One of the good things about being on the State Bar's Litigation Section Council is that we often help in getting speakers for the annual meeting, and as a result we often get these speakers for dinner the night before they speak. Last month I had the enjoyable experience of sharing a table with Dr. Beeman and hearing some of his thoughts about his new book on the Constitutional Convention in addition to hearing him speak on the subject during the meeting.
I just finished the book (graciously inscribed to a "plain, honest lawyer" by the author at another party we attended) and really enjoyed it. I knew practically nothing about the CC before reading it, and found while reading it that I also knew practically nothing about the Confederation period and how badly, hopelessly screwed up it was - and how bereft of role models or tested ideas the guys that showed up at this thing were. In addition to enormous regional differences and obligations to their respective states that were almost crippling at best, the delegates had drastically different ideas on what form a new government should take. Add to that the startling (to me) realization that this was not remotely a "democracy" meaning a rule explicitly by the people, nor was it really intended to be. The founders had a republic, meaning not a monarchy, but it was only marginally democratic, and really far more intended to be a aristocracy of merit, where large property owners would come together to rule for the benefit of the mass of people, but without the inconvenience of actual, direct, input.
The House was to be elected by popular vote, true, by senators were elected by state legislatures and were not proportionally representative, and the "president" (whatever the hell that institution was going to be) was selected by this unbelievably complicated indirect "electoral college" mechanism. So you had a republic, but it was only moderately democratic at the outset (and even that much was hotly contested).
What was really interesting to me was that, in addition to a healthy measure of elitism (and I won't even get into the debates over how slaves were to be included) the reason for the distrust of the general public actually had a somewhat logical basis given the times - the fear that given the nation's large size and the paucity of communications there was no way that the public could be expected to be informed about candidates outside their states. If that was true, then how can you expect the public to cast an informed ballot on something like a "president"? (The delegates even thought that representatives elected for more than a few tens of thousand of people would not be close enough to the people for effective representation). Well, you pick intermediaries or presidential "electors" who are presumably better informed, and you let them decide. Fortunately, the public soon became well-enough educated on such issues that the provincial bias the framers feared seems to have disappeared pretty quickly, replaced by regional and ideological beliefs than were far broader, and meant that debates over candidates became over ideas and issues, and not merely state citizenship, and the electors quickly became proxies (except in rare instances) for the popular vote. Similarly, the intense fears of large vs. small state rivalries were ill-founded, and soon replaced by regional blocs (north v. south, slaveholding v. nonslaveholding).
It was just fascinating watching the delegates come up with these ideas and debate them efficiently and effectively. And speaking of the debate, I've never read much about George Washington, but Beeman reiterates that he was here as in so many other places the one indispensable man whose prestige lent the convention's work much-needed credibility. He also served as the model for the presidency - that much is certain - and reassured many that they would at least have a chance of making this elected monarch thing work.
All in all, an enjoyable book, and one that taught me a lot.
