I skimmed for some summarizing quotes I hope I found representative ones:
>From _Early Years of the Republic_
(1976 International)
P. 48
"The fact is that, as to substance, the pre- and post-Beardian vies of the Constitution hardly differ. The Beard view (Classically formulated in his Economic Interpretation of the Constitution first published in 1913) presented the document as an ultraconservative one,contemptuous of democratic rights, and devoted to the santification and protection of the rich minority.
This view was not at all new...
It was a view insisted upon by the Federalists from Fisher Ames to Alexander Hamilton in their struggle against the Jeffersonians...
To treat as a reactionary document, an ultraconservative triumph, a defeat for democracy, a counterrevolutionary coup, this document, hailed at the time by radicals and revolutionists in Europe, one for whose ratification Samuel Adams and John Hancock voted, one for which Thomas Paine said he would have voted, and one whose ratification made Thomas Jefferson "sincerely rejoice" is to say the least, paradoxical. It is, in fact, to misinterpret the Constitution, to view it partially, mechanically and divorced from its time and place."
page 63 ....Charles Beard concluded the chapter (VI) in his Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, dealing with the actual contents of the document itself, whtih these words:
'It was an economic document drawn with superb skill by me whose property interests were immediately at stake: and as such it appealed directly and unerringly to identical interests in the country at large.'
This statement is characteristic of the oversimplification tha marks Beard's very influential view. The emphasis on the alleged "immediate" interests of delegates is based upon insufficient and highly dubious evidence; moreover, their own class interests were much more decisive than could possibly be the immediate and personal enrichment that might accrue to a Franklin or a Washington because he did or did not own a certain bond or a certain amount of previously issued currency..."
This is some of it.
Charles Brown
>>> Carl Remick <cremick at rlmnet.com> 11/23 1:29 PM >>>
Re Charles': "Herbert Aptheker replies to Beard
in _The Early Years of the Republic_"
What's the gist of his reply?
Carl Remick