Yeah, exactly. There's so much propaganda in the USA depicting the constitution as some sort of inspired document written by enlightened men, and then most people don't bother reading beyond what they learned in school.
One only need look at how undemocratic the constitution was. Only one federal office, the House of Representatives, was elected by the people (and at the time the constitution was written, only men with property could vote). The president and vice president are elected by an electoral college. Senators were elected by state legislatures. Supreme Court Judges are even further insulated from the people, being appointed by the President. "The People" had extremely little influence on the federal government, and it's only gotten marginally better since.
Hopefully everyone understands how much the constitution did to protect the wealth of slave owners, since this is taught in schools. But it also made western land speculators richer by creating a government capable of exerting sufficient power over those western lands to open them up for settlement. It made the holders of revolutionary war debt richer by creating a government that could assume that debt and pay it off. It made owners and investors in manufacturing enterprises richer by creating a government that could protect industry with tariffs while keeping states from taxing the flow of goods or interfering with contracts.
Every framer of the constitution belonged to at least one of these groups, and they benefited when it was ratified. The book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States by Charles Beard goes into great detail on this. It's out of copyright and freely available online: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Economic_Interpretation_of...
One only need look at how undemocratic the constitution was. Only one federal office, the House of Representatives, was elected by the people (and at the time the constitution was written, only men with property could vote). The president and vice president are elected by an electoral college. Senators were elected by state legislatures. Supreme Court Judges are even further insulated from the people, being appointed by the President. "The People" had extremely little influence on the federal government, and it's only gotten marginally better since.
Hopefully everyone understands how much the constitution did to protect the wealth of slave owners, since this is taught in schools. But it also made western land speculators richer by creating a government capable of exerting sufficient power over those western lands to open them up for settlement. It made the holders of revolutionary war debt richer by creating a government that could assume that debt and pay it off. It made owners and investors in manufacturing enterprises richer by creating a government that could protect industry with tariffs while keeping states from taxing the flow of goods or interfering with contracts.
Every framer of the constitution belonged to at least one of these groups, and they benefited when it was ratified. The book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States by Charles Beard goes into great detail on this. It's out of copyright and freely available online: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Economic_Interpretation_of...