Analysis Of The Constitution By Charles Beard

“While the authors of the United States Constitution are frequently portrayed as noble and idealistic statesmen who drafted a document based upon their conception of good government, reality is that the constitution reflects the politics of the drafting and ratification process. Unfortunately, the result is a document that is designed to produce an ineffective government, rather than a government that can respond to issues in a timely fashion.” In support of this conclusion, the issues of slavery, The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, and the civil rights struggle keenly demonstrate the ways in which our constitution hinders the expediency and effectiveness of America’s government. The constitution’s provisions towards voting eligibility and

Charles Beard’s suggested that the Constitution was a document that was only created to protect the framer’s wealth. Beard believed that the reason why the rich framers wanted to protect against majority rule was to prevent the majority to overthrow the rich. Beard did manage to fit most of the framers under “rich” categories such as lawyers, landowners, and merchants. But, he failed to realize that the framers limited majority rule to protect the rights of minorities, also.

Charles Beard lived in a time when a vast majority of politicians and economists considered the views of the founding fathers to be infallible. In fact, many people nowadays still believe that to be the case. Beard, however, held a different opinion in regards to their writing of the Constitution. Whereas most people believe that it was written entirely due to the pressing issues concerning the economic state and unity of the country, Beard believed that it was at least in part due to those same politician’s selfish economic interests since all of them were wealthy men. He argued in An Economic Interpretation of the Constitutionthat the way the Constitution’s system of power and representation “were devices for keeping power in the hands of the rich” [1]. He makes an interesting case in his highly controversial book, but one

In Charles A. Beard’s “Framing the Constitution”, we see some really good arguments. The first argument we come across is him saying how there was two great parties at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. He goes into detail by saying that one party lays an emphasis on strength and efficiency. While the other focuses on its popular features. He goes into detail saying that the men with good moral who led the revolt were the boldest and most radical thinkers.

This is drastically different from James Kent’s assertion that by reading the history of America’s founding one would see the greatness of the Constitution. When Charles A. Beard looked at the Articles of Confederation, he realized that many of the upper class people, especially merchants and businessmen from the eastern coast, were suffering from the inflation caused by the government’s inability to pay off debt. When he looked at the economic interests of all the attendees at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, he realized that most of them were lawyers and other well paying positions. Beard did not see any representatives of more agricultural regions, and eventually concluded that support for and against the Constitution mainly skewed to either side because of economics. An interesting note is that Charles Beard wrote an entire book claiming that a “deep-seated conflict between” the wealthy class and the more agricultural lower classes over the Constitution, while under a century earlier James Kent wrote an entire book about how the same document was written by “joint will of the people.” Equally important to remember however is that Charles A. Beard is just as likely as James Kent to be biased on the topic of Constitutional

Charles Beard’s thoughts on the Constitution were contrary to what Roche stated. In his essay Bread declares that the framers were nothing but rich landholders, bankers, creditors, and wealthy lawyers who only wanted to protect their wealth and did not care about the citizen's rights.

In his essay “Framing the Constitution,” Charles Beard believed that the Constitution was written for economic reasons. He claimed it was a document written by the rich and powerful whose only aim was for their wealth and property to be protected. Beard states “The men who were principally concerned in this work of peaceful enterprise were not the philosophers, but the men of business and property and the holders of public securities.” He supposed that there group of men who created the document were rich and greedy, and

In his book, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913), he supposed that the Constitution was an elaborate ploy to support the economic superiority of the Federalists. His reasoning behind this was due to his observation of the Founding Fathers, for he realized the three leading authors were all Federalists. These three men, like several other Federalists, were members of the upper class; a social class of land owning white men. This exemplifies why Beard would believe that the Constitution was created due to greed. The Federalists that created the Constitution were elites who simply wanted more money, more power, and more land to their names. According to the Progressive Historians, this amount of power came at a cost for the Anti-Federalists. They thought the Federalists would steal power away from the state, and with it the power of the common people. Although Beard and the Progressive Historians are correct to an extent, the principle of Federalism counters these

American economist Charles Beard, wrote an economic interpretation of the Constitution, that shed light on the elite bias it was founded on and supported his statements with credible information. In Beard’s economic interpretation of the Constitution he writes that the Constitution was written for the founding fathers personnel benefits. Through his research on the founding fathers he discovered that the all of delegates had upper class occupations including lawyers, merchants, manufacturers, slave owners, and etcetera. Beard states founding fathers specifically had protection of their personal assets in mind when crafting the document such as; plantation owners wanted to guard slavery, money lenders were against paper money, and the list

From the proposal of the Constitution in September 1787 to its approval in 1789, there was an intense debate on its ratification. Arguments in favor were a series of essays written by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay called the Federalist Papers. These documents advocated for a strong national government and were opposed by the Anti-Federalists; a movement against the creation of a strong federal government. However, despite lacking support for the Bill of Rights, the Federalist papers were more fundamental to the ratification of the Constitution. These collection of essays established the benefits of a constitutional democracy and a more perfect union.

The plan to divide the government into three branches was proposed by James Madison, at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He modeled the division from who he referred to as ‘the Perfect Governor,’ as he read Isaiah 33:22; “For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; He will save us.” http://www.eadshome.com/QuotesoftheFounders.htm

According to Antonin Scalia there are two types of approaches to interpreting the Constitution: originalist and living. Which approach do you believe the Court should take? Why? How does this approach affect the policymaking process?

The US Constitution states “We The People of the United states in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for more common defense, promote the General Welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The main purpose of the U.S Constitution is to establish the basic rights of all American Citizens. This follows that every United States Citizens have equal rights. Belonging to a minority group because of culture, religion or race does not assert that one is unconstitutional. In times of war, evacuation of minority groups only in NOT constitutional; however, evacuation of ALL United

A constitution is a written document that sets forth the fundamental rules by which a society is governed. Throughout the course of history the United States has lived under two Constitutions since the British-American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain in 1776. First in line was the Articles of Confederation (1789-1789) followed by the Constitution of United States of America (1789-present). The Articles of Confederation was the first formal written Constitution of America that specified how the national government was to operate. Unfortunately, the Articles did not last long. Under the words of the Article’s power was limited; Congress could make decisions, but had no power to enforce them. Also the articles stated

The Articles of Confederation were approved by all the early American states in 1781, but by 1787, it was apparent that the Articles were insufficient for the young nation to operate on. A convention was formed with the priority job being to revise the Articles of Confederation; however, they only concluded that an entire new structure was needed to fulfill the demands of the growing country. The Constitution was then born. The Constitution provided the structure of government and power that was needed to achieve a strong union. This structure “saved” the American republic from collapse while under the Articles of Confederation.