Reason and Compromise in the Establishment of the Federal Constitution, 1787-1801

Abstract

FEW historians today accept the view, outlined by Charles A. Beard and elaborated by Merrill Jensen, that the Federal Constitution was adopted for the purpose of enhancing the well-being of mercantile or aristocratic interest groups at the expense of agrarian or democratic groups. Indeed, what historians have labeled the Progressive interpretation has been widely disputed. One early challenge came from Forrest McDonald, who argued that intergroup conflict during the founding era was more complex than Beard and Jensen had imagined, with many diverse groups adopting a wide variety of sometimes antagonistic positions. Two important books, by Cecelia M. Kenyon and Herbert J. Storing, have argued that differences between the supporters and opponents of the Constitution were not socioeconomic but ideological. There have been yet other suggestions, such as that of James H. Hutson urging that conflict over the Constitution should be understood as between court and country parties.1 But, as Hutson himself reminds us, the Progressive interpretation has not died. It remains evident in the identification of the Antifederalists as a discrete, socio-economic group in conflict with another discrete socio-