with these reviewers: reading one biographical sketch after another starts to become tedious pretty quickly. But then I started looking at it differently. What this chapter was doing, I soon realized, was fleshing out the characters behind the drama of constitution-making in a way that traditional history books rarely do, and in particular specifying the financial situation of each conventioneer along two main lines: those from the north, whose wealth tended to derive from stocks and bonds (which depended on a strong national government to bear financial fruit), and those from the south, whose wealth tended to derive from inherited wealth, primarily large tracts of land maintained through slave labor (and whose holdings were potentially threatened by a strong national government). Not surprisingly, the former tended to support the efforts of the Constitutional Convention, the latter to oppose it.

We witness, then, the north vs. south lines being drawn up many decades before they took their more conspicuous form in the decade or so before the Civil War. Thus, what at first seems, as the other reviewers claim, to make for rather dry reading, turns out to provide a fascinating glimpse into the profound self-interest (although, as subsequent scholars have argued, this doesn't necessarily preclude authentic patriotic motives as well) of those in whose personal interest it was either to support or to oppose the efforts of the Constitutional Convention.

Glancing through most American history textbooks, many students would read stories of the Founding Fathers having been intellectuals, statesmen, and individuals striving for justice in protection of their fellow Americans. "These framers are represented as untainted by economic or financial interests, founding a government on abstract speculations of political philosophy." However, Charles Beard's account offers very different ideas and conclusions on, what he feels, the true intention of those who are credited for the creation of the United States and it's Constitution.

Likely one of the most important works on early American history, Beard makes several points in An Economic Interpretation. His original 1913 argument is that the forming of the United States Constitution was an effort by the newly formed, affluent American social class to establish a government that would protect their interests and raise the value of the government's obligations in their possessions. Other historians have refuted this idea claiming it to be secondary in the goals of the framers, however Beard asserts this as their primary intention in creating the Constitution.

Not only was the Constitution created to protect their interests but Beard argues that it was a direct assault on the lower and middle classes and "not one member represented in his immediate personal economic interests the small farming or mechanic classes" (149). The Constitution has no mention of a Bill of Rights (later ratified on Dec 1791) and was opposed "almost uniformly... from the agricultural regions and from the areas in which debtors had been formulating paper money and other depreciatory schemes" (291). Beard does receive some criticism in that "the controversy was based in large measure on state pride, state patriotism, state jealousies and state dislike of a nationalism which would devour the state" rather than placing the mistrust in economics. In addition, the Constitutional Convention was never submitted to a popular vote nor was it submitted for popular ratification (239).

Beard's ideas are well supported and documented with extensive research of primary documents such as correspondence, treasury documents, newspapers and a careful analyzation of the Constitution. "The correspondence shows the exact character of the evils which the Constitution was intended to remedy; the records of the proceedings in the Philadelphia Convention reveal the successive steps in the building of the framework of the government under the pressure of economic interests; the pamphlets and newspapers disclose the ideas of the contestants over the ratification; and The Federalist presents the political science of the new system as conceived by three of the profoundest thinkers of the period, Hamilton, Madison and Jay" (152-53).

In his summation of An Economic Interpretation, Beard voices what he has intended to say throughout, the largest of which that the Constitution was designed to protect the wealthy, bond and stock holders, and manufacturing, trade and shipping interests. Those interests were protected by a document produced by an elite group that was organized undemocratically, excluding those not holding those interests. Post convention and ratification, those interests were seen as protected from the outcome and to uphold private property rights first and of the people at large, secondly. During ratification, three-fourths of qualified voters had been denied because of technicalities and the societal divisions made it that much easier for it to be adopted as law. Therefore, "We the People," is extremely inaccurate according to Beard, as "the People" is a small minority driven by financial interests.

Beard attempts to maintain an objective opinion and his ideas are based on documented facts and has strived to refrain from any judgement on moral issues. Social issues are intertwined with those of economics during this time period, but information is presented strictly in an economic sense. It is unfeasible to sense that Beard is not passing judgement on the framers for their actions, but is hidden well within statistics and documentation and has restricted his hypothesis to the true reasons in the creation of our Constitution.

Obviously, the top 500 reviewer Ryan Setliff has not read the book. His review stated
"_This book basically puts forward a theory that the founders just established the Constitution for their own personal economic gain._ This book is well-researched, but its premise is totally flawed. Moreover, it tries to portray all of the founding fathers as self-serving and looking out for their own economic interests."

Had Ryan read the book, he might have know that Charles himself says on page 73:
"The purpose of such an inquiry is not, of course, to show that the Constitution was made for the personal benefit of the members of the Convention." Beard explains, also on page 73, that he is trying to show, by researching the personal economic statuses of the members of the convention, that the members belonged to the "four [socioeconomic] groups... [that] were adversly affected by the government under the articles of Confederation, and that [the] economic motives [of those socioeconomic groups] were behind the movement for a recontstruction of the system..."

It is most unfortunate that seemingly educated people deride this book without having read it, and doubly so since it is such a valuable work, still accessible and readable today.