Page 107 - Dragon Flood

having any input into the formation of the Constitution by voting qualifications that were
in force in a majority of the states. A man could not vote unless he paid a certain amount
of taxes, or owned a specific amount of land, in most of the states.

The members of the Philadelphia Convention which drafted the Constitution were, with
few exceptions, immediately, directly, and personally interested in, and derived economic
advantages from, the establishment of the new system.

The Constitution was ratified by a vote of probably not more than 1/6th of adult males in
the existing states.

Historical evidence reveals that the voters of New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
Virginia, and South Carolina did NOT approve the ratification of the Constitution, but
state representatives with financial interests approved it anyway.

During the ratification process for the Constitution, it became clear that the moneyed and
propertied classes supported it, while the small farmers and debtors (a majority of the
American population) opposed it. Many of this latter group were unable to vote due to
voting qualifications that favored those with property and money.
[End Summary]

What Charles Beard’s book reveals is that America’s government has never been in the
hands of the common man, nor was the Constitution written to give every citizen of the
nation equal rights. This document was formed primarily to protect the propertied classes
from the rabble, and to give them distinct advantages upon its passage.

One of the means by which the men gathered at the Constitutional Convention stood to gain
financially was related to land scrip, a form of payment issued by the Federal government
to pay soldiers during the war, and for payment of government debts. America had vast
tracts of western land that had not been developed, and the government being short on
cash, offered land scrip in its stead. This land scrip was worth only what it could be sold for.
As long as the Native American Indians remained a threat (legitimately so, for they were
having their lands forcibly wrested from them), and settlement and development of the land
was delayed, the scrip was worth only pennies an acre.

Many soldiers after the war needed money and sold their scrip for a pittance to speculators
who bought it up in anticipation of its value rising. The men speculating in this land scrip
foresaw that once a strong Federal government was in place that the value of this Scrip
would greatly increase. A strong federal government could raise a standing army to fight the
Indians, and promote settlement of these western lands. Beard writes, “Every leading
capitalist of the time thoroughly understood the relation of a new constitution to the rise
in land values beyond the Alleghenies.”

Charles Beard proceeds in his book to show from existing records, the financial condition
of each man that participated in the Constitutional Convention, and how they stood to gain
financially, or materially, through passage of this document. Beard sums up this lengthy
section of his book with the following statements: