Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
AN ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
PREFACE
The following pages are frankly fragmentary. Theyare designed to suggest new lines of historical researchrather than to treat the subject in an exhaustive fashion.This apology is not intended as an anticipation of thecriticism of reviewers, but as a confession of fact. Noone can appreciate more fully than I do how much of thework here outlined remains to be done. The records ofthe Treasury Department at Washington, now used forthe first time in connection with a study of the formationof the Constitution, furnish a field for many years’ research,to say nothing of the other records, printed andunprinted, which throw light upon the economic conditionsof the United States between 1783–1787.
If it be asked why such a fragmentary study is printednow, rather than held for the final word, my explanationis brief. I am unable to give more than an occasionalperiod to uninterrupted studies, and I cannot expect,therefore, to complete within a reasonable time the surveywhich I have made here. Accordingly, I print it in thehope that a few of this generation of historical scholarsmay be encouraged to turn away from barren “political”history to a study of the real economic forces which conditiongreat movements in politics.
Students already familiar with the field here surveyedwill discover that I have made full use of the suggestivework already done by Professor Turner, Drs. Libby,Ambl