Beyond Progressivism: Charles A. Beard's Social Democratic Theory of American Political Development

In one of his last published works, Vernon Louis Parrington authored the introduction to a book entitled The Growth and Decadence of Constitutional Government. In it he endorsed the book's claim that ratification of the U.S. Constitution had been accompanied by “bitter class divisions.” In Parrington's view, the struggle for ratification was accurately described as both a political “clash between aristocracy and democracy” and an economic class struggle “between the greater landed and financial interests and the agrarian interests” of the new republic. He concurred with the author that “the two [struggles] in reality were one.” Hence, he suggested, relative to this historical context, the Constitution should be regarded as “a deliberate and well considered protective measure designed by able men who represented the aristocracy and wealth of America; a class instrument directed against the democracy.”

[1]  P. Paludan.  Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Authority in America, 1859–1877. By Richard Franklin Bensel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xi, 452. $59.50, cloth; $18.95, paper , 1992, The Journal of Economic History.

[2]  C. Barrow.  Counter-movement within the labor movement: Workers' education and the American federation of labor, 1900–1937 , 1990 .

[3]  W. Wagner,et al.  Democracy and Capitalism: Property, Community, and the Contradictions of Modern Social Thought , 1987 .

[4]  Margaret K. Latimer.  American Government and Politics , 1984, American Political Science Review.

[5]  R. Ashcraft.  Political Theory and the Problem of Ideology , 1980, The Journal of Politics.

[6]  R. Ashcraft.  On the Problem of Methodology and the Nature of Political Theory , 1975 .

[7]  Gene Wise.  American Historical Explanations: A Strategy for Grounded Inquiry , 1974 .

[8]  Charles S. Olton.  Philadelphia's Mechanics in the First Decade of Revolution 1765-1775 , 1972 .

[9]  Q. Skinner.  Motives, Intentions and the Interpretation of Texts , 1972 .

[10]  Jesse Lemisch.  Jack Tar in the Streets: Merchant Seamen in the Politics of Revolutionary America , 1968 .

[11]  A. C. Land,et al.  Economic Base and Social Structure: The Northern Chesapeake in the Eighteenth Century , 1965, The Journal of Economic History.

[12]  S. Lynd.  The mechanics in New York politics, 1774–1788 , 1964 .

[13]  J. Main.  Charles A. Beard and the Constitution: A Critical Review of Forrest McDonald's We the People , 1960 .

[14]  Forrest Mcdonald.  We the People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution , 1958 .

[15]  R. B. Morris.  Middle-Class Democracy and the Revolution in Massachusetts, 1691–1780. By Robert E. Brown. (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press for the American Historical Association. 1955. Pp. ix, 458. $6.00.) , 1957 .

[16]  Howard E. Dean.  J. Allen Smith: Jeffersonian Critic of the Federalist State , 1956, American Political Science Review.

[17]  W. A. Williams.  A Note on Charles Austin Beard's Search for a General Theory of Causation , 1956 .

[18]  B. Wilkins.  Charles A. Beard on the Founding of Ruskin Hall , 1956 .

[19]  Robert E. Thomas.  The Virginia Convention of 1788: A Criticism of Beard's An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution , 1953 .

[20]  E. Goldman.  The Origins of Beard's Economic Interpretation of the Constitution , 1952 .

[21]  Liston Pope.  Religion and the Class Structure , 1948 .

[22]  C. Beard,et al.  The American spirit : a study of the idea of civilization in the United States , 1943 .

[23]  A. Berle.  The Liberal Tradition in America , 1943 .

[24]  Richard Hofstadter.  Parrington and the Jeffersonian Tradition , 1941 .

[25]  C. Beard,et al.  Currents of thought in Historiography , 1937 .

[26]  R. Wyckoff,et al.  THE ISOLATION OF A HOMOGENEOUS HEAVY PROTEIN FROM VIRUS-INDUCED RABBIT PAPILLOMAS. , 1937, Science.

[27]  C. Beard.  The Historical Approach to the New Deal , 1934, American Political Science Review.

[28]  R. Longley.  Mob Activities in Revolutionary Massachusetts , 1933 .

[29]  Friedrich Engels,et al.  FROM THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY , 2021, The New Economic Sociology.

[30]  C. Beard.  The myth of rugged American individualism , 1932 .

[31]  Marius Hansome.  World workers' educational movements : their social significance , 1931 .

[32]  R. M. Harper.  SOME NEW LIGHT ON THE INHERITANCE OF LONGEVITY , 1931 .

[33]  F. Frankfurter.  Hours of Labor and Realism in Constitutional Law , 1916 .

[34]  W. Jaggard.  Fire and new-birth , 1914 .

[35]  C. Beard,et al.  An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States , 1913 .

[36]  C. Beard.  The Supreme Court--Usurper or Grantee? , 1912 .

[37]  Louis B. Boudin.  Government by judiciary , 1911 .

[38]  J. Smith.  The spirit of American government , 1911 .

[39]  Roscoe Pound,et al.  LIBERTY OF CONTRACT , 1909 .

[40]  C. Beard.  The Constitution of Oklahoma , 1909 .

[41]  C. Beard,et al.  The American Constitution. , 1908 .

[42]  Walter Clark.  Some Defects In The Constitution Of The United States , 1906 .