The Making of the Constitution

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what they considered to be for the greater good of the union of the nation. This reform caucus served completely to reform the government, without the intent to influence or bend the Constitution to their desire. Roche does not deny that the founding fathers may have had motives that factored into the creation of the Constitution. The idea of the Constitution was not an impeccable conception but they had motives. Which had no effect on the appearance; it was not the incentive of the convention. This convention stood to balance many different and opposing interests in order to create a nation. So in order to succeed and create a single nation, there was a need to compromise. The proof behind John Roche idea lay within the Great Compromise which was the compromise between states and nationalists. This significant, well known compromise served to create a two branch legislation, the Senate and House of Representatives. As well as the ⅗ Compromise, regarding the representation of slaves being equal to ⅗ of a person. In the lower House of Representatives and the Compromise which created the Bill of Rights, served in favor of anti-federalists who preferred state rights and a weaker central government. So the Constitution is a bundle of compromise representing pluralism many groups getting together, without one group taking control and cancelling one another out.

Richard Hofstadter contends in his article “The Founding Fathers: An Age of Realism” that the founding fathers did indeed have an agenda. The agenda was to create a balanced government one taken from the ideas of Montesquieu, with the intention to reveal distrust of the rich minority and the poor majority. The creators of the Constitution were persistent followers of Hobbes philosophy. It is the philosophy that human nature is selfish; man cannot be trusted, only the power of a proper and just constitution could control man. The founders, however, recognized that they could not alter human nature to create a more ideal Constitution. Therefore, the Constitution added acceptable numbers of checks and balance to limit the power of any special interest. For example, The Contract and Commerce Clauses intended to strengthen the central government in order to defend the property rights of the rich from the poor, the Bill of Rights defends individuals against the powerful central government, and the president is representative of the nation as a whole and has the ability to veto bills created by the legislature. The president is selected by the electoral system, not directly by the majority.

In conclusion, John Roche article attempts to expose Beard’s source credibility. Beard relied heavily on the details provided from the Federalist Papers about the motivation of the founding fathers. Roche argues that the strict interpretation that Charles Beard borrowed from the Federalist Papers was incorrect. The Papers were a source of marketing which reflected the political ideals that members of the convention created it was simply regressive literature, a reflection of the ideas that went into the development of the Constitution. John Roche provided an cognet reasonable understanding behind the advancement t and motivations that went into creating the United States Constitution.