1. Based on the readings, the Constitution was primarily written by and for the wealthy elite class of early American society, including large landowners, merchants, bankers, and other men of property and means. This group, described as “gentlemen,” were creditors interested in protecting their possessions and economic interests. Examples include wealthy men who owned vast land grants and estates and merchants and bankers controlling commerce and industry. In contrast, the class excluded from participating in the constitutional process encompassed small farmers, artisans, tenants, laborers, indentured servants, women, African Americans (both enslaved and free), Native Americans, and white males without sufficient property. One of the main reasons why these working-class poor people could not be a part of writing the Constitution is that they didn’t have the privilege to take four months off of work to go to Philadelphia. So, “The debate between haves and have-nots never took place.”
2. The social class structure of early US society appears to have been more stark and rigid compared to today. However, there are noticeable similarities between early US society and today’s US society regarding social class structure. Reading 5.1 shows that “By 1700, three-fourths of the acreage in New York belonged to fewer than a dozen persons. In the interior of Virginia, seven individuals owned over 1.7 million acres. By 1760, fewer than five hundred men in five colonial cities controlled
most of the commerce, shipping, banking, mining, and manufacturing on the eastern seaboard.” A similar situation can still be witnessed in our society. If we compare this with reading 5.2 from last week where it says, “The top 1 percent own between 40 and 50 percent of the nation’s total wealth (stocks, bonds, investment funds, land, natural resources, business assets, and so on), more than the combined wealth of the bottom 90 percent. True, about 40 percent of families own some stocks or bonds, but almost all have investments of less than $2,000. Considering their debts and mortgages, 90 percent of American families have little or no net assets.” Indeed, society has improved today compared to the early US in terms of equal rights, slavery, and property requirements for voting. But it is also true that even today, the wealthy class possesses the power to influence politics to maintain their status and wealth and create more opportunities for themselves where most Americans suffer to meet necessities. Based on that, I would say that, for the most part, the social class structure of early United States society was the same as ours today.
3. The framers of the Constitution deeply feared democracy, primarily due to their concerns about protecting the interests of the wealthy class from the demands of the poorer majority. This is evident in James Madison’s writings in Federalist No. 10, where he states that “the most common and durable source of faction has been the various and unequal distribution of property.” Madison and his peers were worried about how to “secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time preserve the spirit and form of popular government.” The readings argue that their fear of democracy was fundamentally rooted in class interests. They deliberately designed a system to protect their property and economic privileges from potential redistribution or debt relief measures that a truly democratic system might enact. Their goal was to maintain the existing social and economic hierarchy while providing just enough of the appearance of popular governance to secure legitimacy.
