CHAPTER 2: ESTABLISHING THE FOUNDERS’ SOCIAL CONTRACT FROM THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION THROUGH GEORGE WASHINGTON On December 14, 1820, a frail eighty-five year old former President John Adams rose to address a convention of delegates meeting to revise the Massachusetts state constitution. The delegates were to decide whether to continue property ownership requirements for voting and holding office or move to equal representation for all white males. Noting that he was fearful of speaking because his voice and memory were failing, Adams passionately supported maintaining property requirements. He stated, “The Constitution declares, that all men are born free and equal. But how are they born free and equal? Has the child of a North American Indian, when born, the same right, which his father has, to his father’s bow and arrows? No – no man pretends that all are born with equal property, but with equal rights to acquire property. The great object [of government] is to render property secure… [If] it were left to mere numbers, those who have no property would vote us out of our houses.” (Daily Advertiser 1820, 154) Adams went on to argue that “universal suffrage” would lead the many to plunder the property of the few, similar to what had occurred during the French revolution. Adams’ disdain for popular democracy was reflective of an eighteenth century Federalist philosophy that dominated the federal constitutional convention and early American government. However, the Federalist philosophy was out of favor by the time of Adams’ speech. A push for greater democracy had emerged during the first term of the Washington administration. By the 1800 elections, Democratic-Republicans had gained control of both houses of Congress, as well as the presidency. Federalist opposition to the
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
CHAPTER 2: ESTABLISHING THE FOUNDERS’ SOCIAL CONTRACT FROM
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION THROUGH GEORGE WASHINGTON
On December 14, 1820, a frail eighty-five year old former President John Adams rose
to address a convention of delegates meeting to revise the Massachusetts state
constitution. The delegates were to decide whether to continue property ownership
requirements for voting and holding office or move to equal representation for all white
males. Noting that he was fearful of speaking because his voice and memory were failing,
Adams passionately supported maintaining property requirements. He stated,
“The Constitution declares, that all men are born free and equal. But how
are they born free and equal? Has the child of a North American Indian, when
born, the same right, which his father has, to his father’s bow and arrows? No
– no man pretends that all are born with equal property, but with equal rights
to acquire property. The great object [of government] is to render property
secure… [If] it were left to mere numbers, those who have no property would
vote us out of our houses.” (Daily Advertiser 1820, 154)
Adams went on to argue that “universal suffrage” would lead the many to plunder the
property of the few, similar to what had occurred during the French revolution.
Adams’ disdain for popular democracy was reflective of an eighteenth century
Federalist philosophy that dominated the federal constitutional convention and early
American government. However, the Federalist philosophy was out of favor by the time
of Adams’ speech. A push for greater democracy had emerged during the first term of the
Washington administration. By the 1800 elections, Democratic-Republicans had gained
control of both houses of Congress, as well as the presidency. Federalist opposition to the
War of 1812 and the Hartford Convention resulted in the almost total demise of party
loyalty. Accordingly, the Democratic-Republican movement saw most states abolish
property requirements for both voting and holding office by 1820. And, Massachusetts
was about to do the same after the former president’s speech.
The Constitutional Origins of American Polarization
Two schools of political thought coexisted in the early American republic. One
school advocated a government that protected the patrician class, which was viewed as
wiser, less corruptible, and more capable of advancing the economic and political
interests of the nation. The other school favored a government more sympathetic to the
plebian class, which was deemed capable, trustworthy, and deserving of full
consideration.
Those favoring the elitist view in the early American republic were called Federalists.
Those more sympathetic to the common class were called anti-Federalists, and later when
political parties formed, Democratic-Republicans. Continuous from the early days of the
republic, the struggle for dominance between these two schools of political thought have
defined the history of party polarization in the United States.
The origins of the elitist view lay in early colonial governments and their British
roots. For at least a decade before the federal constitutional convention, the colonies were
writing their own suffrage laws and determining the qualifications of office holders.
Their precedents were grounded in the British principle that only property owners should
participate in representative government (Keyssar 2009, 4-7). Men who possessed
property had a “unique stake in society – meaning that they were committed members of
(or shareholders in) the community and that they had a personal interest in the policies of
the state, especially taxation.” (Keyssar 2009, 4-5) Further, “property owners alone
possess sufficient independence to warrant having a voice in governance.” (Keyssar
2009, 5) In other words, property owners were less likely to be corrupted by others or by
the power of governing.
Federalists espousing the elitist view dominated the constitutional convention of 1787
and early American government. Past president of the American Political Science
Association Charles A. Beard offered empirical evidence that the propertied class
comprised a strong majority at the constitutional convention of 1787 in his Economic
Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (see especially Beard 1913, 189-
216; more recently see McGuire 2003, 51-54). The delegates were chosen by state
legislatures that had property requirements for holding office, thereby removing them
from popular influence (Beard 1913, 64-72). Of the fifty-five delegates participating,
nearly two-thirds were descended from old colonial families. Most were of British
descent with demographics similar to the British ducal class. They were well educated
and among the nation’s most economically and politically advantaged. Sixty-two percent
of the delegates were merchant-bankers and/or lawyers (mostly from New England and
Middle Atlantic states), while another twelve percent were planter-farmers (mostly from
Middle Atlantic and Southern states). Variations across regions reflected differences in
sources of wealth, with those from New England reflecting the merchant-banker class,
and those from the South reflecting the plantation slave owner class (Brown 1976;
McGuire and Ohsfeldt 1984). Not a single delegate to the convention represented the
small farming or mechanic classes (Beard 1913, 149; see also McGuire 2003, 52-53).
Further, “The overwhelming majority of members, at least five-sixths, were
immediately, directly, and personally interested in the outcome of their labors at
Philadelphia, and were … economic beneficiaries from the adoption of the Constitution.”
(Beard 1913, 149). Forty of the fifty-five delegates appeared in later records of the
Treasury Department as holders of public debt; fourteen were land speculators; twenty-
four were private creditors; eleven were involved in mercantile, manufacturing, or
shipping enterprises; fifteen held slaves (Beard 1913, 150; more recently see McGuire
2003, 54).
Under the Articles of Confederation, states were issuing paper money as legal tender
for payment of debts. An earlier regime, in which gold and silver specie had been the
only accepted currency, was supplanted under the Articles of Confederation by a regime
that enabled debtors to pay creditors with paper money created under state sanctioned
inflation. “Large and important groups of economic interests were adversely affected by
the system of government under the Articles of Confederation, namely those of public
securities, shipping and manufacturing, money at interest; in short, capital as opposed to
land.” In response, “[T]he leaders in the movement set to work to secure by a circuitous
route the assemblying of a Convention to ‘revise’ the Articles of Confederation with the
hope of obtaining, outside of the existing legal framework, the adoption of a
revolutionary programme.” (Beard 1913, 63)
From the time of publication in 1913, Beard’s Economic Interpretation was bitterly
attacked by the popular press, with many deeming it unpatriotic and even Marxist in
perspective. Nevertheless, Beard’s interpretation of the founding became the dominant
view of economic historians until the early-1950s (McGuire and Ohsfeldt 1986, 83).
Starting in the mid-1950s many historians began to challenge Beard’s work, but with
little systematic evidence. Kenyon (1955) argued that Beard had misinterpreted the
motivations of the Founders. Commager (1958) questioned the logic of Beard’s analysis.
The most powerful critiques came from Robert Brown and Forest McDonald. Brown
(1956) argued that early American society was not so undemocratic as portrayed by
Beard. MacDonald (1958, 349-357) descriptively examined the wealth, economic
interests, and votes of those at the Philadelphia convention and at the state ratifying
conventions. He concluded that economic interests were clearly important, but what
motivated the Founders and those voting for ratification was too complex to be boiled
down to pure economic self-interest. Debate over the motivations of the Founders
continued until the mid-1980s, with no definitive conclusions (e.g., see Bensen 1961;
FIGURE 2.1: History of Party Unity and Party Cohesion in the United States House of Representatives and Senate
Focusing on the data in the first period of high polarization (first shaded area), the
levels of polarization in Congress in the Founding Era can be compared with those of the
modern era (third shaded area). One take on polarization is how frequently the majorities
in the two parties lined up against one another in party unity votes. These data are in
panel A of Figure 2.1. Considering the 3rd through 7th Congresses when political parties
began to emerge, a majority of Federalists lined up against a majority of anti-
Federalist/Democratic-Republicans in the House on average about 80 percent of the time.
In the Senate a majority of Federalists lined up against a majority of anti-
Federalist/Democratic-Republicans on average about 74 percent of the time. For the
current era, the comparable figures for the 112th Congress were 75 percent for the House
and 56 percent for the Senate. Thus, using this measure partisanship in Congress was
stronger in the Founding Era than in the current era.
Another take on polarization is the rate at which party members vote with their party
on roll call votes. This approach measures the relative cohesion of the parties in
Congress. These data are in panels B and C of Figure 2.1. From the 3rd through 7th
Congress, an average of 88 percent of Federalists voted with their party on roll call votes
in the House of Representatives, reaching a maximum of 96 percent for the 7th Congress
starting in 1801. The average for the anti-Federalists/Democratic-Republicans in the
House over the same period was 89 percent, reaching a maximum of 93 percent for the
6th Congress starting in 1799. On the Senate side for the same period, an average of 87
percent of Federalists voted with their party, reaching a maximum of 96 percent for the
7th Congress starting in 1801. The average for the anti-Federalists/Democratic-
Republicans was 90 percent, reaching a maximum of 94 percent for the 6th Congress
starting in 1799. By way of comparison, the 112th Congress, which ended in 2012, found
House Republicans voting with their party 93 percent of the time, with House Democrats
at 91 percent. On the Senate side Republicans voted with their party 85 percent of the
time, with Democrats at 93 percent. Thus, using this measure the level of polarization in
Congress during the Founding Era was not much different from what exists in the current
era.
Implications of the Founding Era for Understanding Polarization Generally
An overarching purpose of this book is to understand the nature of party polarization
in America. At the onset, it appears that polarization in the early American republic
reveals much about American polarization generally.
Early American politics was characterized by conflict over who would benefit from
government, and at whose expense. There is a scholarly consensus that the Founders’
Social Contract, embodied in the original Constitution, was a veiled attempt by the
patrician class to achieve economic advantage at the expense of the plebian class. The
core principles of the Constitution made it difficult for the national government and states
to confiscate income or wealth through taxation, currency inflation, or other means. The
Constitution also limited taxation in such a way that income and wealth would not be
taxed, placing the primary burden on the masses through tariffs and excise taxes.
Further, the activities of the Washington administration actually promoted the
accumulation of wealth by the patrician class. This promotion occurred through debt
assumption, a national credit system favoring economic elites, tariffs that protected
commercial interests while raising the general price level for consumers, funding the
government exclusively through imposts and excise taxes on the larger population, and a
foreign policy that benefitted the commercial class. Thus, at the core, early American
polarization was a fight about economic advantage.
A fight over economic advantage has also been a common thread separating the two
political parties though American history. This fight continued during the post-Civil War
Reconstruction period through the industrialization era, the Progressive Era, and the New
Deal. This same fight over economic advantage is at the core of polarization in the
modern era. Conflict over taxing the rich, regulation, redistribution, trickle down
economics, and the degree to which the government should protect the population are
essentially the same fights that occurred in the beginning. The two political parties that
emerged during and after the Washington administration represented two distinctive
viewpoints on who should benefit from government. Similarly, modern Republicans and
Democrats continue to represent these viewpoints. Thus, the American party system has
from the beginning involved a struggle between divergent views of the extent to which
the patrician or plebian class should benefit from government.
An ancillary issue flowing from these fights over economic advantage has been the
degree to which power should be centralized to the federal government versus reserved to
the states. The two parties have also been divided over whether the Constitution should
be interpreted strictly or flexibly. However, the two political parties have been
opportunistic through time in their arguments for and against centralization, and for strict
versus flexible interpretation. During the Washington administration Federalists (similar
to modern day Republicans) sought to centralize federal power relative to the states to
protect and bolster the propertied class. The Constitution was viewed by Federalists as a
flexible document that allowed the assumption of state debts, creation of a national bank,
a proclamation of neutrality, and later the building of roads, canals, and infrastructure to
enable commercial development. In contrast, the anti-Federalists believed in a strict
interpretation limiting the powers of the national government.
However, as the federal government became more menacing to propertied interests
through the latter part of the nineteenth century, the patrician party (i.e., Republicans)
began to view centralization as a bad thing. Indeed, Republican dominated courts of the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries consistently used the Tenth Amendment and
a strict interpretation of the Constitution to overturn efforts of the plebian party (i.e.,
Democrats) to intervene in markets. These same views on the virtues of centralization
remain a matter that separates the two political parties today.
The next chapter turns to analysis of a second period of high polarization in American
history. Specifically, it examines how partisan fights over economic advantage,
centralization, constitutional interpretation, and market intervention manifested
themselves in the polarized politics of national development from Reconstruction to the
Great Depression.
REFERENCES
Adams, John. 1790. "Discourses on Davila." Gazette of the United States. Aronson, Sidney. 1964. Status and Kinship in the Higher Civil Service. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press. Beard, Charles A. 1913. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United
States. New York: The Free Press. Bensen, Lee. 1961. Turner and Beard: American Historical Writing Reconsidered. New
York: The Free Press. Beschloss, Michael. 2007. Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed
America 1789-1989. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Brown, Richard D. 1976. "The Founding Fathers of 1776 and 1787." William and Mary Quarterly 33:465-80.
Brown, Robert E. 1956. Charles Beard and the Constitution: A Critical Analysis of "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution". Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Buchanan, James M., and Gordon Tullock. 1961. The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Calhoun, Daniel. 1979. "Continual Vision and Cosmopolitan Orthodoxy." History and Theory 18 (3):257-86.
Chernow, Ron. 2004. Alexander Hamilton. New York: Penguin. Clarfield, Gerard. 1975. "Protecting the Frontiers: Defense Policy and the Tariff Question
in the First Washington Administration." William and Mary Quarterly 32 (July):443-64.
Combs, Jerald A. 1970. The Jay Treaty: Political Battleground of the Founding Fathers. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Commager, Henry Steele. 1958. "The Constitution: Was it an Economic Document." American Heritage 10 (December):58-61.
Cowen, David J., Richard Sylla, and Robert E. Wright. 2006. "The U.S. Panic of 1792: Financial Crisis Management and the Lender of Last Resort." In NBER DAE Summer Institute, July 2006, and XIV International Economic History Congress, Session 20, "Capital Market Anomalies in Economic History". Helsinki, Finland.
Crain, W. Mark, and Robert D. Tollison. 1979. "The Executive Branch in the Interest Group Theory of Government." Journal of Legal Studies 8 (June):555-67.
Daily Advertiser 1820. "Journal of Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of Delegates Chosen to Revise the Constitution of Massachusetts." Boston: Boston Daily Advertiser.
Diggins, John Patrick. 1981. "Power and Authority in American History: The Case of Charles Beard and His Critics." American Historical Review 86 (October):701-30.
Dubin, Michael J. 2002. United States Presidential Elections 1788-1860. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co, Inc.
Eckert, Allan W. 1995. That Dark and Bloody River. New York: Bantam Books. Elkins, Stanley, and Eric McKitrick. 1993. The Age of Federalism. New York: Oxford
University Press. Ellis, Joseph J. 2002. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. New York:
Vintage. Ferling, John. 1992. John Adams: A Life. New York: Oxford University Press. Gales, Joseph. 1834. Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States,
March 3, 1789-March 3, 1791. Edited by J. Gales. Vol. 2. Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton.
Hamilton, Alexander. 1790a. First Report on Public Credit. American State Papers, House of Representatives, 1st Congress, 2nd Session [Accessed September 13 2012]. Available from http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsp&fileName=009/llsp009.db&recNum=19.
———. 1790b. Second Report on Public Credit. American State Papers, House of Representatives, 1st Congress, 3rd Session [Accessed September 13 2012].
Available from http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsp&fileName=009/llsp009.db&recNum=19.
———. 1791a. Opinion on the Constitutionality of the National Bank. Yale Law School [Accessed September 13 2012]. Available from http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/bank-ah.asp.
———. 1791b. Report on Manufactures [Accessed September 12 2012]. Available from http://www.constitution.org/ah/rpt_manufactures.pdf.
———. 1904a. "Hamilton to Jay Cabinet Paper, May 6, 1794." In The Works of Alexander Hamilton, ed. H. C. Lodge. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
———. 1904b. "Points to be Considered in the Instructions to Mr. Jay, Envoy Extraordinary to Great Britain, April 23, 1794." In The Works of Alexander Hamilton, ed. H. C. Lodge. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
———. 1904c. The Works of Alexander Hamilton. Edited by H. C. Lodge. 12 vols. Vol. 2. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.
Hamilton, Alexander, and Rufus King. 1904. "Camillus." In The Works of Alexander Hamilton, ed. H. C. Lodge. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
Hill, William. 1893. "Protective Purpose of Tariff Act of 1789." Journal of Political Economy 2 (1):54-76.
Hogeland, W. 2006. The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America's Newfound Sovereignty. New York: Scribner.
Hovde, Ellen, and Muffie Myer. 2004. "Liberty! The American Revolution." Twin Cities Public Television: Public Broadcasting System.
Hutson, James H. 1984. "The Creation of the Constitution: Scholarship at a Standstill." Reviews in American History 12 (December):463-77.
Irwin, Douglas A. 2003. "The Aftermath of Hamilton's "Report on Manufactures"." ed. N. B. o. E. Research. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Jefferson, Thomas. 1791. Jefferson's Opinion on the Constitutionality of the National Bank. Yale Law School [Accessed September 12 2012].
Jensen, Merrill. 1964. The Making of the U.S. Constitution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kafer, Peter. 2004. Charles Brockden Brown's Revolution and the Birth of American Gothic. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Kaufman, Herbert. 1981. The Administrative Behavior of Federal Bureau Chiefs. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.
Kenyon, Cecelia. 1955. "Men of LIttle Faith: The Anti-Federalists and the Nature of Representative Government." William and Mary Quarterly 12 (January):3-43.
Keyssar, Alexander. 2009. The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States. New York: Basic Books.
Landes, William M., and Richard A. Posner. 1975. "The Independent Judiciary in an Interest-Group Perspective." Journal of Law and Economics 18 (December):875-901.
Library of Congress. 2013. Thomas Jefferson: Establishing a Federal Republic. Library of Congress [Accessed December 30 2013]. Available from http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefffed.html.
Longmore, Paul K. 1999. The Invention of George Washington. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia.
Macey, Jonathan R. 1987. "Competing Economic Views of the Constitution." In Faculty Scholarship Series, ed. Y. L. S. L. S. Repository. New Haven, CT.
———. 1988. "Transaction Costs and the Normative Elements of the Public Choice Model: An Application to Constitutional Theory." Virginia Law Review 74 (1):471-518.
Maclay, William. 1790. The Journal of William Maclay: United States Senator from Pennsylvania, 1789-1791. Maclay's Journal -- Chapter XIV. Relations with France and the Excise [Accessed September 14 2012]. Available from http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llmj&fileName=001/llmj001.db&recNum=394&itemLink=D?hlaw:1:./temp/~ammem_0A2T::%230010395&linkText=1.
Madison, James. 1787. Notes on the Debates in the Federal Convention. The Avalon Project [Accessed September 12 2012]. Available from http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/debcont.asp.
———. 1788. The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection (continued), Daily Advertiser. New Haven: The Avalon Project.
Main, Jackson T. 1960. "Charles A. Beard and the Constitution: A Critical Review of Forrest McDonald's We the People." William and Mary Quarterly 17 (1):86-102.
———. 1961. The Antifederalists: Critics of the Constitution , 1781-1788. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Markham, Jeremy W. 2002. A Financial History of the United States. 3 vols. Vol. 1. New York: M.E. Sharpe.
McCorkle, Pope. 1984. "The Historian as Intellectual: Charles Beard and the Constitution Reconsidered." The American Journal of Legal History 28 (4):314-63.
McCullough, David. 2001. John Adams. New York: Simon and Schuster. McDonald, Forest. 1958. We the People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1965. E Pluribus Unum: The Formation of the American Republic, 1776-1790.
Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. McDougall, Walter A. 2008. Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter
with the World since 1776. New York: Houghton-Mifflin. McGuire, Robert A. 2003. To Form a More Perfect Union: A New Economic
Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.
McGuire, Robert A., and Robert L. Ohsfeldt. 1984. "Economic Interests and the American Constitution: A Quantitative Rehabilitation of Charles A. Beard." Journal of Economic History 44 (2):509-19.
———. 1986. "An Economic Model of Voting Behavior over Specific Issues at the Constitutional Convention of 1787." The Journal of Economic History 46 (1):79-111.
———. 1989. "Self-Interest, Agency Theory, and Political Voting Behavior: An Economic Model of Voting Behavior Over Specific Issues at the Constitutional Convention of 1787." American Economic Review 79 (1):219-34.
McKinley, Albert Edward. 1905. The Suffrage Franchise in the Thirteen English Colonies in America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
Meyer, Muffie. 2007. "Alexander Hamilton." In The American Experience. USA: PBS. Miller, John C. 1960. The Federalists: 1789-1801. New York: Harper and Row. Moore, Charles, ed. 1927. George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Nuxoll, Elizabeth M. 2012. Biographical Essay, John Jay. Columbia University
[Accessed September 27 2012]. Available from http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/digital/jay/biography.html.
Office of the Clerk U.S. House of Representatives. 2012. Party Divisions of the House of Representatives (1789 to Present). House of Representatives [Accessed September 18, 2012. Available from http://artandhistory.house.gov/house_history/partyDiv.aspx.
Poole, Keith, and Howard Rosenthal. 2012. Voteview.com. University of Georgia, Department of Political Science [Accessed September 24 2012]. Available from http://www.voteview.com.
Posner, Richard A. 2007. Economic Analysis of Law. New York: Aspen Publishers. Riker, William H. 1984. "The Heresthetics of Constitution-Making: The Presidency in
1787 with Comments on Determinism and Rational Choice." American Political Science Review 78 (January):1-16.
Rossiter, Clinton R. 1966. 1787: The Grand Convention. New York: Macmillan. Rude, George. 1964. Revolutionary Europe: 1783-1815. New York: Harper and Row. Rusk, Jerrold G. 2002. Statistical History of the American Electorate. Washington, DC:
CQ Press. Sharp, James Roger. 1993. American Politics in the Early Republic. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press. Slaughter, Thomas P. 1986. The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American
Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press. Stigler, George J. 1972. "The Theory of Economic Regulation." Bell Journal of
Economics and Management Science 11 (1):3-21. Tollison, Robert D. 1988. "Public Choice and Legislation." Virginia Law Review 74
(2):339-71. United States Senate Office of the Clerk 2012. Party Division in the Senate (1789 to
Present). U.S. Senate [Accessed September 18, 2012. Available from http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/one_item_and_teasers/partydiv.htm.
Voigt, Stefan. 1997. "Positive Constitutional Economics: A Survey." Public Choice 90 (1):11-53.
Weisberger, Bernard A. 2000. America Afire: Jefferson, Adams, and the First Contested Election. New York: Harper-Collins.
Whaples, Robert. 1995. "Where Is There Consensus Among American Economic Historians? The Results of a Survey on
Forty Propositions." Journal of Economic History 55 (1):139-54. Wikipedia. 2014. Constitution of the United States of America. Wikipedia [Accessed
February 21 2014]. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution.
Yates, Robert. 1787. Notes of the Secret Debates of the Federal Convention of 1787, Taken by the Late Hon Robert Yates, Chief Justice of the State of New York, and One of the Delegates from That State to the Said Convention. The Avalon Project [Accessed August 26 2014]. Available from http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/yates.asp.