PS 201 |
Introduction to US Politics |
Joseph Boland |
Fall, 1998 |
The Constitution: Discussion Questions
October 5, 1998
Versions of these questions were presented in class on Monday, October 6. By addressing
specific features of the Constitution, the Constitutional Convention, and the ratification
process, they suggest issues that could be raised in answering the two more general
questions listed in the syllabus:
Suppose you were a small farmer in Massachusetts in the 1780s. Would you
have voted to ratify the Constitution? Why or why not? Was the Constitution the best
possible outcome, or could the founders have devised a better system of government?
- With regard to Beard's criticisms and Brown's rebuttal in Points of View:
- How reliably is economic position linked with the politics of Constitutional design-does
latter follow from former? In other words, is it fair to assume that the upper-class
framers of the Constitution designed it to protect their economic interests at the expense
of other sectors of society?
- How democratic or undemocratic was the ratification process. How did/does this affect
its legitimacy?
- Does/did the Constitution afford protection to elite economic interests? If so, how?
- Were/are the Constitutional constraints on majority rule necessary to protect minorities
and to insulate governmental decision-making from momentary passions and uninformed
opinions?
- Was Madison's notion of politics as regulated contention among diverse interests a
better choice for the nation than the AntiFederalist emphasis on politics as a search for
the common good?
- Was preservation of the Union worth the compromise that allowed slavery to continue? Was
there any third way, or was the choice as stark as it appears?
- Would an expansion of the powers to the national government under the existing
confederation of the states have been a workable alternative to the Constitutional design?
- How might different social actors--farmers, merchants, women, etc.--have viewed the
Constitution at the time of ratification?
- Would a more numerous House (several hundred representatives each representing 10,000 or
fewer citizens) with stronger powers have been preferable to the smaller House (each
representative representing 30,000 or more citizens) with lesser powers that the
Constitution established? In other words, would a legislature modeled on the republicanism
of the AntiFederalists been preferable to the one actually created? To carry this further,
would a unicameral (one house) legislature be preferable to the bicameral one chosen?