In Brief: American History [Book review of Constitution's Signers]

Wall St Journal ^ | 9-24-11 | Charles S. Dameron

[Pharmboy]

Mark Twain's aphorism that "there is no distinctly native American criminal class—except Congress" sums up a long-standing national contempt for public servants. Generally the Founding Fathers are exempt from such derision, making it tempting to believe that America's first politicians were of a more pristine character than our present-day scalawags. Not so, suggest Denise Kiernan and Joseph D'Agnese in "Signing Their Rights Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the United States Constitution," which offers brief vignettes of all 39 signatories to the nation's founding document and shows that for every great name there were at least a few scoundrels.

Take William Blount of North Carolina, a notorious land speculator who disappeared with £300,000 in military payroll during his time as a commissary agent for the Continental Army. His shady Western land deals did not prevent him from serving as a member of the Continental Congress, as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and later as one of Tennessee's first two senators. In 1797, Blount was caught organizing an alliance between the Cherokees and the British to conquer Spanish-held West Florida. Charged with treason and conspiracy by the Senate, he was the first U.S. senator to be impeached and removed from office.

Signing Their Rights Away

By Denise Kiernan and Joseph D'Agnese Quirk, 254 pages, $19.95

[Pharmboy]

Looks interesting...

[Pharmboy]

Might be a good purchase to keep in mind for a Patriot's birthday or Christmas present...

The ReveWar/Colonial History/General Washington ping list...

[metesky]

Interesting.

The warts on some and/or all of the Founding generation make the writing and passing of the Constitution all the more remarkable. imo.

[EDINVA]

Definitely on the to-buy list!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Thanks, PB. Added to my reading list.

If you haven't done so, be sure to read:

1. "Miracle At Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention May - September 1787" by Catherine Drinker Bowen
2. "The Business of May Next: James Madison and the Founding" by William Lee Miller

Highly recommended.

  --POF

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Thanks Pharmboy. Ancestor of Al Gore? In 1797, Blount was caught organizing an alliance between the Cherokees and the British to conquer Spanish-held West Florida. Charged with treason and conspiracy by the Senate, he was the first U.S. senator to be impeached and removed from office. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[Little Bill]

The left uses those warts to denigrate the Freedoms that we were guaranteed under the Constitution. I am waiting for my Grand kiddies to start arguing politics, laying like a snake in the grass, as my old man used to say when he held a slam in bridge.

[Jacquerie]

So our Framers and the State ratifying conventions signed our rights away? Bull.

Rather than a book that magnifies the failings of the people of the Constitutional Convention, how about a book that describes the foibles and persons of the radical leftist judges of the appellate and supreme courts?

I doubt there is a book that in similar, direct fashion, identifies the justices who tossed our freedoms away, for these are the people who should be held in derision, not our Framers.

How about this from a Saint of the Left, Justice Thurgood Marshall, “You guys have been practicing discrimination for years. Now it is out turn.”

Rather than denigrate our Framers, a more timely and helpful book would be a history of the abuse of raw governmental power to regulate every detail of our lives under the court's rewrite of the commerce clause.

A country cannot be any better than its people, and the people were far more protective of their rights in 1787.