Perspective

The perspective of the book is multifaceted. The author is a historian and editor. His only written contribution to the book is a history of the debates and the ideas in play at the time in the introduction. He appears to approve of the ratification of the Constitution, and so disagrees with the anti-federalists, but this is such a commonplace attitude that it is hardly worth noting.

The Constitutional Convention is mostly composed of James Madison's notes. The notes are short and are mostly summaries of arguments. Madison does not appear biased in his note-taking. His goal is primarily to accurately record the content of the debates. It is possible that his records include federalist bias, but as the other copies of convention notes are much shorter and incomplete, we cannot ascertain the degree to which he is biased, if at all.

The essays in Part II of...