The Constitution was written by the people with money, such as wealthy landowners, merchants, creditors, and slaveholders. These men wanted to protect their property and power. In 6.1 article points out that only about 10% of white men could even vote, while women, Native Americans, enslaved people, servants, and poor white men without land were excluded. Also in article 6.2, it notes that small farmers and people who owe money, who made up much of society, had no say in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think the class structure back then was both different and the same as today. In 1787, whole groups were legally blocked from voting, which is not the case now. But money and wealth still play a huge role in politics today, so in that sense, the big divide\u00a0between rich and poor continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The framers feared democracy because they saw it as giving power to the poor majority. Shays\u2019s Rebellion showed them how farmers could rise against taxes and debt. Madison even said the unequal distribution of property would always cause conflict. To keep their wealth safe, the framers built in protections like the Senate, the Electoral College, and property restrictions, so the system would look democratic but still favor the ones with money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Constitution was written by the people with money, such as wealthy landowners, merchants, creditors, and slaveholders. These men wanted to protect their property and power. In 6.1 article points out that only about 10% of white men could even vote, while women, Native Americans, enslaved people, servants, and poor white men without land were…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10728,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion-board-6-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10728"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11574,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11573\/revisions\/11574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-0508-fall-2025-introduction-to-american-government\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}