Learning from the founding fathers.

• Author: Morandi, Larry
• Position: Plain Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution - Book review

"Plain Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution" by Richard Beeman. Random House

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Richard Beeman has spent 40 years on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, not far from the Statehouse in Philadelphia where 55 delegates spent the summer of 1787 crafting the U.S. Constitution.

He thought of calling his history of that convention The Second American Revolution because the decisions reached there shifted the course of American history and transformed a loose confederation of states into a stronger, united government. He opted instead for a title coined by one delegate who, rather than viewing the results as "a work from heaven," felt it was more appropriately the work of "plain, honest men."

Who were they? In a series of entertaining character sketches, Beeman explores the founders' biases and aspirations, their hardened political objectives and willingness to compromise to achieve something more workable than the gridlock represented by the confederation. Many of them also thought their job was to curb what they saw as the democratic excesses of state legislatures, or what James Madison often referred to as the "irresponsible actions" of those legislative chambers.

The book offers colorful descriptions of the delegates, such as Roger Sherman of Connecticut. He was described by a Southern delegate as "the oddest shaped character I ever remember to have met with, he is awkward, un-meaning, and unaccountably strange in his manner."

Sherman also was the only delegate to have served as a salaried public employee. His portrait reveals a worn patch on his clothing, a contrast with many of his more patrician colleagues. A strong defender of states' rights, Sherman nonetheless was instrumental in...