A Minority Document Charles Beard Essay

In The Constitution: A Minority Document Charles Beard argues that the Constitution was written by a group of people who had certain specific economic and political interests. Beard states that the Constitution didn’t reflect the interests of the general population. Beards mentions that the framers largest fear was the corruption of a democratic government. Those with out property were usually excluded from voting, and elections often occurred indirectly to limit the power of the uneducated public. The Constitution was intended to get rid of the character of evil. Beard also states that the Convention members knew from their personal economic affairs the precise results which the new government that they were setting up was designed to attain. It also ensures a division of society into different interests and party’s. Beard also writes that Madison makes the underlying political science of constitution in the tenth number. Here he lays down, in no uncertain language, the principle that the first and elemental concern of every government is economic. The first objective of government is the protection of the diversity in the faculties of men from which the rights of property originate. The most common source of factions is the unequal distribution of property. An unequal distribution of property is inevitable, and from its contending factions will rise in the state. To secure the public good the contending classes cannot be eliminated and their interests are bound to be reflected in politics, the only way out lies in making it difficult for enough contending interests to fuse into a majority.