An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States Book

I read Charles Beard on the recommendation of Dad who had studied him at Grinnell College. Consequently, a term paper being assigned for junior year American History in high school, I picked up his book on the formulation of the Constitution and McDonald's critique of it, 'We the People', writing a pretty simple compare/contrast kind of paper. The teacher, Mr. Ellenberger, also a Grinnell graduate, was impressed. I was impressed also, by Beard and by this, my first serious exposure to historiography.

Beard's penchant for always looking for economic motives when explaining the actions of persons and collectivities in history struck me as a powerful heuristic tool. Not only did it make sense of history, but it, when treated in terms of interest groups or classes, provided a useful framework for explaining those revolutions all our history teachers seemed so fond of, primarily the American, French and Russian. It certainly served me well. Employing this technique of class analysis and economic motives I aced pretty much every history paper throughout the end of high school and into college.

As regards Beard in general, his writing is always good, always clear and easy to understand. He was obviously an idealist. There is implicit to his economic analyses of this, that and the other event a subtle tone of disapproval, a sense that this is how people normally act, but they oughtn't. That appealed to me. So did his use of instances, all of which, when applied to the Founding Fathers, attacked cherished icons, making the oh hum American history of elementary school, our nation's secular religion, become interesting.