Founding Intentions

Would a return to the original intentions of the framers of the Constitution be impracticable? Not really. But I can hear the howls of protest by those who would say otherwise. “It can’t be done.” “It would result in chaos.” “The people would be hurt.” “We need a strong military establishment.” “What about Social Security, Education, Welfare?” The question is do we want freedom or not? 

A review of Original Intentions: On the Making and Ratification of the United States Constitution by M.E. Bradford (Georgia, 1993).

Since the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, numberless books re-examining the document and the convention that made it have issued forth from commercial publishing houses and university presses.

 While some of them are excellent and make important contributions in the field of constitutional history (Forrest McDonald’s Novus Ordo Seclorum, Framing and Ratification of the Constitution [1987]), the question of what the framers intended remains very much at issue. The late M. E. (Mel) Bradford, in what is one of the better studies to come out in recent years, addresses this central issue ably, forthrightly and provocatively. Hence the title of Original Intentions (a phrase that strikes fear in the minds of modern advocates of governmental intervention and intrusion).