Conspiracy in philadelphia the origins of the u.s. constitution

Download the PDF for free. On May 25th, , a group of 55 men gathered for a closed meeting in Philadelphia. Officially, it was being convened to discuss alterations to the then constitution of the United States of America: the Articles of Confederation. Some state legislatures had authorized their representatives to attend the meeting only on this basis, explicitly prohibiting them from considering a new constitution.

To make certain that the general public did not find out about the nature of this conspiracy, the convention members swore an oath not to discuss any proceedings with the public…for the rest of their lives. This would mean that even if the founding fathers were speculators after , they would have had to compete for the old continental notes like everyone else.

Moreover, Brown pointed out that Beard was selective in his use of evidence and generalized too much. At the time of redemption of the notes, in , it was true that several of the founding fathers held Continental notes, but most of them in fact held only very small quantities of them. Brown said that, with regard to their overall wealth, measured in terms of land and their general estates, the paper money formed an insignificant portion of their personal wealth.

He went even further, noting that those few people who held large amounts of the bills in had not been the leaders of the Philadelphia Convention in They had said little if anything in the debates in the Convention and had not taken a strong hand in the ratification process. Brown had one final point to make concerning the ratification process: He argued that it was not undemocratic at all.

The idea that a popular referendum was necessary to fairly approve or reject the Constitution is a modern notion of democracy, he declared. It had, after all, been the colonial practice, when deciding a particular issue, for the people to elect delegates to state conventions authorized to act in their behalf. There was, also, nothing unusual with only a twenty to twenty-five percent voter turnout for these elections because that figure was quite typical of the day, especially considering the fact that it was quite difficult to get to the polls due to the rough condition of roads and other normal factors.

Brown's book was well received, and there was little inclination to dispute his well grounded arguments. Moreover, no champions arose to defend Beard, who had passed on a few years before. Still, no one, including Brown himself, stated flatly that there was absolutely no basis for some kind of conspiracy thesis in all of its ramifications. In another re-interpretation of the Constitutional period, We the People , appeared under the authorship of Forrest McDonald.

McDonald, like Brown, was also interested in disproving the conspiracy thesis. A highly sophisticated economic analyst, his findings were even more impressive than Brown's because of the latter's strident tone. Brown condemned Beard's research and even implied that he had distorted his material. McDonald's work was sober in contrast and quite thorough. He, too, concluded that Beard had been mistaken in asserting that the delegates to Philadelphia had been overly concerned about their personal wealth.

He noted, for example, that seven men had either walked out of the Constitutional Convention or refused to put their signatures on the completed document, yet these seven figures held the largest concentrations of Continental notes.

He concluded that personal wealth simply did not play a decisive role at Philadelphia; for, if these men had been selfishly motivated, they would have remained or taken an active role in the convention. Nevertheless, McDonald was not ready to completely discard an economic interpretation of the making of the Constitution or its ratification. Instead of using Beard's categories of personal wealth of the delegates, McDonald asked a broader set of questions of the men of the times.

Doing a state by state analysis of economic conditions, and studying the backgrounds of the delegates to the state ratifying conventions, he was able to show that there had been a "community of economic interests" or reasons for making the Constitution in its present form and for its ratification.

For example, he did not disagree with Beard and others before him that the delegates to the state conventions and at Philadelphia composed an elite, he just argued that economic considerations other than personal wealth actuated them. He demonstrated that particular economic conditions in each state motivated the men to cast votes for ratification.

For example, the smaller states often ratified quickly such as New Jersey, Delaware and Georgia because their leaders were convinced that they could not survive and prosper as independent entities under the old Articles of Confederation.

In a larger state, such as Massachusetts, economic conditions proved decisive as well. Boston merchants during the 's, for example, had been frozen out of the lucrative West Indies trade by England because our own national government had not been able to forcefully represent the interests of the United States. In sum, McDonald found no real conspiracy among the founding fathers nor among the state delegates, just a community of interest to protect the nation and a concern over distressed economic conditions.

Only indirectly did any one profit. Although Brown and McDonald did much to lay at rest the economic side of the conspiracy thesis, Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick advanced a novel political conspiracy thesis in They did not argue that the founding fathers were selfish about their personal fortunes, but rather that they were greatly concemed about their political careers.

In The Founding Fathers: Young Men of the Revolution, they studied the career backgrounds both of the leading figures at Philadelphia who favored ratification of the Constitution and those who opposed it. Elkins and McKitrick noted some striking differences between the two groups in their backgrounds. The Federalists were generally young men who had gotten their careers started in the Revolution, while only three Anti-Federalists served in Congress from to , and two of the three consistently fought against any effort to give Congress stronger powers.

The Anti-Federalists were concerned primarily with state sovereignty, and several had served long terms as governors of their states or in other high state posts. Essentially, Elkins and McKitrick pointed out that the Federalists, who averaged in age ten to twelve years younger than the Anti-Federalists, had national political careers which had begun in the hectic days of the Revolution.

During the 's they saw a diminution of their powers under the Articles of Confederation. The national government, quite weak in its delegated rights, was a dead end politically. Even at the height of the troubles facing the country during the depression of the 's, Congress could rarely muster enough of its members for a quorum. Most of the political prestige in the country went to strong, powerful state leaders, who had begun their political careers well before the Revolution.

Elkins and McKitrick argued forcefully, then, that the founding fathers wrote the Constitution in such a manner that it would assure a strong national government and give their own careers new life. They thus presented what might be called a "generational conflict" conspiracy thesis, saying the Federalists were young men who had partly taken on national political office because the older Anti-Federalists had already monopolized the best state offices.

Although interesting and novel in interpretation, the Elkins and McKitrick conspiracy thesis never attained a wide audience in the historical profession. Neither historian ever uncovered any correspondence between the founding fathers which indicated a conscious, determined plan to overturn the Articles of Confederation simply for advancement of their political careers. Although individual Federalists were highly ambitious, such as Alexander Hamilton, the analysis breaks down when the careers of several other figures are scrutinized.

Washington, for example, would have gladly basked in semi-retirement at Mount Vernon rather than assume the presidency had he been given the choice.

In recent years most historians have returned to the notion that the founding fathers, although not gods as portrayed in 19th century texts, were largely disinterested patriots. The country in the 's was in a distressing economic condition, and it seemed to many not just the elite that it was about to break up.

Violence and rebellion even seemed in the air. On the very eve of the Philadelphia convention in a short-lived revolt occurred in Massachusetts, where western farmers were up in arms about the high level of taxes which they were required to pay in specie. This was quelled when an army was raised against them by the Bay State and the old tax policy was reinstituted. But, even so, the merchants of Boston and state and national political leaders had been given quite a scare.

They knew that if the farmers had been more determined, they might well have been able to seize the state capitol. The weak national government had no army or authority to put down a rebellion successfully. Thus when the founding fathers gathered in Philadelphia they were mostly concerned about the state of the union and the general economic conditions of the day. In the overall analysis, the various conspiracy theses have not been very convincing.

The historical proof or evidence offered by this school of historians has almost always been found wanting upon further investigation. The conspiracy-minded historians have more recently attempted to make the founding fathers ordinary mortals by psychoanalyzing them. The motivations of the delegates at Philadelphia will never be completely made known to us, however.

They can not be, since as mortals, they did pass on to their final reward. We can not call them back and question them under oath. In our present-day mood of skepticism concerning public leaders and government institutions, however, the implication that our national leaders of the 's might have had some selfish ends in mind when they wrote the Constitution will find at least a small, receptive audience.

Why did he edit it? Because Miss Hall was a Christian Scientist at the time she began compiling her book. I discuss this little-known background in my book. In , the states, with one exception Rhode Island , were explicitly based on faith in God.

In most cases, elected state representatives were required to swear their belief in the Trinity. By means of the 14th Amendment , the U. Supreme Court has applied this prohibition to state governments, completing the transformation in the case of Torcasso v.

Watkins I told this story 15 years ago. In response, the silence has been deafening.