Blog 4 History

Yesterday the United States House of Representatives kicked off the year with a reading of the Constitution. I thought it a nice gestured, but wondered how many of them have actually read it (you know as much as they read their own bills!) and/or understood what they read? Come to find out they didn’t even read the whole thing! Instead they read an abridged version. The reasoning? To read it in its most modern form. What a mistake. I agree with those who called the Congress out. The Representatives left out the bit about the 3/5 clause and the 18th Amendment! They had an opportunity to offer educators like myself a teachable moment, but missed the opportunity. But then again, by not reading it they brought even more attention to it.

I have seen teachers butcher the meaning and reasoning behind the 3/5 Clause by holding it up as an example of American Injustice and racism. You know, Slaves were not even human, they were only 3/5′s of one! Forgetting that it were the Slave Owners who wanted slaves counted equally and the Abolitionists who thought otherwise. The whole debate, of course, centered around representation and by limiting the South’s ability to count slaves and thus limiting their power in Congress.

And as for the 18th (Prohibition) Amendment, not sure what the big deal was there?

Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788
by Pauline Maier

[Pauline Maier is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of American History. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1968]

In 1997 Alfred A. Knopf published Maier’s American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence, which I did not read until a year and a half ago for my Constitutional History graduate class. American Scripture was well researched and well written. American Scripture was on the New York Times Book Review editors “Choice” list of the best 11 books of 1997 and a finalist in General Nonfiction for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award. Maier’s most recent work is a fantastic follow up. Her research is simply awesome with as daunting an index as you’ll see that makes Ratification far more impressive than American Script and a book that places Maier in elite company as a constitutional historian. What I love about the book is it nicely fills a void of sorts by not focusing on the Constitutional Convention, but instead ob the complicated and often intricate ratification process where the people did indeed debate and ultimately select the Constitution as the law of the land.

American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence
by Pauline Maier

As an AP US History teacher I find Maier’s work incredibly useful and frankly it will take me years to properly incorporate some of the chapters in the book. In particular I loved the sections about the Virginia and New York ratification process and the depth in which she goes. There is so much in this book that every time you pick it up you will undoubtedly pick up on something new.

From the Publisher:

When the delegates left the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in September 1787, the new Constitution they had written was no more than a proposal. Elected conventions in at least nine of the thirteen states would have to ratify it before it could take effect. There was reason to doubt whether that would happen. The document we revere today as the foundation of our country’s laws, the cornerstone of our legal system, was hotly disputed at the time. Some Americans denounced the Constitution for threatening the liberty that Americans had won at great cost in the Revolutionary War. One group of fiercely patriotic opponents even burned the document in a raucous public demonstration on the Fourth of July.

In this splendid new history, Pauline Maier tells the dramatic story of the yearlong battle over ratification that brought such famous founders as Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Jay, and Henry together with less well-known Americans who sometimes eloquently and always passionately expressed their hopes and fears for their new country. Men argued in taverns and coffeehouses; women joined the debate in their parlors; broadsides and newspaper stories advocated various points of view and excoriated others. In small towns and counties across the country people read the document carefully and knew it well. Americans seized the opportunity to play a role in shaping the new nation. Then the ratifying conventions chosen by We the People scrutinized and debated the Constitution clause by clause.

A top notch book and one destined to pick up some awards down the road in my hopeful opinion.