Chapter 2
 The
Constitution
Rights and Race Intertwined
Chapter 2: Measuring Equality
Whom Did the Framers Represent?
Characteristics of the Fifty-Five Framers[1]

White
100% (55)

Male
100% (55)












Education
University educated
56.4% (31)
 Institutions attended:
 Princeton (10)
 Univ. of Pennsylvania (2)
 Columbia College (2)
 William & Mary (3)
 Harvard (3)
 Scottish universities (3)
 Yale (4)
 Middle & Inner Temple, London (6)
Occupation
Lawyer (only)
47.3% (26)
Lawyer & another profession
16.3% (9)
Government experience
Colonial/Military Official
94.5% (52)
Member of Continental Congress
74.5% (41)
Property ownership
Owned their residences
100% (55)
Owned lands used for farming
56.4% (31)
Owned slaves
31 % (17)
p. 40
Chapter 2: Measuring Equality
Whom Did the Framers Represent?
Cont.
Economic level[2]
Wealthy
 class/comfortable
Middle
Poverty-level
10.9% (6)
76.3% (42)
12.7% (7)
Characteristics of the General Population according to the 1790 Census[3]
Race
White
80.40% (3,140,531)
Slave Blacks
17.83% (694,207)
Free Blacks
1.52% (59,196)
Gender (White Population Only)
Males
50.92% (1,599,213)
Females
49.08% (1,541,318)
Education level[4]
“Most” White male children in the North attended school for 4-6 months a year from age 4 to
14.
“Substantial amount” of White male children in the South attended school for 4-6 months a
year from age 4-14.
“Few” White male children in the West attended school or were literate.
“Very few” White male children attended college or university. [5]
“Very few” White female children received any formal classroom instruction
Chapter 2: Measuring Equality
Whom Did the Framers Represent?
Cont.
Significant Colonial Occupations[6]

Farmer

Lumbering

Fishing

Iron-mining

Trading in furs and skins

Production of naval stores
Property Ownership
White slave-owning families
11.6% (47,664)
Land owners: 13% of (1774 population)
People associated with slave owning: 7.2% (of White population in 1790);
6.13% (in 1774)
Economic level (in 1774)(category classifications were determined from the
distribution of wealth)[7]
High wealth: Top 2% held 24.6% of the wealth
Middle wealth: Top 20% held 73.2% of the wealth
Low wealth: 70% held only 28.6% of the wealth
Very low wealth: Botton 10% owned 1.7% of the wealth (in other words they were in debt)
No Wealth: 81.53% of the population had no measurable wealth
Chapter 2: Measuring Equality
Whom Did the Framers Represent?
Cont.

[1] The U.S. Constitution: The Delegates. National Archives and Records
Administration, http://www.gov/exhall/charters/constitution/confath.html; Forrest
McDonald, We the People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1958), Chapters 1-3.

[2]Information on economic levels were drawn from the Biographical Index of Our
Founding Fathers, The National Archives and Record Administration, Washington,
D.C. The category classifications were determined from language in the biographies.
Actual dollar figures of wealth and income are not readily available.

[3]Unless otherwise indicated data are taken from the 1790 Census that surveyed
population characteristics mainly.

[4]Carl F. Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983);
Genealogical Publishing Company, A Century of Population Growth (Baltimore: GPC,
1989).

[5]The 1790 Census indicated that there were 807,312 white males over the age of
16 in the country. A listing of the most prominent colleges and universities at the
same time show a combined enrollment of 1,122 students (white males).

[6]Stella H. Sutherland, Population Distribution in Colonial America (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1936), pg. xi.

[7]Jones, Alice Hanson, Wealth of a Nation to Be (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1980); Jones, Alice Hanson, American Colonial Wealth (New York: Arno Press,
1977.)
Chapter 2:
Evaluating
Equality
p. 44
p. 49