Keywords
Book Review, Constitutional Rights, Consitution, Founding Fathers
Abstract
In the twenty-first century America, it is nearly impossible to open a newspaper or turn on the television without hearing talk of "Constitutional rights." But what did the Founding Fathers think about rights? What would Thomas Jefferson or James Madison say about the state of American political affairs today? Beeman's exhaustive analysis of the 1787 Constitutional Convention attempts to answer these questions. Beeman asks the reader to set aside long-held preconceptions of the founding of the United States and journey through the four-month assembly that constructed a nation from the rubble of the American Revolution. This book marks not only a significant change in the history of the study of the Convention and the Founding Fathers, but it also questions the very foundations of American history and political philosophy, asking the reader to consider: to what end was this "political experiment" undertaken? Plain, Honest Men raises provocative questions about America's past-questions whose answers are still important to consider today.
Recommended Citation
Nagaishi, Garrett
(2014)
"Beeman, Richard. Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution,"
The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing: Vol. 43:
Iss.
1, Article 11.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thetean/vol43/iss1/11
Included in
Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, History Commons, Medieval Studies Commons, Religion Commons