Abstract:
In a 1913 publication, Dr. Charles Beard proposed that the ratification of the United States constitution marked a class division in support of this document with wealthy property owners at the forefront of creating and approving the document while poorer citizens and the working-class were not represented fairly in constitutional debates. To analyze this thesis, the author of this piece compares Beard's findings against the historic data from North Carolina's Hillsboro Convention to look at the economic interests of the state's Federalists.