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A LTHOUGH James Madison wrote the Tenth Federalist in 1787 it was not until I9I3, one hundred and twenty five years later, that Charles A. Beard made this particular essay famous for students of the United States Constitution. Before Beard published An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution practically no commentator on The Federalist or the Constitution, none of the biographers of Madison, had emphasized Federalist IO as of special importance for understanding our "more perfect union"; after Beard's book appeared the Tenth Federalist became the essay most often quoted to explain the philosophy of the fathers, and thus the "ultimate meaning" of the United States Constitution itself. A sampling of the evidence for this generalization not only makes clear Beard's role in generating this latter-day fame for Madison's essay, but also shows the peculiar twist that the historian gave to that fame-a twist, a perspective, an interpretation that still governs to a remarkable degree the contemporary view of Federalist Io, Madison, and the Constitution. To note this fact is to acknowledge the special greatness of Charles Beard as a scholar and to recognize the long shadow that his Economic Interpretation still casts over a crucial area of the American thought about the past. Nor is the word "shadow" inexact; for although Beard's research threw a brilliant beam of light on certain facets of the Constitution, his aim was selective, and by high-lighting special features of the document he thereby cast others into deep obscurity. Judged in terms of its effect on the thought of a whole generation, Beard's famous book is certainly the most significant piece of modern scholarship on the Constitution of I787.1 |
