User:Allreet/Sandbox 3
Some of the weaknesses:
- The five cites you've provided amount to little more than one source, Larry Simon, since the others all refer to him but say nothing in terms of confirming his "estimate" vis a vis their own research. (This presumes Roznai is also citing Simon.)
- Unable to access the sources provided, I can't determine the validity of the 2.5%, but I do question it in several respects. Above all, it's absurdly low, and therefore, can't possibly account for states where ratification elections were held and states where convention delegates were appointed by popularly-elected legislatures.*[1][2] To get a sense of the numbers, 971 delegates voted for ratification versus 575 against, a 2-1 margin if you average the results in each state (my math is based on Warren's state-by-state results).[3]
- Related to this, "property qualifications" were not as exclusionary as your sources seem to indicate. It's estimated 60-65% of white males were qualified to vote under state constitutions as either taxpayers or property owners.[1][4][5]
- Since the framers wanted the people's consent, several states relaxed or eliminated the requirements specifically for the ratification vote.[6][7][1]
- The greatest weakness here is that you're trying to demonstrate the illegitimacy of the Constitution with a handful of sources versus hundreds that recognize the source of the document's authority as resting with "We the People".[8][9][6][7]
* One of the complexities in sorting out the voting, as Spaulding indicates on page 130: More Anti-Federalists were elected in New York than Federalists, yet the state's convention voted in favor of ratification. Did the Anti-Federalist delegates who "defected" ignore the wishes of voters? You could say that, except by the time of the convention, the required nine states had ratified already, so the decision in New York, as in North Carolina and Rhode Island, was more a matter of electing to remain in the Union.Allreet (talk) 14:55, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
- ^ a b c Spaulding, E. Wilder (April 1939). "New York and the Federal Constitution". New York History. 20 (2). Cooperstown, New York: Fenimore Art Museum: 125–132. Cite error: The named reference "Spaulding" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ Maier, Pauline (2010). Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787–1788. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 140, 243, 535. ISBN 978-0-684-86854-7.
- ^ Warren, Charles (1928). The Making of the Constitution. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. pp. 819–820.
- ^ Lutz, Donald S. (1987). "The First American Constitutions". In Levy, Leonard Williams; Mahoney, Dennis J. (eds.). The Framing and Ratification of the Constitution. New York: Macmillan. p. 77. ISBN 978-0029-18790-6.
- ^ Maier, Pauline (April 2012). "Narrative, Interpretation, and the Ratification of the Constitution". The William and Mary Quarterly. 69 (2): 389.
- ^ a b Amar, Akhil Reed (2005). America's Constitution: A Biography. New York: Random House. pp. 5–7, 279, 472. ISBN 1-4000-6262-4.
- ^ a b Wood, Gordon S. (1969). The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 167–169, 535. ISBN 978-0807847237.
- ^ Beeman, Richard R. (2009). Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution. New York: Random House. p. 412. ISBN 9781400065707.
- ^ Dry, Murray (1987). "The Case Against Ratification: Anti-Federalist Constitutional Thought". In Levy, Leonard Williams; Mahoney, Dennis J. (eds.). The Framing and Ratification of the Constitution. New York: Macmillan. p. 281. ISBN 978-0029-18790-6.