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. 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. 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.
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