Paraphrase, you!

• here are two fundamental challenges to the beard interpretation: first, the constitution is primarily a document in federalism; and second, the constitution does not in tact confess or display the controlling influence of those who held that “the fundamental private rights of property are anterior to government and morally beyond the reach of popular majorities.”

• let us look more closely at these two contentions. the first requires little elaboration or vindication, for it is clear to all students of the revolutionary era that the one pervasive and overbranching problem of that generation was the problem of imperial organization. how to get the various parts of any empire to work together for common purposes? how to get central control—over war, for example, or commerce or money—without impairing local autonomy? how, on the other hand, preserve personal liberty and local self-government without impairing the effectiveness of the central government? this was one of the oldest problems in political science, and it is one of the freshest—as old as the history of the greek city-states; as new as the recent debate over federal aid to education or the bricker amendment.

• the british failed to solve the problem of imperial order; when pushed to the wall they had recourse to the hopelessly doctrinaire declaratory act, which was, in fact, a declaration of political bankruptcy; as edmund burke observed, no people is going to be argued into slavery. the americans then took up the vexatious problem. the articles of confederation were satisfactory enough as far as the distribution of powers was concerned, but wholly wanting in sanctions. the absence of sanctions spelled the failure of the articles —and this failure led to the philadelphia convention.

• certainly if the framers were concerned primarily or even largely with protecting property against popular majorities, they failed signally to carry out their purposes. it is at this point in our consideration of the economic interpretation of the constitution that we need to employ what our literary friends call explication du texte. for the weakest link in the beard interpretation is precisely the crucial one—the document itself. mr. beard makes amply clear that those who wrote the constitution were members of the propertied classes,∗ and that many of them were personally involved in the outcome of what they were about to do; he makes out a persuasive case that the division over the constitution was along economic lines. what he does not make clear is how or where the constitution itself reflects all these economic influences.