07 Jul question essay
1.) There are characteristics of the American Constitution thatmost scholars agree upon. What are some of those characteristics? Using ahistorio-graphical approach, trace the various schools of thought concerningthe motive or motives of those who supported ratification of the Constitution.What conclusions about motive or what some might refer to as “originalintent,” can be reached in a fair assessment of the issue?
Directions: Using the outline below and adding pertinentmaterial found in the Brinkley text, write a college-level essay for your Exam#2 responses. Be sure to edit your work carefully…spell correctly,punctuate accurately, capitalize correctly, write clearly, and, mostsignificantly, respond fully to all parts of the question. Avoid using mylanguage (please do NOT quote me). Shape your responses in your OWNwords. Write well, take your time, do a first rate job.
Exam#2 Question #1 Outline: The Constitution
I. Two Agreed Upon Features of the Constitution
A. It is a Minority Document (meaning: the authorsrepresent a minority of opinion in their commitment to nationalism)
B. It is a Compromise Document (meaning: the founderscompromised their commitment to nationalism by putting into the constitutioncertain localistic compromises in order to get it ratified by the localisticmajority)
II. An Historiographically-based analysis of the founders’ motives (what somecall their “original intent”)
A. The Late 19th Century/Post Civil War/GildedAge/Nationalist Historians (These were historians researching and writinghistory in the last half of the 19th century (1870s, 1880s, 1890s), justfollowing the American Civil War (1861-1865), in what Mark Twain called”the gilded age” during a time of intense nationalism by Americans.)
1. Examples
a. George Bancroft:Member of the History Department faculty at Harvard College, memorialized bythe American Historical Association with their annual Bancroft Prize for thebest historical book of the year by an American historian about AmericanHistory. (Brings with it a nice fat check too!)
b. Henry Adams: IndependentScholar/author famous for his book, The Education of Henry Adams
c. Brooks Adams: Member of theHistory Department faculty at Harvard College, great grandson of John Adams,grandson of John Quincy Adams, Henry Adams’ younger brother
2. Sources/Primary Sources (ALL historiansbase their work on sources, it separates History from Creative Writing/fiction)
a. Letters, journals,diaries, documents from the founders themselves
b. Publications like TheFederalist Papers by three of the founders themselves: Hamilton, Madison, &Jay
3. Conclusion: Founders motivated out oftheir selfless, enlightened, progressive sense of nationalism. Thereforethe Constitution should be understood as a near-perfect nationalistic documentthat saved the nation from destructive localism, in the form of the Articles ofConfederation. (These historians refer to the 1780s as “The CriticalPeriod,” and see it as analogous to the 1860s when the nation wasthreatened by localistic secession which triggered the Civil War.
4. Problems With This Conclusion
a. Interprets allnationalism as positive/localism as negative: true? No!
b. Insists the foundershad no personal interests to serve: realistic? No! (You have to wonder if theyever read Madison’s essay, “Federalist Paper #10?” He wrotethat ALL men have interests that bias their judgement.)
c. Insists theConstitution be understood as a flawless document composed by demigods:realistic? No! (The founders would be reduced to hysteria over this one. No one, among the founders was completely satisfied with the finaldocument. They just had to quit after working on it all summer andneglecting everything else.)
d. Misuse of Sources(Serious Problem for any Historian who depends on sources to write history)
1.) Didnot take into account the propagandist function of The Federalist Papers
e. Present-Minded(Another Serious Problem for any Historian. Remember what Haley wrote andHolmes quoted in Faiths of the Founding Fathers, “History is like foreigntravel. They do things differently there.”) First Rule forWriting History: ALWAYS interpret the past within its own context, notthe present!
5. Valuable Contributions
a. Inform about theproblems faced in the 1780s concerning foreign relationships
1.)Jefferson, U.S. Ambassador to France said it was “A school inhumility.”
2.)Adams, U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain said, “The English treat me withstudied contempt.”
b. Inform about theproblems faced in the 1780s concerning domestic security
1.) ShaysRebellion: An attack on property rights, seen as mob rule by some
2.)Newburgh Conspiracy: A right wing coup d’etat plot by Continental Army officersto overthrow the congress and replace it with a military dictator: GeorgeWashington
B. The Beardian School of Thought
1. Example: Charles Beard, Professor ofHistory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Harvard
2. Beard’s most important work, his book AnEconomic Interpretation of the Constitution (1913)
3. Sources: Primary Economic documents (bankbooks, plantation journals, profit & loss statements, etc.)
a. Not difficult tolocate, founders left most of their economic documents for future generationsto see
b. Beard assumed theyhad interests and he assumed those interests influenced constitutional shape
c. Beard discovered thatmost of the founders shared certain interests in common
1.) Titleto land west of settlement for speculative purposes (to resell)
2.)Interest in mercantile concerns (business of some kind, buying, selling,trading, brokering, etc.)
3.)Ownership of government bonds (given by previous governments in lieu ofpayment)
4. Conclusion: Beard suggested that hisevidence showed that the founders not only had personal interests to be servedby a stronger national government, but those interests should be taken intoconsideration when approaching their motive for creating the U.S.Constitution.
a. Beard’s conclusionset off a national scandal: people suggested that what he’d found was that theconstitution was some sort of dirty trick played on an unsuspecting public todesign a government to enrich the founders at the expense of everybody else. The founders were accused of being a bunch of elitist crooks, theirdocument a flawed, selfish, self-serving con job to guarantee the interests ofthe rich at the national expense.
b. Beard himself neversaid any such ridiculous thing, but many said that his evidence revealed asmuch.
5. Problems in this conclusion: “Reductive,” that is to say, reduces the issue to a single,overarching explanation.
6. Valuable Contribution: Injects a note ofpractical realism into the discussion of motive.
C. Contemporary/Modern Historians (research and writingcontinues)
1. Example: Richard Beeman (b. 1942-d.2016) Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania
2. His last book, Plain and Honest Men: TheMaking of the American Constitution (2009)
3. Sources
a. New documentaryevidence (always being found) letters, diaries, journals, etc.
b. Recent emphasis onLocal Studies (interestingly, local studies frequently reveal that someone’sreaction to the U.S. Constitution emerged from local concerns and politicalrealities.)
c. Insights given abouthuman behavior by the relatively new science of psychology. (Psychology insiststhat human beings are motivated to act out of multiple, occasionallycontradictory motives.)
4. Conclusion: When trying to understand thefounders’ motive, it’s best to add an “s” to the study: look formotiveS rather than a single motive; remember to factor in local concerns thatthe founders were subject to.
III. Final Analysis/Additional Features that a study of motive contribute toour understanding of the constitution
A. It is irresponsible, ahistorical, and unrealistic totreat the founders as though they were not fully human, god-like beings. They never made such claims about themselves, and we do them an injusticewhen we try. The constitution is a remarkable document, but it wascomposed by men, not god. If God were the author, we could expect better.
B. It is equally irresponsible, ahistorical, andunrealistic to treat the constitution as a perfect document. We’veamended it several times, and fought a civil war because of the founders’inclusion of slavery in the 3/5ths compromise. The relative power betweenthe branches of government is an on-going problem (remember just months agowhen congress, who has oversight authority, wanted to question a member of theexecutive staff and the Trump Administration refused to allow it claiming”executive privilege?” That wouldn’t have happened if theconstitution were more clearly written about where final decisions ingovernment come from.) Not a single founder was completely happy with thefinal version of the document; they were too exhausted to do more.
C. It is equally irresponsible, ahistorical, andunrealistic to regard the founders as a bunch of crooks who pulled a dirtytrick on the nation by creating a government to benefit only themselves ateveryone else’s expense. Among those men at the Constitutional Conventionthere were too many different interests represented for a single interest todominate the document. There were farmers there, merchants there, bankersthere, southerners there, northerners there, debtors, creditors, city folks,country folks…. Would it have been better if more interests were there? Yes, absolutely, but given the different ones that were there means thatone single interest couldn’t dominate the proceedings.
D. It is fair to say, given our still-incomplete knowledge,what the founders had in mind was a government that simultaneously protectedthe interests of private property rights (security) and extended the liberty ofindividuals (personal liberty) as much as possible. Given that theextension of one comes at the expense of the other, the founders tried theirbest to find the balance between the two…the political “sweet spot”if you will.
