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11:00 PMAbraham Lincoln and American Immigration
12:12 AMSherman in the 1864 Atlanta Campaign
01:19 AMConversation with James Robertson
02:31 AMLiving History: "Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles"
03:00 AMGettysburg Day 2: Union Retreat at Trostle Farm
03:35 AMGettysburg Day 1: "The Devil's Own Day"
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05:20 AMGettysburg: The Great Reunion of 1913

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You are here: Home / Archive PA Books / “The Framers’ Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution”

“The Framers’ Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution”

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"The Framers' Coup" narrates how the Framers' clashing interests shaped the Constitution--and American history itself. The Philadelphia convention could easily have been a failure, and the risk of collapse was always present. Had the convention dissolved, any number of adverse outcomes could have resulted, including civil war or a reversion to monarchy. Not only does Klarman capture the knife's-edge atmosphere of the convention, he populates his narrative with riveting and colorful stories: the rebellion of debtor farmers in Massachusetts; George Washington's uncertainty about whether to attend; Gunning Bedford's threat to turn to a European prince if the small states were denied equal representation in the Senate; slave staters' threats to take their marbles and go home if denied representation for their slaves; Hamilton's quasi-monarchist speech to the convention; and Patrick Henry's herculean efforts to defeat the Constitution in Virginia through demagoguery and conspiracy theories.

Michael J. Klarman is Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and author of the Bancroft Prize-winning “From Jim Crow to Civil Rights.”

Description courtesy of Oxford University Press.

PA Books airs Sunday nights at 7 pm.

 

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