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What Are The Framers Of The Constitution By Alfred Youth

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“The Framers of the Constitution and the ‘Genius’ of the People” written by Alfred E. Young is an article which was originally written in a newspaper called In These Times. In his article he explains the process the delegates went through at the constitutional convention and how revolutionary this moment in our history was. They were the first to form a totally new form of government and to do it in a way that didn’t involve much dispute. Delegates were originally called to revise the Article of Confederation but instead they decided to frame and entirely new document, the Constitution. The Framers wanted to create something completely unlike the monarchy they came from. They went in to the Constitutional Convention with the intent to unite …show more content…

His rhetoric and tone is formal, straightforward, and reflective. His purpose was to explain what an amazing feat it was that these delegates got together and were able to create something so different and revolutionary, that has never been seen before in history. Young explains to his readers how important the “people” and their “genius” was in shaping and influencing the words of the writers of the Constitution. He explains “genius” as “a word eighteenth-century political thinkers used to mean spirit: we may say character or underlying values.” (Young 10) The framers knew that the people would be completely opposed to anything resembling the British government. Alfred Young includes a quote from a wealthy planter in Maryland, Charles Carroll, where he is explaining that citizens need to “submit to partial loses because no great revolution can happen in a state without revolutions or mutations to private property.”(Young 13)The significance of this quote is to show that even though the framers wanted to appeal to everyone ideas it just wasn’t possible, however they were able to give their citizens a document that united their country and outlines their rights as a citizen of that …show more content…

The most influential ghost was Thomas Paine, writer of Common Sense. And Young points out that the basis of his pamphlet was to offer a “vision of a democratic government in which a single legislature would be supreme, the executive minimal, and representatives would be elected from small districts by a broad electorate…”. (Young 11) Young includes the delegates references to the ghosts of their history in order to show not only how much the writers took into consideration, but how much they actually implemented from their past radical elites. By including these blurbs into history, Young is able to show his reader in even more depth the significance of other people when the constitution was being discussed. He wanted to make sure he filled his article with as many facts and background as he could. By explaining his points with support from actual citizens of the 13 colonies, delegates or past radical elites, he is able to gain credibility from the

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