Before we leave this thread entirely, may I suggest one other book which proved a helpful resource some years ago, because it contained great quotations, was well organized, and contained some good info on more contemporary historians such as Beard and his faulty "economic history." Long cites info about Beard's own admissions about the work, none of which were ever publicized to the generations who had been classroom hostages of his less-than-accurate portrayals of the Founders.
It is "The American Ideal of 1776," by Hamilton Abert Long, first published in 1963, and republished for the 1776 Bicentennial.