August 05, 2004

Founding Coup?

My eyes popped open, and the first word to come out of my mouth was, "Wow," when I read this brief on Gary North's newest book. Here's what shocked me:

The book’s thesis is, even for me, controversial. I provide 400+ pages of evidence that the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was in fact an illegal coup d’état. The participants knew this. This is why they took a lifetime oath of secrecy, walked upstairs to the second floor of the State House (so that eavesdroppers could not report what was going on), closed the doors, and hammered out the design for a replacement government. Newspaper reporters were excluded.

These men had been authorized by Congress and by several state legislatures only to revise the Articles of Confederation (1781), but not replace them. Knowing full well that they planned to replace the Articles with a new form of government, the leaders of the Convention nevertheless agreed to the terms laid down by the state legislatures, and then went off to Philadelphia to begin the first stage of a political revolution.

I'm granting that North has much more knowledge of that time period than I. However, I know one thing that harms his thesis: the states had to ratify the new constitution. If it was a coup, it was the most democratic coup in world history. Since I've dealt with these paleos before, I expect North's defenders to enlighten me on how I'm wrong.

"Conspiracy in Philadelphia"