“Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution”, by Richard Beeman

544 pages, Random House, ISBN-13: 978-0812976847

Who knew that a book on political debates and controversies could also be entertaining as well as enlightening? But that’s just what Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution by Richard Beeman is: a day-by-day and issue-by-issue record about the writing of the American Constitution that actually is enjoyable as all heck. No, really: Beeman has done the impossible by making a lot of lawyers, politicians, philosophers and such seem human. As Beeman states, the original 13 Colonies was little more than a league of sovereign states, governed by the Articles of Confederation who, after the Revolutionary War had been won, had very little incentive to cooperate with one another. But many of the leading citizens of these would-be nations were concerned that these states’ contradictions and vulnerabilities would ultimately lead to conflict with the world or, worse, with one another. It was a real dilemma: how to create a more perfect union while respecting the sovereignty of the States and We the People.

Without question the main mover and shaker behind the creation of a Constitutional Convention to amend - read: replace - the Articles of Confederation was James Madison of Virginia, and his 15-point “Virginia Plan” was his blueprint to do so. From there, these 55 men formed a new government (yes; all white men, some even slaveholders, wrote our Constitution; would that it were not so, but there you are). Not only did they have the knowledge, learning and wherewithal to do so, they had the political cojones to realize that nobody would get everything they wanted, and so compromise was the order of the day. By doing so, they ensured that the proceedings wouldn’t collapse before they began. From the Connecticut Compromise - which created the bicameral Congress - to the 3/5ths Compromise - which counted three out of every five slaves as a free citizen for the purpose of representation in the House - the wheels kept rolling and the work got done. But these Compromises were not without cost: while enslavement of blacks by whites was not confined to America in the 18th Century, Beeman cannot help but fault the Founders for allowing over two-hundred thousand Africans to be imported as slaves over the next twenty years, as it led to the South gaining political and economic power in excess of their actual worth, factors that led directly to the American Civil War.

The notion of “Original Intent” must needs arise in any discussion about the creation of the Constitution; the Framer’s mindsets are important when it comes to any discussion as to what this clause or that amendment meant when it comes to deciphering what was desired by the wording (although I, for one, think that most of the words are clear as crystal). It is evident indeed that there were many intents that were fused in the making of the Constitution and which reflected the thinking of the times. It is equally clear that it was, in part, a flawed document, created by flawed (though brilliantly so) men. Certainly, its concessions to slavery put the nation on a course to Civil War, and several constitutional crises have resulted from its ambiguity in its stipulations for selecting presidents. Having said that, Beeman holds that the Constitution deserves veneration as an extraordinary document, but those feelings should not prevent us from properly addressing the tremendous changes in our society that place many of our principles concerning freedom and equality for every man in some jeopardy. Compromise made our country; imperfect, regrettable but necessary compromise in which some hard choices were faced then while other, even harder decisions were put off for later, when the country was more mature and able to make those hard choices (The Civil War interrupted this process).

Plain, Honest Men is Richard Beeman’s complete and riveting tale of the Summer of ’87 (that would by 1787) in Philadelphia when a group of plain, honest men met to create a new government for the fledgling United States of America. Beeman tells how the delegates met with divergent ideas on what needed to be done, from minor revisions to the Articles of Confederation to a totally new plan of governing; about the backgrounds and careers of the principal actors; about the details the bumpy path they traveled together to produce the final Constitution of the United States. Beeman tells his tale with skill and care to show that some fifty delegates, although disagreeing violently at times, were able to compromise and reason their way together.