Download or read book The Framers Coup written by Michael J. Klarman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 925 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans revere their Constitution. However, most of us are unaware how tumultuous and improbable the drafting and ratification processes were. As Benjamin Franklin keenly observed, any assembly of men bring with them "all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests and their selfish views." One need not deny that the Framers had good intentions in order to believe that they also had interests. Based on prodigious research and told largely through the voices of the participants, Michael Klarman's The Framers' Coup narrates how the Framers' clashing interests shaped the Constitution--and American history itself. The Philadelphia convention could easily have been a failure, and the risk of collapse was always present. Had the convention dissolved, any number of adverse outcomes could have resulted, including civil war or a reversion to monarchy. Not only does Klarman capture the knife's-edge atmosphere of the convention, he populates his narrative with riveting and colorful stories: the rebellion of debtor farmers in Massachusetts; George Washington's uncertainty about whether to attend; Gunning Bedford's threat to turn to a European prince if the small states were denied equal representation in the Senate; slave staters' threats to take their marbles and go home if denied representation for their slaves; Hamilton's quasi-monarchist speech to the convention; and Patrick Henry's herculean efforts to defeat the Constitution in Virginia through demagoguery and conspiracy theories. The Framers' Coup is more than a compendium of great stories, however, and the powerful arguments that feature throughout will reshape our understanding of the nation's founding. Simply put, the Constitutional Convention almost didn't happen, and once it happened, it almost failed. And, even after the convention succeeded, the Constitution it produced almost failed to be ratified. Just as importantly, the Constitution was hardly the product of philosophical reflections by brilliant, disinterested statesmen, but rather ordinary interest group politics. Multiple conflicting interests had a say, from creditors and debtors to city dwellers and backwoodsmen. The upper class overwhelmingly supported the Constitution; many working class colonists were more dubious. Slave states and nonslave states had different perspectives on how well the Constitution served their interests. Ultimately, both the Constitution's content and its ratification process raise troubling questions about democratic legitimacy. The Federalists were eager to avoid full-fledged democratic deliberation over the Constitution, and the document that was ratified was stacked in favor of their preferences. And in terms of substance, the Constitution was a significant departure from the more democratic state constitutions of the 1770s. Definitive and authoritative, The Framers' Coup explains why the Framers preferred such a constitution and how they managed to persuade the country to adopt it. We have lived with the consequences, both positive and negative, ever since.

Download or read book George Washington and American Constitutionalism written by Glenn A. Phelps and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 1993-01-08 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Known as the Father of His Country, George Washington is viewed as a demigod for what he was and did, not what he thought. In addition to being a popular icon for the forces of American nationalism, he served as commander-in-chief of the victorious Continental Army. That he played a key role in securing the adoption of the Constitution is well known, but few credit him with a political philosophy that actively shaped the constitutional tradition. In this revisionist study, Glenn Phelps argues that Washington's political thought influenced the principles informing the federal government then and now. Disinclined to enter the debates by which the framers hammered out a consensus, Washington instead sought to promote his way of thinking through private correspondence, and the example of his public life. From these sources Phelps draws out his political ideas and demonstrates that Washington developed a coherent and consistent view of a republican government on a continental scale long before Madison, Hamilton, and other nationalists-a view grounded in classically conservative republicanism and continentally-minded commercialism. That he was only partially successful in building the constitutional system that he intended does not undercut his theoretical contribution. Even his failures affected the way our constitutional tradition developed. Phelps examines Washington's political ideas not as they were perceived by his contemporaries but in his own words, that is, he shows what Washington believed, not what others thought he believed. He shows how Washington's political values remained consistent over time, regardless of who his counselors or "ghost writers" were. Using letters Washington wrote to friends and family-written free from the constraints of public politics-Phelps reveals "a man with a passionate commitment to a fully developed idea of a constitutional republic on a continental scale." In recent years scholarship about Washington has seemed to focus on mythmaking. For readers interested in the founding period, the framing of what Hamilton called the "frail fabric," and constitutionalism, Phelps explores the substance behind the myth.

Download or read book Ratification written by Pauline Maier and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-06-07 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dramatic story of the debate over the ratification of the Constitution, the first new account of this seminal moment in American history in years.

Download or read book The Founding Fathers written by Richard B. Bernstein and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This concise and elegant contribution to the Very Short Introduction series reintroduces the history that shaped the founding fathers, the history that they made, and what history has made of them. The book provides a context within which to explore the world of Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, and Hamilton, as well as their complex and still-controversial achievements and legacies.

Download or read book A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America written by John Adams and published by . This book was released on 1797 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Letters of Centinel written by Samuel Bryan and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Cato s Letters written by John Trenchard and published by . This book was released on 1748 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Prominent Families of New York written by Lyman Horace Weeks and published by . This book was released on 1898 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States written by Charles Austin Beard and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 Edited by Max Farrand written by United States and published by . This book was released on 1911 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Constitutional Origins of the American Civil War written by Michael F. Conlin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-18 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demonstrates the crucial role that the Constitution played in the coming of the Civil War.

Download or read book The Declaration of Independence written by Carl Lotus Becker and published by . This book was released on 1922 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The House of Delegates and the Evolution of Political Parties in Virginia 1782 1792 written by Gordon DenBoer and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 666 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The American Commonwealth written by James Bryce and published by . This book was released on 1891 with total page 772 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Education of John Adams written by Richard B. Bernstein and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, a free-standing companion to Bernstein's 2003 biography Thomas Jefferson, responds to the public curiosity about Adams, his life, and his work for those intrigued by popular-culture portrayals of Adams in the Broadway musical 1776 and the HBO television miniseries John Adams. As with Bernstein's other work (e.g., The Founding Fathers: A Very Short Introduction), it is a clear, scholarly, concise, well-written, and well-researched account of Adams's life, career, and thought addressing anyone seeking to learn more about him.

Download or read book An Appeal to the Justice and Interests of the People of Great Britain written by Arthur Lee and published by . This book was released on 1774 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Life on the Circuit with Lincoln written by Henry Clay Whitney and published by . This book was released on 1892 with total page 772 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Originally commenced as a pastime, and to please a circle of friends alone, success, in any degree, can only be hoped for, because of my vantage ground as an intimate and close friend of Mr. Lincoln, and because, by reason of such intimacy, of the novelty of some of the facts and deductions, and not, in any sense, by reason, but in spite of, its literary style or, rather, the lack thereof."--Preface.