Name: The Constitutional Convention
ISBN: 9780812975178

What Hacker News says

ameister14Aug 2018

Virginia threw its support behind this plan because it was the best possible constitutional plan available. Madison was pushing for a stronger National government at the time but being blocked, and as a part of that national government, he was advocating the Senate have the ability to essentially veto state laws - remember that there was no Judicial Review in the system at the time.

So for the Senate to have that power, they needed to have equal representation from each state otherwise populous states would have too much influence on the internal government of other states.

That's part of it, anyway. It's more complicated and I'd recommend you read Madison's notes on the Constitutional Convention if you're really curious.

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alankay1May 2016

Life is too short period!

Just to remind again that the list was for people in business -- they were quite intelligent, had college degrees, but were not well read or "broad". They were very goal-oriented, and I think they did not use school or college for "general education". I tried to pick books that would be assessable and useful for them.

So no "Das Kapital" or other political tracts. I would have put in Madison's Notes on the Constitutional Convention, and many other political writings for a different audience.

I didn't really include much if anything primary about Philosophy (again, that wasn't the point for this group).

And, now that we are discussing this, I now recall that the original list (it was an email) was not just expanded by I know not whom into the pictorial form on the web, but has also been edited a bit. The most important changes are from sentences like "Anything by Bertrand Russell" and "Anything by Jerome Bruner" etc. to the individual books (as subsets). However, I don't recall what I did say about Plato ...

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geofftDec 2021

This is certainly not true! Many, many people from more than a century ago opposed racism and bigotry. It's just that many powerful people in recent years supported it and want you to believe that racism and bigotry was (and still is) a normal and defensible thing.

Most obviously - there were a lot of people from non-dominant races (in various times and places) in history! We have writings from Olaudah Equiano, for instance, that confirm that he did not believe in the common racism and bigotry of his time, and there were many thousands like him that didn't write anything down either.

But even among the races benefiting from racism, we have writings of people opposing it, too.

Here, for instance, are excerpts from journal entries of Bp. Thomas Coke, one of the founders of Methodism in the US, written in 1785:

> At night I lodged at the house of Captain Dillard, a most hospitable man, and as kind to his negroes as if they were white servants. It was quite pleasing to see them so decently and comfortably clothed. And yet I could not beat into the head of that poor man the evil of keeping them in slavery, although he has read Mr. Wesley's thoughts on slavery, (I think he said) three times over, : but his good wife is strongly on our side.)

> I preached the late Colonel Bedford's funeral sermon. But I said nothing good of him, for he was a violent friend of slavery, and his interest being great among the Methodists in these parts, he would have been a dreadful thorn in our sides, if the Lord had not in mercy taken him away.

And here is Gouverneur Morris, one of the Founding Father, debating in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention the merits of the Three-Fifths Compromise, as recorded in James Madison's notes:

> Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them Citizens and let them vote. Are they property? Why then is no other property included? [...] The admission of slaves into the Representation when fairly explained comes to this: that the inhabitant of Georgia and S. C. who goes to the Coast of Africa, and in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity tears away his fellow creatures from their dearest connections & damns them to the most cruel bondages, shall have more votes in a Govt. instituted for protection of the rights of mankind, than the Citizen of Pa. or N. Jersey who views with a laudable horror, so nefarious a practice.

What you see in these writings is a belief that there is no moral distinction to be made between white and black, that slavery is in fact an outrage, and no defense of it can be made based on race. What you see, simply, is opposition to racism.

This is what some successful and powerful and praiseworthy people - bishops and founding fathers - believed in the 1700s.

You don't know this, of course, because the people who make statues and stained glass windows aren't excited about sharing that history.

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ameister14Jul 2020

Federal supervision of state powers, while not explicitly outlined in the constitution, has been developing based on the commerce and supremacy clauses since the Civil War. We do not currently live in a strict constructionist country, and frankly that type of government is significantly flawed. Madison correctly pointed this out during the Constitutional Convention, and while his negative was not put in, it was later taken up by the Supreme Court as judicial review.

I would argue that the death knell for the state's rights reading of the Constitution was the Civil War. It's fairly clear that the development of the government post-war, especially illustrated by the punishments levied against the southern states, created a national government rather than a federation of allied parties.

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alanwattsFeb 2016

>In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.

-James Madison, Constitutional Convention (1787-06-29)

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laotzuNov 2015

>In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.

-James Madison, Speech, Constitutional Convention (1787-06-29)

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