Close Reading, Open Mind

Arguably the most influential work of American history is Charles A. Beard's "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States," published in 1913. Beard's thesis--that our country was born of base economic self-interest and not idealism--became Holy Writ for many historians and social thinkers, launching a quasi-Marxist critique of the entire American project that persists, in certain corners of the academy, to this day.

If the critique has lost its force--and, luckily, it has--much of the credit belongs to Forrest McDonald, the historian who first took on Beard's analysis. He has now written "Recovering the Past," a bright memoir that illuminates the craft of the historian and provides a spirited account of Mr. McDonald's long-running battle against the unthinking leftist bias that plagues his profession.

A small-town boy, Mr. McDonald attended the University of Texas, where he caught fire intellectually. At 21, he produced a 272-page master's thesis on Beard's "Economic Interpretation," the scope of which amazed his professors. Mr. McDonald now believes this youthful work to be "stunningly puerile," but the audacity of it, combined with Mr. McDonald's careful research, would become the hallmarks of his career.

While working on his doctorate, Mr. McDonald traveled the East Coast in less than opulent circumstances. Near one archive, he recalls: "I drove out to an abandoned field . . . and spent the night in my car; next day I cleaned up at a truck stop and then repeated my day's work at the library." He amassed more than 5,000 pages of notes, which would eventually lead to his dissertation, "We the People," written while he wore "a pistol, for I was moonlighting as a night watchman at a research laboratory to pad my income."

Oh yes, I remember the man and his writing.
Written Statement of Forrest McDonald
It is sometimes said that "high crimes and misdemeanors" was a term of art, but that is not so. A term of art is a phrase that, whatever it may mean to laymen, has a precise and well understood meaning to practitioners of a particular art. By contrast, high crimes and misdemeanors had, according to the leading commentators, at least three different meanings.
FORREST MCDONALD, born Orange, Texas, January 7, 1927...
Born right here in "ma neck o' the woods".

Getting States' Rights Right: A Review of Forrest McDonald's "States' Rights and the Union"
The argument McDonald drives home in his epilogue highlights the theme of the book: The claims of the federal government and the claims of the states have resulted in a tension, sometimes creative and sometimes not, the specifics of which undergo constant reassessment and shifts in balance. A shift toward states' rights has been discernible in recent decades, but within limits much narrower than those advocated by Jefferson and Jackson, not to mention Calhoun. Our Republic arose and has thrived in a constant struggle to effect the most efficacious balance. We would therefore do well to end the petulant, not to say demagogic, categorization of the rival viewpoints as "progressive" or "socialist" and "racist" or "reactionary." Throughout the history of the United States the contending political forces—Federalists and anti-Federalists, Whigs and Democrats, free-soilers and slaveholders, liberals and conservatives—have agreed on the principle of the sovereignty of the people. They have quarreled over the best means for allowing the people, however defined, to express their will, and this has often translated into a quarrel over which level of government best encapsulates that will. Since there is no definite answer to that question, we must live with considerable tension. We need at least to separate the real issue from the spurious—and to do so, we can best begin by reading this outstanding book.

Thanks for posting this. The last lines of the article sum up Forrest McDonald quite nicely. (they're his own words.) Humility is what makes Forrest McDonald such a fine historian. He is very meticulous and contemplative about all his work, and it shows in the end product.

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