Reviews in American History

This is about as seasoned, well-informed, and insightful an account of the “politics and ideas” of the Founding Era (ca. 1786–1791) as we are likely to have for a long time. Rakove, the author of a fine history of the Continental Congress, is the acknowledged master of the politics of that often baffling body, a foundation he has used effectively for this study, which takes up about where that one left off. Rakove provides the first account of the great acts of drafting, ratifying, and establishing the new Constitution that sees them as part and parcel of the political life of the new nation, rather than as a sort of mythic event, a providential “Miracle at Philadelphia” with momentous and improbable consequences. If a reader wants an accurate, nuanced account of such events as what led to the calling of the Federal Convention, how and why decisions on particular points were made in the Convention, and then the flow of the ratification debate, this book is the place to look.

Rakove, though, makes the book much more than a narrative of the what and why of events (“politics”). Carefully interweaving this account with an explanation of the “idea” component of the Founding, he answers the vital question “What was on the minds of those who drafted, ratified, and opposed the Constitution?” Although not a landmark intellectual history in the mode of a J. G. A. Pocock or Bernard Bailyn, Original Meanings nonetheless takes ideas seriously and, blended with the politics, creates a genre of its own that goes a long way toward resolving, or perhaps dissolving, the hoary question of the role of ideas in history. As Rakove asserts, the book “pursues [his] deeper agenda as a historian,” a study of “the interplay between politics and political thought” (p. xvi).

Rakove’s account of the Convention itself is detailed and sure-footed as it shows how “the framers granted concessions to every interest that had a voice in Philadelphia” (p. 57), while at the same time sustaining the basic republican principles of personal liberty and political freedom articulated by [End Page 386] George Mason, James Wilson, and others. Both the great compromises of the Convention, that between the large and the small states over representation in the House of Representatives and in the Senate and that between defenders of slavery and those seeking easy congressional regulation of commerce, were true compromises that made “a sacrifice of moral principle to attain a tangible political end” (p. 93). Thus Rakove, agreeing with Wilson and Madison, sees the acceptance of “a vicious principle of representation” (p. 93) in granting state equality in the Senate as a step necessary for ultimately securing ratification by all the states. And though Rakove acknowledges some of the recent, vehement condemnation of the compromise over slavery as, in William Lloyd Garrison’s ringing phrase, “a covenant with death and an agreement with Hell” (p. 58), he argues as well that “a constitution that struck a serious blow at slavery would never survive the hurdles of ratification” (p. 93). On the whole, Rakove endorses what he sees as necessary and not dishonorable concessions of principle while he also fully recognizes the tragic and still not entirely resolved consequences of the compromises. With deep-learning and careful analysis the author shows how and why these provisions emerged from the deliberations at Philadelphia in 1787. In explaining these emergences, moreover, Rakove keeps in view and demonstrates how Mason, though a southern slaveholder, nonetheless, condemned the institution as inconsistent with republican principles, how Roger Sherman though a defender of small state interests, also believed deeply in sustaining the vitality of state and local government, and how Wilson, though keen on upholding national control of commerce, also understood profoundly how and why enlarged executive power, if broadly based, was entirely consistent with the principle of government by consent. Over and over again, intricately and convincingly, Rakove explains what he insists is the significant...