Stumbling Towards the Constitution

Underwater mortgages, plunging prices, overextended consumers, deflation, a surfeit of lawsuits and bankruptcies: such were the realities of 1784-1787. These difficulties were the driving impetus of the re-examination of the Articles of Confederation. In Stumbling Towards the Constitution, Jonathan M. Chu examines the economic and constitutional adjustments Americans made after Independence to consider their impact on the debates over the Constitutional Convention. This book provides keen insight into how the Constitution developed, but more importantly, reveals how economically based this development was, and how connected it was to commerce and international trade in the Atlantic world.