At SCOTUSblog, Andrew Hamm: Edward Larson on the Constitution’s “general contractor,” George Washington. It begins:
Ask any student of American law or history, and he or she will tell you that James Madison was the architect of the U.S. Constitution. As the author of the most comprehensive notes of the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and one of only two delegates to attend its every session, Madison has rightly earned this title. But if Madison was the Constitution’s architect, Edward Larson argued last week at a lecture sponsored by the Supreme Court Historical Society, then George Washington – the other delegate with perfect attendance – was its general contractor. And, as Larson quipped, a finished building looks a lot more like what the general contractor wanted than whatever the architect had envisioned.
Professor Larson's lecture is based on his outstanding book The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783-1789 (William Morrow 2014), which I recently finished reading and highly recommend.
Posted at 6:01 AM