Const

The American Revolutionary war ended in 1784. There was economic depression. Berkin writes that the Continental Congress "faced a host of angry creditors, foreign and domestic, clamoring for repayment of wartime loans." The Continental Congress had no means to put money into the empty federal treasury, its source of revenue being the generosity of the states. Relations between the states were poor, and many questioned whether they would remain united. "A profound localism," writes Berkin, "still trumped any embryonic identity as 'Americans.'" In 1786, writes Berkin, men from every state "agreed that a serious crisis had settled upon the nation. The question was could they do anything to save their country." Berkin tells in her 200 pages of most readable text the story of the attempt: the Constitutional Convention to revise the Articles of Confederation. In other words, the creation of the U.S. Constitution.

Berkin presents the framers of the constitution – the fifty-five delegates to the convention – as real people, as men of their time, as men of the hierarchical eighteenth century rather than men with twenty-first century sensibilities. They did not discuss any need to end slavery or equality for women. Jefferson, in France at the time, described the framers as "demigods." But Berkin is skeptical. She is an historian, working with documents that tell of realities. She is not interested in putting them on pedestals as others have or influenced by the spin of those who have described the founders as men working with the godly attribute of clairvoyance.

Most of the delegates were lawyers, which, writes Berkin, "may explain the verbosity on the convention floor." Most of them were born into wealth "although a minority had risen from obscurity to wealth by virtue of some combination of talent, luck, and well-made marriages." None of the delegates, writes Berkin was "a man of ordinary means, a yeoman farmer, a shopkeeper, a sailor or a laborer." She adds: "Few if...