Charles Beard's Economic Interpretation Of The Constitution

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 document lessened some of those issues and attempted to accommodate the requests of all states. However, Elitist framers manipulated the idea of a constitution in order to protect their economic interests and the interests of their fellow white land and slave owning men' by restricting the voices of women, slaves, indentured servants and others.

Chapter one of The American Political Tradition by Richard Hofstadter is centered on the Founding Fathers. The very beginning of the chapter says that the Constitutional Convention was trying to create a government that would pay debts and avoid currency inflation. The Democratic ideas that the Founding Fathers were so against appealed mostly to less privileged classes, and not at all to the higher classes. This chapter says that the Founding Fathers thought that if no constitutional balance were achieved, one specific class or would take over others. Three advantages of a good constitutional government were listed in this chapter as well. One: keep order against majority rule. Two: a representative government. Three: aristocracy and democracy

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

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

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.

This book emphasizes the alternative interpretations offered by Americans on the origins of the Constitution. Holton’s purpose with this book was to show that the framers interests involved making America more attractive to investors. In order to do so, they purposefully made the government less democratic with the writing of the Constitution. However, with the addition of the Bill of Rights, one could argue the Framers had at least a slight concern for the American people and their civil liberties.

Historians of the mid nineteenth to mid twentieth centuries completely switched gears as they believed that an intent of self-gain and favorability of the wealthy elite spurred the decisions within the Constitution, rather than nationalism and protecting civil rights. Charles Austin Beard, author of An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913), was firm in his conviction that the framers set up the Constitution the way they did because of capitalism. Capitalism is almost the opposite of nationalism, the reason being that while nationalism consists of doing good for the whole country, capitalism is protecting one’s individual rights. This is very commonly associated with the protection of personal property. (CAPITALISM)

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

First off, many of the founding fathers were wealthy, came from good families and were well educated. Howard Zinn states that the founding fathers based the Constitution off of their own personal experiences without considering the past experiences of the average citizen. That does not mean that they were completely selfish and based the whole Constitution around them, it just means that many of their economic interests were reflected in the Constitution itself. He goes on about how economic interests were seen in the clauses of the Constitution and the founding fathers had a direct economic interest in forming a strong central government. According to Zinn, the founding fathers thought factions came from inequalities in wealth. Further into the reading he said that the Constitution was meerly the work of certain groups trying to maintain their privilages while giving enough rights and reason to the people to get a majority to support them.

Charles Beard has argued that the Framers of the Constitution were no more than privileged men eager to protect the interests of their class. The participants of the Constitutional Convention were wealthy, property-yielding men that would gain the most from the laws they were invoking (such as property rights, public securities, trade and shipping, and free enterprise)There is evidence that would support Beard's claim of hierarchy in the writing

The first reason we should not ratify the constitution is the wealthy will get too much power and will become corrupt.According to a speech given by

The Unites States Constitution was created in 1787, and is the supreme law of this nation. It is the backbone on which laws to follow and how we live today. There are six characteristics of a market economy. Which as follows; Private property, Freedom of enterprise and choice, Motive of self-interest, competition, markets and prices and limited role of government.

According to Charles Beard, he believes that The Constitution wasn’t created by the “Whole People” or by “The States.” Charles Beard believes that The Constitution was created by a group of wealthy consolidated people who “knew no state boundaries.”

It left out a significant part of the population; women who didn't have the same rights as men back then and also left out African Americans or as Marshall said “Negro Slaves” (Marshall, 2) which meant that the people that were able to decide their own rights despite being a significant and important part of the population. Similarly, Charles Beard too thought that the framing of the constitution wasn't “fair” and didn't give everyone the same amount of power. Charles Beard in “Framing the Constitution” suggested that the Constitution was a document that was created to protect the framer’s wealth. He believed that the reason rich framers wanted to protect against majority rule was to prevent to overthrow the rich. The framers protected the minority by limiting majority rule, but Beard believed that by limiting majority rule, it would be more of an economical advantage to the wealthy framers.