Lesson
Argumentation: Self-Interest or Republicanism?
Founding Principles
Natural/Inalienable Rights, Representative / Republican Government, Checks and Balances
Virtues
Learning objectives
- Students will be able to evaluate competing explanations of the motives of the Constitution’s framers by reading a scholarly analysis of those interpretations and answering questions to evaluate and compare them.
- Students will reflect on the historian’s process for creating an argument by examining and evaluating the data.
Materials
- Handout A: Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States 1913
- Handout B: Essay: What Principles Motivated the Founders: Economic Self-Interest or Republicanism?
- Students need access to computers or mobile devices for the Warm-Up Activity.
Lesson Components
Excerpted text from Charles A. Beard's "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States" that asks students to evaluate his arguments for the motivation of the Framers.
Lesson plan
More Information
This lesson asks students to consider the ways historians interpret the motives of the framers of the U.S. Constitution. It is recommended that students are familiar with the context and figures involved at the Constitutional Convention before participating in this activity.
- Handout A: Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States 1913
- Handout B: Essay: What Principles Motivated the Founders: Economic Self-Interest or Republicanism?
Standards
Advanced Placement
- Topic 3.8 · The Constitutional Convention and Debates over Ratification
- Theme · Politics and Power
- Learning Objective · Unit 3I
- Historical Development · 3.2.II.C.i
- Historical Development · 3.2.II.D
- Reasoning Skill · Developments and Processes
- Reasoning Skill · Sourcing and Situation
- Reasoning Skill · Claims and Evidence in Sources
- Reasoning Skill · Contextualization
- Reasoning Skill · Argumentation
- Reasoning Process · Comparison
Check whether this resource aligns with your state’s standards →
Related materials
After the Constitution was completed and signed by 39 delegates on September 17, 1787, many of the debates from Independence Hall continued in the debate over ratification in the states. For the Constitution to go into effect, nine of them would have to ratify (or agree to adopt) it. A party division arose: Federalists argued in favor of ratification, Anti-Federalists against. Leading Federalists James Madison and Alexander Hamilton made a case for ratification in the Federalist Papers. Leading Anti-Federalists Patrick Henry and George Mason (the latter who had attended the Convention but refused to sign the final document) argued that the central government created by the Constitution would be a threat to liberty.
Why were some Americans opposed to the Constitution?
