Latest / Comps List Radio / Episode 9: 250 Series, Charles Beard, "Economic Interpretation of the Constitution," 1913
Transcript
- Robert Ferguson: Hello and ⁓ welcome to another episode of Comps List Radio, H poll's ⁓ you know, signature podcast. ⁓ we are it's summertime, ⁓ which means in Arizona where I am, this is Robert Ferguson. ⁓ it's summertime, which means that it's about reaching the point where you can't go outside here in Arizona. ⁓ how are things in Codway, Arkansas, Marie? ⁓ not quite to the point where we can't go outside. It's still late spring for us. So, you know, seventies rainy on and off. Some eight late ⁓ higher eighties, but nothing too bad so far. So things are good, school's out, ready for the summer. Yeah, very cool. No more teachers, no more books. Very cool. ⁓ and your your kids are are the the they're ⁓ they're done now. ⁓ what what are their other than baseball, what are their big plans for the summer? Baseball video games I'm sure will play a big role. lots of swimming in the summer in Arkansas, so that'll be nice. ⁓ but mostly probably how how do the kids say it today, bed rotting. Laying in bed during Yeah, that's the term I keep hearing. So I guess that's their plan. ⁓ all right, I I like that. I I haven't heard that one yet. ⁓ this is how I keep ⁓ you know Marie, with your teenage sons, this is how I'm gonna have to keep up with the slang so that when students enter in as freshmen at ASU, I'm gonna have some sense of what they're talking about. Exactly. They use it. They sound a lot more like my kids now than they do me. So it helps me a lot. Yeah. ⁓ yeah, I I I I didn't know when it was, but my Simpsons references started getting blank stares back from students. I don't know, about seven or eight years ago. I know it's so disappointing. No culture. None. None. ⁓ so and I said the Simpsons thing just so I could set up this next comment. ⁓ today we're gonna be looking what we're gonna be examining in the first of our series of our America 250 series. ⁓ we are going to be looking at the early 20th century work by Charles Austin Beard, an economic Interpretation of the Constitution. I say that because every time I say Charles Austin Beard, my brain wants to go Charles Montgomery Burns. There are you connected it back. Right. ⁓ but ⁓ yeah, the really the the incredible work of ⁓ of Charles Austin Beard and sort this foundational piece in 20th century American historiography. ⁓ Marie, had you read this book before? Definitely interacted with the argument of this book. I don't know that you could learn about the revolutionary era, about the constitution, the early republic without engaging with it in some sense, but I have I never read the book completely through until this. Yeah. ⁓ me neither. I'd I'd read parts of it, but I'd never read the entire thing. ⁓ and again, I I think we're all kind of aware. If you're a historian, you're kind of aware of the sort of the general thrust of this book. it still s sort of casts a long shadow, but it it sometimes feels like it's ⁓ like it casts a long shadow only so that it can be dismissed. Is that your your sense? I think so. So diff I mean different aspects I think are often dismissed too. It's not just the economic theory part of this that of course we'll talk about, but the way that beard does or I guess does not handle different subjects. ⁓ like African Americans or landless whites in the book. So yeah, I think the pushback is what we know more than anything else. Now, ⁓ more established scholars had probably learned about beard in a different sense, but definitely when I was in graduate school, it was who's pushback against this and a focus on Balin and Wood, which of course we'll talk about and I'm sure we'll do a ⁓ whole episode on. But that those were my two You know, that's the foundation of my knowledge in Revolutionary America and Balin and Wood's interpretations. Which build off and push back against Beard. Right. Yeah, I think that's mine as well, is that the sort of the earliest book on the revolution I read was Ideological Origins. Yes. ⁓ by Balin, which I know we're gonna be talking about in coming weeks. And that it was this and it was an attempt to basically fully dislodge Beard. Right. And fully dislodge this book as being the ⁓ the the way of understanding the constitutional period. I mean, it it really is remarkable that this book sort of establishes the foundation for the understanding of the constitution that really runs through until the end of the Second World War. Right. And it starts this question, this line of questioning that ⁓ who benefited from the constitution, who benefited from the revolution. And so even just asking this question was important. And I think that's one of the legacies of this work is that he started this line of questioning that other scholars agree or disagree with him are going to have to grapple with here. Because it wasn't a cr I mean it didn't benefit everyone equally. And ⁓ if you don't like Beard's argument, you can't argue with that. Yeah. I mean so This our book was criticized for not you know, has been criticized for who it didn't include. But I let me ask you this, Marie. Could could you sh argue that like the Nicole Hannah Jones interpretation of the revolution is basically just a an updating of beard? I think you could make that argument. Yeah, I hadn't thought of that in that way, but I think you could make that argument. It's just that with that you're going to have different voices in there. Sure. So so yeah, I think you could make that argument. 'Cause it did benefit certain people economically. Yeah, I mean w whether you agree with the Nicole Hannah Jones interpretation is sort of irrelevant to the my point, but I I mean I think that the this notion of the constitution being a battle between the forces of capitalism ⁓ either competing forces of capitalism or ⁓ you know in Beard's broader work kind of this relationship between capitalism and democracy. ⁓ you know I I I think in those terms I I suspect those who were ⁓ involved in the sixteen nineteen project and are or around the sixteen nineteen project would probably agree I think so. I think I found some of this when I was looking into the historiography, like some of the background here prepping for our episode today, that the sixteen nineteen project does build on this in a way, it doesn't just push back against Beard. It does add layers to Beard. And so I think that they would even if maybe not necessarily credit Beard directly. Yeah, I think we can make that argument. Yeah, I mean I I because I think you can see connections between Beard and like Eric Williams, who is not writing in the American context, but you know, there there there's major overlap there. And while Beard himself is not a Marxist, there's you know, there's there's a there's a there's a lot of connective tissue there. Right. Right. ⁓ and so it's a ⁓ and anyway, and you one thing that Beard does do in in Rise of American Civilization, which he writes with his wife, there women's suffrage is a major part, and and the voices of women are a major part of that book. Right. It's well needed for the beard. Exactly. Exactly. And and I think, you know, as we're going to get into this, economic interpretation looks like a 300 page book, but it's not a 300 page book. Like it's really like 120 page book. Yeah, it's short. It's not too bad at all. It was accessible. Yep. It's short because so much of what he's what takes up the meat of this book is figures. Right. And like or like analyses of like individuals' account like bond portfolios. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so because of that, like you can, you know, I I think, you know, you ⁓ Beard might be able to get a bit of a pass. On, like, first of all, it's the early 20th century that he's writing. He's gonna be, you know, the the idea that he's gonna take a critical approach is a I think, you know, probably unlikely. But I mean, even then, he it's a pretty short book. It's almost like an essay with figures. Yeah, that's definitely how it reads. And especially if you know anything about the constitution going in. If you have a framework, just a basic knowledge in the constitution, and you go into this text, you're gonna see his argument right away. And you're gonna see the evidence he presents for that argument right away. And you're going to see those on portfolios and the graphs that he has in there. So that's a big part of it. And it's interesting. All of that is very interesting. ⁓ but yes, it's not a hard text. No, no. And and I mean I I I also don't know if this is the first book anybody should read on the constitution. Yeah. I mean it depends on how far you want to go back in the historiography. But I think if you're just in a constitution class or, you know, you're just focused on the early republic or ⁓ the revolution, even this is not the place to start necessarily. No, it's not. And I wouldn't discourage people to read ⁓ read from it. And and I also think it'd be a great place if you're curious if if what you're researching about is something where ⁓ You wanna have some notion about what these people were invested in. You wanna have some notion about the individuals involved at the constitution. This is a as good a resource as any. For like Yeah, excellent. You know, basically if you want a Wikipedia article on like who was at the Constitution and what their like actual like and what their interest, their economic interest there may have been. This like I can't remember what chapter it is, chapter four, chapter five is just is that. Right, right. And he's obviously done an extensive amount of research. The only person I think you could even make a slight argument for having done more on these specific people is Forrest McDonald, who is the one who ultimately took down this argument. Yeah. And I think you know, yeah. Agreed. And we the people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That he and he and he's explicitly doing that. And he does it in a more in a narrower way. And and again, we're going to talk about this in a narrower way than Balin and Wood do. Right. Right. He is going after Beard's argument, McDonald is in his work. I mean it is very clear he he followed his footsteps and and dug a little further. But he's working in the fifties and not in the early 1900s. Right. So you've got a you've got some different sources there. And one of the things I appreciated about this is that Beard in lots of places goes, listen, this is where the evidence ends. Yeah. He's like there there's there's there's more. I don't have time or the inclination to look any further than this. ⁓ He makes some point in his introduction, he's like, Clearly I could have gone further in this research, but like I have a life. Yeah. I have I have I've got a life. And like this is th this was what I could get. And like if you find more that fully discredits me, I accept it. Right. Right. And he wasn't still alive when McDonald published We the People, but ⁓ I think he would have had a lot to say about that and then would have probably encouraged that work. Yeah, it would have, I think. but I I really just like I had to chuckle when I was reading the introduction because he clearly was like, listen, this is a at best a starting point. Right, right. This is enough. I've proved my point. You can decide what to do with it from here. Right. And so, like in that way, that that's sort of how I see, you know, where in in w with the sixty nineteen project. You can sort of say, Hey, listen, I you know, we really are building on Beard and we're following the path that Beard actually laid out. Right. That like, you know, this is the beginning. Right. ⁓ and he, you know, those questions. Yeah, right. And ⁓ again, w what what you want to think of it as a is a different question, you know, that we can evaluate the evidence. ⁓ you know, separately, but I mean I think just like interpretively. Right. That ⁓ okay Marie, you're the biographer among us. You wanna tell us a little bit about Charles Mont about Charles Montgomery Burns? I mean Charles Austin Beard. Yeah, yeah. Let me so before I get started in this, one of the things I was thinking about when I was looking at Beard and thinking about this book is this is the start of our ⁓ two fifty series. And so I'm thinking about, you know, why are we starting with this book and what can we tell our audience about how this fits into that? And the biggest part, and and I definitely want to hear your thoughts on this as well. But to me, it's this debate that these questions, these big questions that Beard asks. So we're thinking this year as Americans, you know, what does the country mean? What does the founding of the country mean to us? Who did this benefit? Who did this leave out? And Beard's asking those questions for the first time in the historiography. You know, who was the country created for? Because it's not, it wasn't created for ⁓ you know, we the people at that point. It just, I mean, we have the evidence, we can look at it. We, I mean, as as Beard and others point out, that wasn't the purpose of the constitution. ⁓ and so having these debates, like I kept seeing this question come back and back, this line of questioning come back. And that's how I connected it to the two fifty series was okay, we're having this larger debate, even though the economic interpretation may have not led us to start with this this overall debate about the questions of the revolution and the constitution, that is a starting point. And I think a pretty good starting point for our series. Yeah, I I think it is. I also think it's the origins of the modern historiography. Yes. Of the period. ⁓ you know, Bancroft. has his books, ⁓ and there there's a whole series of books ⁓ that are written in the nineteenth century. But you know, ⁓ to some degree, ⁓ Beard is Thucydides and everything before is Herodotus and Homer. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, like Thucydides is trying to keep it in the worldly, the here and the now, and there's scientific analysis going on. ⁓ you know, Beard has footnotes, Thucydides does not, but such is life. ⁓ you know, whereas beforehand, like Bancroft at points would say, Well, it's just divine providence that this worked out for America, sounding an awful lot like Herodotus crediting the gods. Right. And Thucydides sort of dismissing that and saying, no, it's about personal interest. It's about the here and the now. And it's and that's really the the focus. So I mean, I I guess that's where I see this in in the period is this is this is the beginning. And ⁓ you know, I I he and the the reason it is the beginning is because Beard is asking these questions that you were just alluding to. He's really the first major figure to ask these questions. Like it was the Constitution was not just an exercise in political science. There's other aspects of this. And what were their goals? And you know, we're gonna talk about another guy in a few weeks, Douglas Adair. Douglas Adair writes a great essay called ⁓ Fame and the Federal Fame and the Founding Fathers, where you know he's sort of building on Beard and saying, well, it wasn't just financial interest that they were interested in, it was posterity. They wanted to be famous forever, right? And that's another personal interest that's motivating them here, right? And so Beard is looking at the pecuniary while. Others will look at other things, but it's this notion that these were not just benevolent ⁓ political scientists with their hand sort of moved by the divine. Right. But it was real life. Right. This had real implications. These men were coming together. And as ⁓ you know, Beard talked about, I mean, this was essentially overthrowing the Articles of Confederation. I mean, for all purposes, this was a coup. This was not an intellectual experiment. Right. And right. So it it yeah. That's a really you know, he he I I love that. Yeah, he's like, no, this is the he's like with a constitutional coup. Yes. I like that he just laid it out. 'Cause I mean, when you think about it the way that he lays it out, okay, yeah, that was a coup. I mean, I I buy it, you know, that's that's what happened. And he he does lay it out well. Yeah, and he's he's just like, look, they're not following the same amending formula. Right. Right. They're basically in some states they're essentially rigging it. Right. You know. We had this notion where in New York, right, because of the Federalist Papers, there was this grand debate of ideas between like the anti Federalist forces led by Clinton and the Federalist forces, you know, led by Madison. Hamilton Jay. But it's but but you know, but Beard's like, you know, no, that's not. Great. Right. Yeah. He's like, you can look at it that way, but when I look through this evidence, this is not what I'm saying. Right. I mean, I I can't remember what state it was. ⁓ I'd have to look back into it. But he goes through the ratification process and he's like, They things were so fast there, the anti Federalist forces just couldn't get organized. They did it so fast. Yeah. They're gonna get this past. Yeah. Essentially, is what they're looking at. Anyway, I interrupted your biography. I interrupted your biography. ⁓ no, I did. I got us off track there. ⁓ but I can get back to this. So ⁓ Charles Austin Beard, born in eighteen seventy-four, near in near Knightstown, Indiana. And he came from a pretty prosperous family, but he is gonna see working class life firsthand. So he's kind of seeing the Gilded Age unfold and he's gonna come of age, especially as a scholar in the Progressive Era. Of course, he's part of the Progressive School, which we've talked about before, this economic conflict, which you see throughout his work. ⁓ eventually he's going to he meets his wife, Mary Beard, who I would say someday we should do an episode on Mary Beard. Very impressive. The more I found out about her, the more impressed I was. ⁓ but he met her in his undergraduate at I think it's called DuPois University, but anyway, at there at ⁓ going through his undergraduate degree. He goes to Oxford while in Oxford. He and Mary mostly get involved in the feminist movement there and the suffrage movement there. He's also going to start working for the working class and establishing ⁓ what becomes a Ruskin College there at Oxford for a more working class. individuals that wouldn't have had access to Oxford before. So you see early on, like the point of going back that far is that you see early on this activism in his work and definitely in his wife's what becomes her work, but in her life as well. She's gonna work with Alice Paul back in the United States in the suffrage movement and he supports that. When World War One breaks ⁓ out, he's at Columbia. He supports the war at But two of his colleagues are fired because they spoke out against the war. And he resigns in protest of that. So he doesn't resign in protest of the war itself, but in how his colleagues were treated at Columbia. So again, you see this through line here where he sees disadvantages among the working class and wants to do something about that. He sees this unfairness to his colleagues and he wants to push back against that. And you see this throughout his career. And you see that tension in his writing as well, especially in the book that we're looking at. ⁓ he wrote at least one book with his wife. She did not have a graduate degree, a PhD, and so sh of course during that period she is often discredited, her work's not taken seriously, but it is known that she worked very closely with him, especially in his later work. ⁓ he died in nineteen forty-eight. So before his work was kind of discredited, or at the very least, before historians decided, okay, we've got evidence that this is not the complete picture here. ⁓ so he never saw that come to fruition in the late 1950s. But prolific writers sold over eleven million copies of his different works. He had dozens of published articles and books. ⁓ and then Of course this book is in nineteen thirteen, so one of his earlier work. Yeah. I mean, and this is the book that I I think really makes him famous. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. ⁓ and it's a ⁓ yeah. Okay. So ⁓ you know, we we the that we we've we're gonna get back into his biography, I think, as we get 'cause I you know, I I I really hope to do a a a an episode one day on the rise of American civilization with him. discussing him and Mary, which would be great. Yeah. But because in in a lot of ways that's a more sophisticated book, I think, than this one is. ⁓ but ⁓ you know, that's that wasn't part of our homework assignment. So we're not going to talk about that today. but what Marie, how would you, you know, we've talked a little about you know, and I think most of our listeners will understand that ⁓ economic interest was at the center of the constitution, according to Beard and class conflict, was at the center of this. How would you more broadly or maybe or even more narrowly describe the argument at the center of this book? I mean, like you said, you laid it out well. He is arguing here that the founders, the 55 men who went to the Constitutional Convention, had differing economic interests, and they're going to create a document and a government that benefits their various economic interests, whether that be in personal property or in real property, like in land and enslaved people, which is how he kind of looks at ⁓ the Southern delegates for sure. But you have this tension throughout. And these debates, he's arguing, all are influ within the constitutional convince ⁓ convention, the debates that we're seeing are all ⁓ kind of within this focus of These men's economic interests. It is not, he is arguing, it is not ideological. It is not some grand moral strategy. It is these men were being hurt by the Articles of Confederation economically. They their property wasn't being protected. They felt like they were ⁓ having to respond or having some limits placed on their power by landless men in some cases, or definitely the middling class. ⁓ And they wanted power and they wanted their economic interests protected. And the book just lays that out through ⁓ you know, like you said, lots of evidence, lots of statistical data, but through his argument as well. Yeah. and I think one of the things like he he he distinguishes, you know, virtually everybody who comes to the convention is hawned by the Articles of Confederation. Okay. But there's one class of people that's more harmed than the other class, according to Beard. And the class that's the most harmed are the ones who hold public securities. So that typically government bonds is what we're talking about. And that those people are witnessing a collapse in the value of their bonds under the Articles of Confederation. And these people are typically the wealthiest of the Americans. They tend to be concentrated in ⁓ the the major the the few major financial centers that there are. and ⁓ they also tend to be less in vet even though they're invested in land, they tend to be less ⁓ what's sort of less connected to land. Less tied to that economically. Right. And so ⁓ he thinks these guys are the main and and and Alexander Hamilton, although according to Beard and and I didn't really understand this to be honest, he wasn't that rich a guy. Hamlet, at least according to Beard, didn't have that many assets. He could, he commanded a significant, he ended up commanding a considerable salary as a lawyer, but he was never a particularly wealthy guy. ⁓ at least according to Beard. And but you know, he sort of personifies this emerging capitalist class who has a lot of money and movable wealth. And they are, at least according to Beard, the major engine for the final form that the constitution takes. Whereas the opposing force at the convention are those who mostly are interested in land. No, there's a there's a fame and fourth group to Beard too. There's ones that are primarily interested in Western land speculation. And those who also are invested in nascent industries and want the tariff. Right. So those are sort of the four, those are the four major economic ⁓ kind of groupings. But there's and and Beard says there's overlap among all of them. There's very few people who are singly one and or singly another. They're sort of all like you know ⁓ a lot of people who have interest in in in land some of that land is in kentucky or some of that land is is across the Appalachians and so they but there's a lot of people who are only you know who have a lot of move their wealth and then like some of that what he calls personality ⁓ which is a great term you know the public securities and they own a lot of Western land That is only gonna be like right. They're speculating in the West. ⁓ and there's some people that there's a few people that are only speculating in the West. But there's not that a and then of course and then as I said, there's the that class that's sort of got that investing in that nascent industry and wants the protective tariff. And so those are sort of the major and and and the the people who own the bonds want a strong government that has a reliable tax base and a strong government that can and and although this isn't clear in the convention, ⁓ Beard makes it very clear, like in the first session of Congress, they want a bank. Right. Right. Right. And so it's clear to them, at least according to Beard, that ⁓ throughout the constitutional convention, even though we don't s there might not have been much debate over it, it was understood by many people that one of the purposes of the convention of the constitution was to create a bank. Right. Right. That was a big problem w under the Articles of Confederation, is you had exchange rates between the different states at that point. And if you are trying to consolidate those securities or consolidate that wealth, or in Hamilton's case, I think it was about power more than anything else. Like he saw that as his those men as his power base, even if he wasn't distinctly part of that class. He definitely saw his power center being there. And so if you don't have a national bank or a national financial system, you do not have that power. And so that is their I mean, you're absolutely right about the bank. That's a great point because that is a big part of the reason they're there, even if they're not going to put it in the body of the constitution, because they know that Southerners are gonna be are gonna push back against that. Well the landed class anyway, whether it's the Southerners or not, if the landed class isn't thrilled with it, isn't gonna be thrilled with it according to Beard. Because you have Seveners who are. ⁓ you know, you Charles the the Charleston elite, Tidewater elite. That kind of thing. ⁓ Savannah, maybe to a lesser extent. But and and and he ends up ⁓ anyway. So ⁓ in order to prove his point, for those of you who never read the book, what he does is he tries to assign each delegate to the convention like where they stand. Like which of these groups are they in? And so this is how he ends up, like beginning with Abraham Baldwin, who's a representative of Georgia. He like says, here are the bonds that he owned. Here's the Western land he was invested in. What what you know, did he did he own land at home? Like where were where were his economic interests? And it it it really is fascinating. And you know, it's so arcane almost for a historian. Right. You know, because we don't we don't do det granular detail at that level typically. Right. At least for more than one or two people. Right. And he does it for everybody who goes. Yeah. All fifty five. Yeah. And his longest one for those of you interested is on Hamilton. That's about three pages. Right. ⁓ and and Hamilton and Madison. Yeah. Madison doesn't. Yeah. He Madison doesn't quite get the same sketch because Madison doesn't own public securities. Right. And so Madison's interests, and Beard is clear on this. Madison's economic interests are harder to discern. Mm-hmm. I think that that's one of the places he his argument is almost undermined in his own work because he does Madison was very ideological. And he's he just writes about this. And Beard has Madison as one of the central figures in this. And he talks about his ideas here. While saying at the same time or outlining, I mean maybe not explicitly, but outlining here that Madison is harder to fit into those boxes. Right. Madison in fact becomes his his like point of describing others. Because he views Madison as almost this impartial observer. Right. Now he is he ⁓ I understands Madison is not impartial and he does get to the economic interest that Madison has towards the end, but it's not as clear cut. as the others. And Madison is pretty like in his own sketches of people is you know, he uses Madison's own sketches of people often. Right. Right. Well, and he had the most evidence from Madison too in his defense. We wrote more about these things. Exactly. He was writing for posterity. Right. Like what's the book? And and I can't I I'm embarrassed I can't think of the name of the author. It just came out a couple of years ago, but like ⁓ Mad like by Madison's pen, Madison's p hand or something. That the whole our whole understanding of the Constitution is because all Madison had the best notes. Right. So we don't even realize it. But like all of our understanding of the Constitution is through Madison. Right. Because he wrote the most and was the you know, and was the He says the book. We have it. He was there the whole time. He was the only one there whole time. Right. Yeah, but we're very lucky to have those notes. But so like kind of like Beard. As historians, we're all sort of left with this weird Madison character. Right. Like who's the central figure and he's also the voice by which we understand it. Right. And ⁓ anyway, I think that's ⁓ but ⁓ yeah, so so but those are kind of the broad categories that I mentioned that or that we mentioned that that that that Beard lays out. And again, th for the the public security holders and and the he really comes down to the that these are the the most aggressive, this is the origins of what might become the Fed of what becomes the Federalist Party to Beard. I mean, obviously there's ⁓ the Federalist grouping in 1787 is larger, but what becomes the core of the Federalist Party moving forward is are these public security holders and the interests of bondholders. Right. ⁓ And they they're interested in a strong central government that can ⁓ basically that it that that that that can come that can coerce people into paying taxes. Right. In order to service bonds. That because they know the moment that happens they can the the the the price of bonds goes up. Right. That they can that they can sell. And the other thing that they want is they want to stop the state governments from the paper emissions, from the paper money emissions. Right. These are a lot of times these bondholders are also creditors. Right. And they know that inflation is an assault on their ability to on their perspectives. Right. So that's you know, and he points to the constitution. He lays out in various places. He's like in the document. This clause right here, and he'll lay it out. I don't have it at hand here, but he'll say, like, this clause right here is very like if you read it, as soon as you realize if you look at this for a second from the perspective of a bondholder, you're like, ⁓ yeah, that's to protect me. Right. He says when we go clause by clause through the constitution, and if you've just for a second put the glasses on of a bondholder, of a governor Morris, right, or a James Wilson. All of a sudden, or George Washington, all of a sudden you start to see why this document is written, at least according to Beer. Right. In the way that it is. And if exactly. And if you're at a state constitutional convention where you're going to ratify this document, you would read it that way as well. Because those conventions are self-selecting. Who can vote? You know, property owning white men can vote for the most part. Right. And so they're going to have those economic interests and they're going to read that and they're going to know at the time who that protects. So even if you don't have to say it explicitly, they're going to understand that language. Right. And you've got these state legislatures, according to Beard, under the Articles of Confederation, that are that are trying to outdo themselves in ways to undermine the the most property classes and the creditor classes because they typically represent the perspectives of or there's a greater influence. among lower, you know, pe people lower on the socioeconomic ladder. Right. In those state legislatures. So, you know, to beard and and and at le the perspective of these of these proto federalists and these major bondholders, you need this new national government in or where their influence is going to carry the day. And he he at one point sorry over the state legislatures and he makes a really interesting point on Georgia, where he says there's something like there might be five public bondholders in the whole state of Georgia. Yeah. Like so, okay, so if there's five of them in the whole state of Georgia, Georgia was not a big state at the time, but five of them is not very many. And you know, what what what influence could five people hope to wield? in Milledgeville, which was the state capital, I think at the time. I think it was it might have been Augusta, but I think it was I think it was Milledgeville, but it might have been ⁓ at the time. One that if they were united with their class in Philadelphia, in New York Exactly. In Charleston, all of a sudden they're a pa they're a political force to be reckoned with. Exactly. Exactly. They don't have to answer to those interests that we are seeing under the Articles of Confederation, those voices that are becoming louder. They don't have to answer to them. They are in league now with those economic interests in Philadelphia or in other cities across the country. So five people can have extraordinary influence in that case. Right. And then and so th the reason that and ⁓ although they're typically you know also elite class, the landed class. Who don't necessarily have an interest in bonds. One of the reasons why they would be opposed to such a constitution. Or you know, one of the reasons why they don't really care if the bonds are serviced or not is because they know that they're the ones that are gonna have to pay the taxes to service the bonds. Service the interest on the bonds. Right. And ⁓ Beard lays out why really the only type of tax that the federal government is able to sort and that's at the state level, state legislature level. ⁓ so this is why those this is why the the landed class, even the elite landed class in the states, according to Beard, are are willing to like ⁓ tolerate some of the perspectives of the poorer farmers. Because they're kind of the they're like that populist force that can be used against the bondholding class. Right. Right. So then, at least in Beard's telling, that bondholding class has to find a way to encourage the landed class to sign on to the Constitution. And ⁓ one of the ways they do it is they know a lot of them are invested in Western lands and so you need a strong federal government that can go and enforce American sovereignty over the Ohio Valley. Yep. Yep. Those speculators like Washington. Like Washington. I mean, did you know this Beard says that Washington might have been the richest guy in the country at the time. Did you know that? I had heard that before. He lays it out well and I buy into it, but I had heard that before. It had to have come from Beard. Yeah. I'd never heard that before. Yeah. It's it's wild. Yeah. If you go through Washington's entire like like like his assets and you're like, whoa, yeah. And and like you're like, ⁓ did he own these things? And he's like, Yeah, I I checked his estate. Right. ⁓ okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. You know. Right, right. He wants to Washington wants to portray himself as a as a farmer and a general and in reality he's an investor. Yeah. And yeah, and and heavily invest. And and you know what's so funny is is, you know, there's this I think this simplistic notion, one that I legitimately bought into. ⁓ I'm not an early, you know, ⁓ of the early re I'm not a historian of the early republic. So I don't, you know, you know, sometimes you just take things at face value and don't investigate them any further. But you know, Washington didn't take a salary because he was a gentleman when he was president or when he was commander of the Continental Army. ⁓ and so, you know, there's sort of this notion, well, he he was really struggling to, he was kind of struggling. Right. And so that explains his his obsession with looking after his plantation. Right. Right. He didn't look like he was struggling according to Beard. Not according to Beard, not at all. ⁓ and but a lot of his money was wrapped up in Western lands and public securities. And I mean, right. And and a lot of these guys were paid, and and you can understand it. This is one of the things that's an interesting that I that I never really thought of until I was reading this book, is you get this great tension among Revolutionary War veterans, right? A lot of whom are paid with bonds, which are depreciating rapidly. Yes. And a lot of the a lot of the rank and file debts were also. Paid with land allotments. Right. But those land allotments needed a federal government in order to be able to enforce because a lot of those land allotments were either in contested territory between ⁓ between the United States and and competing tr ⁓ and and local tribes, or we're just like definitely in tribal country. Right. Right. And you need that federal government to protect that land, whether you're a speculator or a veteran or which of course the veterans have trouble later with property taxes, but you've got the federal government by that point. Right. Right. ⁓ So the constitution's done. And if you want a protective tariff, if you're well somebody who's invested, you th there's this understanding that in order to get the landed guys really on board here, they're not going to want to pay big taxes for the federal government. At least land taxes or wealth taxes. Right. But you need to get those that interest service somehow. So how are you going to do that with an impost? Right. Right. And so even though it's presented as only this revenue tool, Beard says, Yeah, everybody understood that it was a protective tool. Even before Hamilton kind of sets up his system. There was this understanding in 1787 that You know, all right, we're gonna the only revenue we're gonna be able to get is through the impost. We don't wanna jump on state government sovereignty anywhere. And so you can imagine somebody with a with a small mill in Pennsylvania or the Connecticut Valley, like salivating over that notion. And ⁓ and then to bring it back to the South, Beard, I think he asks a great question, which is so how do you get landed southern interests who's who knows that they're gonna be the ones who really have to pay the tariff? Maybe they're invested in Western lands, maybe they're not. But they're trying to export their tobacco typically or rice at the time. Right. Trying to export their tobacco or rice. And they know that a protective tariff is going to harm those interests, that ability to do so. So how do you get them to sign up? If they're public security holders, that's how you do it. But if they're not, now you've got a big pr now you've got a big federal government that can protect them from slave insurrection. Yep. That power. They're giving them more power. Saying you're you're losing here, but we'll protect you here. Yep. The fugitive slave clause, the three fifths compromise. Right, and then the three fifth. Right. And then the three-fifths compromise ensures that they're going to that their perspective is never going to get lost. Right. Right. In a in a federal Congress that is going to when the population bases are in the north. Right. To the northeast. You've given up these. I mean, again, like we talked about the bondholders reading into reading between the lines of the document at the state constitutional conventions, southern landowners would have done the same thing. They would know exactly why that was in there. They I mean it was a a compromise, or they called it, of course, a compromise made at the time to get those landowners on board. But it was a f I mean, but from the southern slave owners' perspective, it's a Faustian bargain. Right. Right. From the s from the northern b northeastern bondholders perspective, with the exception of Governor Morris and a few, you know, listen, there's abolitionists at the convention. We know there's abolitionists. Right. Right. Right. you know. And and they were they hated the fact that they were going to be protecting slavery in the Constitution. And so they have to compromise with the notion of slavery in order to get the Constitution passed. Right. And then meanwhile, Southern land ⁓ southern slaveholders have to c their Faustian bargain is we're not gonna be the ones paying the bulk of the tax. Right. But we're gonna get this. We're gonna get protection to make su we're gonna get a protection from slave insurrection. Right. And so it isn't the ability to ⁓ go ahead. No, please, go ahead. Just putting in there, you know, neither side is completely happy with what they're getting out of this, but you have the ability to amend the document. Mm-hmm. And that's done on purpose. Yeah. ⁓ one, of course they can't know everything and I think they realize that. But two, their interests are going to change and they realize that as well. Right. And their power lies And ⁓ Beard is arguing their power lies in these economic interests. And if those change, you need to be able to update this document to reflect those changes. Right. Right. ⁓ so I I think that kind of, you know, lays it out that there were they had some interests in common. They had some economic interests that competed with each other. And that ⁓ You know, before we go, you know, we're gonna do a ⁓ we're gonna do an episode in a few weeks, I hope, that with our colleagues at H pool on the Federalist Papers. but it was really interesting. Beard says it's an economic treatise. And I'd of course never read it as an economic treatise. I'd always read it as a political science doc, as a document of political philosophy. Yeah. I wonder as we reread the Federalist papers for our episode in a few weeks, how because you and I just wrote this book. Our jandest will we look at this with a more jo those papers with a more jaundice eye than we would have otherwise. I know it really did. This is one of the things I was going to bring up at the end, but how he places Federalist 10 at the center of all of this. Now, of course, that's how I learned the Federalist Papers. Federalist 10 is the most important Federalist paper. You read it, you discuss it in seminar, like it's there. I didn't realize it wasn't always that way. That it is Beard that makes that the central part of his of this this argument. And so I do think I mean I will read them differently after reading Beard for sure. I mean, I w what when I read Beard's introduction and he's as he's kind of laying out so what in in in his introduction, he's basically laying out his economic theory of history. and he is, you know, and and ⁓ he's building on a guy named ⁓ Seligman, Edwin Seligman, ⁓ who wrote in nineteen ⁓ three, I think, ⁓ who has this sort of non-Marxist materialist conception of history. ⁓ And but one of the one of the things that he uses, one of the quotes that he uses to justify his materialist conception of history is from Madison and Federalist 10. And I was a little upset because my dissertation is pretty materialist, and I justify it with that exact same quote from Federalist Ten. And I was like. Don't let people are gonna think I lifted this for beard. Well he literally begins at the same spot and ends at the same spot. ⁓ my. ⁓ that's great. Yeah. If anybody knows Beard, by the you know. We're probably okay in 2026. But ⁓ probably okay. I gotta change it. I gotta find something else now. As I turned it into the book, I'm like, ⁓ I can't use that anymore. ⁓ but ⁓ he i anyway, he he lays out, you know, and and the quote from Federalist Hen is basically the notion that like the constitution is a is a way to channel these various interests in the country and all of the interests that he lays out are economic interests. Right. And primarily in property versus nonproperty classes, but also ⁓ these various other a few of the other like merchants versus farmers, you know. Bankers versus you know very any various other factions. And he says, you know, you can map on the factions based on what their in economic interest is. And and so Beard kind of builds this, you know, he uses that to justify his theory of the to the convention. And ⁓ anyway, it I ⁓ I I got a kick out of that. I was a little upset, but I got a kick out of it. Well, at least you know now. I know now, right? Now it's a change. Right. Right. ⁓ but ⁓ anyway, it probably is I just wanted to note that like he does lay out the economic theory of history at the beginning. He he acknowledges he's doing something kind of novel. Yep. And he tries to justify it. Yeah. ⁓ so we we've walked through this and we're almost at an hour. Marie, what aspects Were any was any of this convincing to you, ⁓ child of Balin? Right. I mean, I definitely think there are more economic interests at play. I think it's just more nuanced. I think Beard's making this, like you said, a kind of novel, and he realizes that argument about this based on a lot of research that was available during the time. I mean, of course, we have new sources and McDonald's gonna push back against this. And I think we the people, McDonald's book has a lot. I mean, it has just a lot more information, especially at those state level ⁓ conventions and about their economic interests. But I do think there were economic interests. I liked that beard didn't make the founders out to be villains. These are complicated men who are serving yes, they're serving their own interests in some cases, but they do seem to have a legitimate belief that this is gonna be better for the future of the country. Not necessarily a moral belief, but just a the future of the you know, economic system in the country and can the country remain as one versus those thirteen little states, little countries, the way it was under the Articles of the Confederation. So I do buy the in in I definitely buy the line of questioning he creates. I think that that is probably the part of the book that kind of came at me the ⁓ the most was the idea of who did it benefit. We have to ask that question. And I think it was good that Beard started that. And I can't imagine I mean, we ask that question all histories that we write now. Who did this benefit? Who was left out of this? ⁓ especially in political history, because economic power is political power. You know, this power they're creating for themselves is political power. And so, yeah, there are pieces of it, but I just think overall it's just too it's just too complicated. Like this is so much more complicated than he makes it. I did find it really interesting. And I think we can take this at face value, all of the research he does. It is interesting knowing what like George Washington's portfolio. That is legitimately interesting. ⁓ and so I think that part of it as well is very useful. But it's like a springboard more than anything else to further historical study. Yeah, I I I think that's right. And I mean th this is what unfortunately always happens in history. Is that you know, we remember Charles Beard as being this extreme economic determinist because that's kind of the argument he lays out here, but he's very careful to put caveats everywhere. I think yeah, yes. Like he he he's like, listen, you know, this could this is my this is me trying to put this in my box, but recognizing that there could be other factors at play here. And I think that he What he does well is that it's like, okay, before we get really wrapped up in somebody's ideology, can we at least like check out what their personal interest might have been first? Right. You know. Yeah. Did they have a did they benefit? Did they want, you know, and just because they might benefit materially from it doesn't mean they're insincere. Right. And he's careful about that. And you're careful about that. Right? Yeah. You know, it doesn't mean they're insincere. But maybe we can at l you know, and because heck, maybe somebody invests in something because they're truly sincere. Right. You know, you invest. in American bonds and like the the the sixes or the sixes or or a tens, I can never remember the the the the the the denominations not because you want profit necessarily but because you really firmly believe in this project and you want to use your wealth in order to assist this project. And you believe that by creating the stronger national government you're going to be assisting in your broader project. Right. ⁓ so and and he but you know So you can all of those things can be true at the same time. Right. Right. ⁓ but I think Beard forces you to reckon with the notion that there are material interests here and it's useful to investigate it. Right. And he encourages, I mean, it came across to me that he's encouraging future scholars to dig deeper. He's saying this is a starting point. We haven't looked at this yet. Let's look at it this way. And then you take it farther. That's why I think if he had been able to engage with his detractors, we would have gotten such a rich conversation. I just can't imagine based on his background and based on his writing that he would have shut that down completely. Yeah, I think I think he would have accepted that and Yeah, especially 'cause when you read Rise of American Civilization, he's by no means an extreme det he's no he's no determinist. I think that's the I think that's the difference. He's not really a determinist. He's not a determinist in the way that Marxists are. Right. He he's more like this is the primary influence. Right. Right. Right. And it can be deterministic, but it is not necessarily always that way. And the only way and and this is why like this is why he runs through everybody, is because he's like, we have to see. If it's the economic interest that's really motivating them or not. He doesn't just list them and go, these are the people that are public security holders and these ones are the ones that are not. Right. You actually get a blurb on each one of them where he tries to like guess what his interest is. And like that's that's really nuanced. It's audacious, frankly. Yeah. You know? It's a little unwieldy perhaps to do that at scale. You know, when you got only fifty five people, it's p it's possible. It's still unwieldy, but it's possible. But if you were to do every state convention, you couldn't do it. He admits that you can't do it. Right. Right. ⁓ but ⁓ anyway, I I just ⁓ I I I came away generally I came away generally impressed from the book. Yeah. And ⁓ I'm definitely more impressed than the conversations I've had about it in seminar. Because it does shut it down. Because it's always in relation to another text. So I've never spent an entire like what we're doing here on beard alone. But looking at his work directly was very beneficial. Yeah. I think so too. Yeah. So I mean I guess Marie, like if you're listening to this, ⁓ I I don't think you need to read the book. Unless you're ch purely interested, I think this podcast probably gives you enough on it for twenty twenty six. Is that probably fair? I agree. I think so. Not just because it's us saying it, but because it's the truth. Yeah, I think it's the truth. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's probably good. Again, ⁓ unless you're interested in like if if you're really interested in South Carolina's tax base, this is a good book for you. Like again, you it it runs you through what's What's South Carolina's tax base? And it's Charleston's tax base. What's the, you know, what you know, what's Columbia's tax base? And ⁓ I think this book is great for that perspective. Yes. If you're an economist who's interested in history, read it. There there's a data set. There's a data set here. ⁓ and this is a thing, you know, ⁓ we're running up against the clock here, so I don't want to go too far into this, but like ⁓ Beard is also a political scientist. He's not just a historian. And this book definitely reads social science. It's not necessarily true humanities, it's social science. And sometimes it feels like a poli sci project. Because then there's data sets, right? That he's using. Right. but with a historical approach. Like we're not just gonna categorize these people, we're gonna try to actually investigate them. What are their, you know, which I think is this great mixture of poly science history. Right. ⁓ yeah, he does and ⁓ yeah. Anyway, ⁓ we could probably leave it there. ⁓ but ⁓ yeah, anyway, so he I I guess I'll just sum by saying he he does sort of create these two major forces that kind of are are the broad forces that begin at the constitution and are the kind of the main driving forces for American history, according to Beard, which are the the one capitalist class that, you know, are kind of Hamiltonian. And the other capitalist class that become Jeffersonian. They're the ones more tied to the land, tied to eventually agriculture. And then this other class that's tied to movable wealth. Right. And personal. Yeah, he's setting it. Yeah. Right. And so that's how he explains the Federalists versus the Republicans. That's how he explains the emerging Whigs. Right. And that's how he eventually Explains the civil war. Right. Not in this book, but in later works. Right. And ⁓ but he's setting it up here. He's setting it up here. That it is that American history is this conflict between or American political history, at least, is this conflict between these two major social classes, the Hamilton, you know, crudely deter crudely called the Hamiltonians and the Jeffersonians. ⁓ so I should probably actually mention that as we got as I got distracted and other things. Because that does set up the rest of us work. ⁓ yeah. ⁓ anyway, ⁓ any any final thoughts on this? ⁓ I'm glad we started our two fifty series with this. I think it's really gonna put everything else into perspective. ⁓ I enjoyed it, you know. It it may be Like we said, unnecessary for graduate students to look at completely. But knowing beard and knowing the argument and knowing that it's more nuanced than you're probably going to learn is important. Yeah. And so listen to this podcast, know where the the text afterwards come from, and you'll be good to go. Right. Right. I I think that's great. ⁓ anyway, we'll see you ⁓ in a couple of weeks. I didn't actually I think we're doing Balin and maybe Robins next. I think so, yes. Okay. Yeah. I know I'm Yeah. ⁓ and ⁓ we'll ⁓ we'll go from there. Sounds great. See you next time, Marie. ⁓