Similarities Between Charles Beard And John P. Roche

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.

The reasoning behind the Constitution of the United States is presented as 'based upon the philosophy of Hobbes and the religion of Calvin. It assumes the natural state of mankind in a state of war, and that the carnal mind is at enmity with God.' Throughout, the struggle between democracy and tyranny is discussed as the Founding Fathers who envisioned the Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787 believed not in total democracy, but instead saw common man as selfish and contemptuous, and therefore in need of a 'a good political constitution to control him.' Being a largely propertied body, with the exception of William Few, who was the

The Founding Fathers: A Reform Caucus in Action, written by John P. Roche, addressed the difficulty that the Founding Fathers had in constructing the U.S. Constitution because of the high level of stress they received and the limited amount of time that they had to carry out the formation of this document while keeping the best interest of the country as a priority. John P. Roche starts of by commenting on why the creation of the Constitution was so effective and how the Articles of Confederation benefitted the ratification of the new U.S. Government. As it turns out, the delegates elected to attend Pennsylvania were mainly people who had served in Congress and had experience in the weakness of the Articles in granting too little power to the national government. In addition, the delegates were appointed by the state legislatures, not by the people, as justified by the Articles of Confederation.

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

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.

The ratification of the US Constitution in 1787 sparked a ferocious and spiteful debate between two large groups of people, those who supported the ratification and those who did not. Both sides were very passionate about their ideas yet they were so divergent, as one believed that the ratification could create a more powerful, unified country, while others worried about the government gaining perhaps too much control. The supporters and opponents equally had various strong reasons in their beliefs regarding the ratification of the US Constitution, the most common for the supporters being that the current government was heading badly, and a ratification would fix all the mistakes made originally and set the course for a successful government. On the other hand, the biggest concern for the opponents was that the ratification would give the government too much power, and there would be no controlling force to keep the government in its place.

The main purpose behind the book Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution, by Woody Holton is to demonstrate the authors view on the true intent of the Framers when writing the Constitution. Although at first glance the book may seem to uphold the idea that the framers wrote the Constitution in order to protect civil liberties, Holton has a different opinion. To avoid a one sided book, the author not only looks at the framers intent, but the struggles facing the American people.

In 1787-1788 federalist essays came to life thanks to James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton under the alias of “Publius”. This paper delves into the motivations of James Madison and how classical republicanism aided in the argument for the ratification.

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

When the words “We the people” were written so eloquently on a piece of parchment in 1787, did it mean we the people of this convention or we the people of the United States? A group of men so revelled in school teaching and writings as the Founding Fathers of our country fighting for the equality of millions and the democratic processes to insure that this equality is protected were elitist. A statement that goes against all the schooling down by American history teachers for hundreds of years so relevant but we forget, was the Constitution created to be an elitist document? Did they create a new government for profit or for betterment? The Constitution was written from an elitist point of view but, by creating a government that guaranteed them with numerous rights and liberties, they protected all of those who were to also be governed.

Though both Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson served as members of President Washington’s cabinet, the two held very different views on the newly founded U.S. government, interpretation of its constitution, and the role of the “masses” in that government. These conflicting views would develop in two political parties, the Federalists led by Hamilton and the Democratic-Republicans led by Jefferson. Although both political parties presented enticing aspects, Hamilton’s views were much more reasonable and fruitful when compared Jefferson’s views; idealistic and too strict in reference to the constitution.

“The Constitution devotes the national domain to union, to justice, to defense, to welfare and to liberty” (Maier 154). This quote, stated by William Henry Seward, displays the strength and stability that the Constitution had over the nation, and the liberty and justice it supplied for all of its citizens. Although the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation have similarities, they have many differences, which proved that the Articles of Confederation were a weaker document in comparison. It can be said that the Articles were the “rough draft” to the final living document, which significantly influenced and “ruled” our government, as it still does today.

According to Scott (2008), the Constitution of America has undergone several translations within the history of America because they found it to be unclear. Whereas it appears discrepant that the unclear Constitution could be useful, the disagreement is the case (Robertson, 2005). Americans regard the Constitution to be helpful for the reason that it allows for diverseness of views. In the history of America, a variety of thoughts would develop with alarming and formidable support through various factions (Robertson, 2005). Today, the main political arguments are presented from the Republican group or Democratic group. During the early periods of the American government, arguments on politics were made by Thomas Jefferson

To summarize, the approach to constitutional interpretation employed in the early years of American government: an interpreter is to begin with the words of the document in their ordinary popular usage and understand the in light of their context. That context includes the words of the provision of which it is a part, but also extends to the much broader context of the document as a whole. The deeper assumption underlying these early rules of interpretation was a fairly traditional realist epistemology: that the constitution has a fixed, determinate meaning intelligible to those who give it a fair reading. Under modern assumption, a constitution is unavoidably made up or created by interpreters, to a greater of lesser extent, as they go along. The framers of the constitution, on the contrary, looked at the constitution as an intelligible fixed standard that made possible a republican rule of law, rather than of men.