ECONOMIC INTERESTS AND THE AMERICAN-CONSTITUTION - A QUANTITATIVE REHABILITATION OF BEARD,CHARLES,A. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • An important change in the structure of U.S. institutions occurred when the government under the Articles of Confederation was replaced by a new government under the Constitution. In 1913, Charles A. Beard proposed a view of the formation of the United States Constitutionan economic interpretationthat remains a much discussed yet unresolved explanation of the behavior and motives of the men who wrote the document. This paper provides the first rigorous statistical test of this issue. We summarize the preliminary results of a statistical analysis of the relationship between the voting behavior of individual delegates involved in the making of the Constitution and their economic and personal characteristics. Contrary to current historical wisdom, significant patterns related to economic interests are found in the voting, with the division of interests generally consistent with that outlined by Charles A. Beard seventy years ago.

published proceedings

  • JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY

altmetric score

  • 4.35

author list (cited authors)

  • MCGUIRE, R. A., & OHSFELDT, R. L.

citation count

  • 23

complete list of authors

  • MCGUIRE, RA||OHSFELDT, RL

publication date

  • June 1984