Mittal, Rakove, and Weingast on The Constitutional Choices of 1787 and Their Consquences

Sonia Mittal, Yale University Law School, Jack N. Rakove, Stanford University, and Barry R. Weingast, Stanford University Department of Political Science, have published The Constitutional Choices of 1787 and their Consequences in Founding Choices: American Economic Policy in the 1790s, edited by Irwin Douglass and Richard Sylla, National Bureau of Economic Research (2011)

The choices made in the creation of a constitution have immediate political results and, often enough, lasting economic consequences. That, at least, is the overall thesis of this book, which examines the economic significance of the Federal Constitution drafted at Philadelphia in the late spring and summer of 1787. The Constitution occupies so large a place in our collective understanding of American history and politics, is so vital a symbol of national identity, that it is difficult to recall that the American federal republic might easily have evolved along alternative paths. Of course, it is well known that some matters were hotly contested in 1787, such as the disputes over representation that preoccupied the Convention for the first seven weeks of debate, and that others, notably the absence of a declaration of fundamental rights, became objects of public controversy as soon as the Constitution was submitted to a sovereign people for ratification. But to emphasize the big dramatic issues – the purported “great compromise” over representation, the assuaging of Anti-Federalist doubts with the proposal of a “bill of rights” – is still only to confirm what a heroic episode it all was. The other contingent choices that set the Convention on its course, or that gave the Constitution its essential character, remain obscure.

Download the chapter from SSRN at the link.