Plain, Honest Men
Book description
In May 1787, in an atmosphere of crisis, delegates met in Philadelphia to design a radically new form of government. Distinguished historian Richard Beeman captures as never before the dynamic of the debate and the characters of the men who labored that historic summer. Virtually all of the issues in…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Plain, Honest Men as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
What’s fascinating about the making of the Constitution is how every point the framers debated in 1787 rang down through the ensuing years.
Should a state’s power be determined by its land size and resources—or the size of its population? Should we abolish slavery, or pass the buck to another generation? Who should get the right to vote—rich men or all men? Deciding these big three questions consumed much of the squabbles, and led to compromise. State’s rights, for example, led to creation of the bicameral structure of Congress.
The slavery question ultimately led to war in the 19th century,…
From Joseph's list on the creation of the U.S. Constitution.
Even after stripping away the mythology that has persistently surrounded it, the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 remains one of the most remarkable events in political history. There are, unsurprisingly, many books that tell its tale, but in my judgment Plain, Honest Men is the best of them, both because it is the most comprehensive and because it does the best job of giving the reader a real sense of what it was like to be there. Beeman’s Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor does something similar for the independence movement.
From Dennis' list on American founders from a political theorist.
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