We the People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution
by Forrest McDonald
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"Charles A. Bear's An Economic Interpretation of the United States Constitution was a work of such powerful persuasiveness as to alter the course of American historiography. No historian who followed in studying the making of the Constitution was entirely free from Beard's radical interpretation of the document as serving the economic interests of the Framers as members of the propertied class. Forrest McDonald's We the People was the first major challenge to Beard's thesis. This superbly show more researched and documented volume restored the Constitution as the work of principled and prudential men. It did much to invalidate the crude economic determinism that had become endemic in the writing of American history. We the People fills in the details that Beard had overlooked in his fragmentary book. MacDonald's work is based on an exhaustive comparative examination of the economic biographies of the 55 members of the Constitutional Convention and the 1,750 members of the state ratifying conventions. His conclusion is that on the basis of evidence, Beard's economic interpretation does not hold. McDonald demonstrates conclusively that the interplay of conditioning or determining factors at work in the making of the Constitution was extremely complex and cannot be rendered intelligible in terms of any single system of interpretation. McDonald's classic work, while never denying economic motivation as a factor, also demonstrates how the rich cultural and political mosaic of the colonies was an independent and dominant factor in the decision making that led to the first new nation. In its pluralistic approach to economic factors and analytic richness, We the People is both a major work of American history and a significant document in the history of ideas. It continues to be an essential volume for historians, political scientists, economists, and American studies specialists."--Provided by publisher. show lessTags
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Forrest McDonald was born in Orange, Texas on January 7, 1927. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and received a doctorate there in 1955. He taught history at Brown University, Wayne State University, and the University of Alabama, where he retired in 2002. He wrote more than a dozen books including Novus Ordo Seclorum: The show more Intellectual Origins of the Constitution, The American Presidency: An Intellectual History, and biographies of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. He died of heart failure on January 19, 2016 at the age of 89. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Genres
- Politics and Government, Nonfiction, Economics, History, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 342.732 — Social sciences Law Constitutional and administrative law North America Constitutional law--United States
- LCC
- KF4541 .M37 — Law Law of the United States Law of the United States (Federal) Constitutional law Constitutional history of the United States
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- Members
- 111
- Popularity
- 291,315
- Rating
- (3.50)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 6
