I did not set out to write a book about the U.S. Constitution. I set out to write about the obstacles that American political institutions have placed in the way of American businesses, workers, and other economic interests. But to write that book, I had to start by working out the institutional foundations of American government. I had to understand the design of the Constitution as thoroughly as I could. I knew the Constitution was a solution, but precisely what was it a solution to? What pressing policy problems were the founders trying to solve? How did they think the Constitution's provisions would address these problems? What policy results did they expect the government to achieve? Whose interests did they expect policy makers to serve?

I expected to find answers in the many books written about the Constitution, but I was disappointed. None of these books had tried to provide a systematic political explanation for all the Constitution's provisions. Instead, many authors seemed to be bogged down in a hopeless effort to determine the relative impact of abstract principles and personal interests on the Constitution's design. Few books seriously examine the politics of provisions that now seem relatively unimportant, although the delegates to the Constitutional Convention considered many of them important enough to fight about at length. I was especially surprised to find that, with a couple of exceptions, social scientists in the field of American political development had largely ignored questions about the Constitution's original design.

No issue tore at the Constitutional Convention more than the problem of choosing and controlling those who would govern. Virginia's plan directly challenged the equal state representation already established in the Confederation Congress. Madison and his allies insisted that the states' relative size, not their equal status as states, should determine their relative influence in national policy making. He also sought to eradicate as much state government influence over policy makers as possible. Madison's bold challenge to their existing political defenses galvanized the delegates from the vulnerable middle and northern states. Their delegates united to defend their states' influence in national policy decisions.

The issue of proportional representation in Congress dominated the convention's first month and a half. Sherman and his allies stopped the momentum of Madison's plan, cast his central premises in doubt, refocused the terms of the debate on material interests, and chipped away at his support. Once the delegates accepted the political compromise providing equal state representation in the Senate and proportional representation in the House of Representatives in mid-July, the struggle over policy agency shifted to other agency choices. Madison battled vigorously to give the president the independence to pursue future national interests, and fought to limit the powers of the Senate, now seen as the agent of state governments. Ultimately, the selection of the president was settled by another political compromise on presidential election and power.

The delegates who came to Philadelphia in the spring of 1787 could not have envisioned the Constitution they signed in September, or the uses to which Americans would put it. Their Constitution was the by-product of unanticipated political compromises. Instead of fully solving their central political dilemma – to ensure satisfactory public policy from a republican national government that would not itself threaten their vital interests – they had narrowed the scope of the problem. They built a partially finished national policy-making process, furnished it with an incomplete set of policy tools, and required extraordinary cooperative efforts to make the government work.

James Madison was among the first Americans to put the Constitution to work. Elected to the first House of Representatives, Madison initially urged his colleagues to interpret national powers and presidential authority broadly, as he had at the Constitutional Convention. But when Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton proposed economic plans diametrically opposed to his vision for the nation's economic development, Madison began to bring together Hamilton's opponents in a coalition unified by limited constitutional authority and states' rights. As secretary of state and later president, Madison used the Constitution with principled flexibility to achieve his policy purposes.

Madison's experiences illustrate the Constitution's enduring effects on America's destiny.

The thirteen colonies that declared themselves independent governments in 1776 soon faced severe political tests. Each new republic now had to assert control over its own territory, to police its commerce, property, and social life, and to make citizens pay taxes to fund these efforts. It was far from easy. The war brought havoc and enemy occupation to many parts of America. During the war, some state governments and their leaders, including Virginia's governor Thomas Jefferson, had to flee from enemy capture. When the war ended, economic depression caused even more havoc. Political conflict grew bitter, and resentments sometimes boiled over into violence.

State governments gradually grew stronger as they dealt with these formidable political challenges. Their leaders became more adept at using their newly enlarged authority to manage each state's politics and to balance democracy and development. Paradoxically, the growing political capacity of the states put national politics in severe jeopardy. Because the states differed in so many ways, state policy makers implemented public policies that exploited state economic advantages, often at the expense of creditors, merchants, citizens of other states, and the long-term economic interest of the nation as a whole. Their political power, then, put the states in a dilemma. Cooperation with other states, and more effective national powers, could in theory benefit their citizens. None of the states, though, could defer to other states, or let other states use national policy to their advantage, if by doing so they put themselves at a disadvantage relative to others.

The new nation's mounting problems deepened American leaders' anxiety for the nation's future. Support for far-reaching institutional change was growing in all parts of the nation by 1787. Many American political leaders discussed pathbreaking remedies for the nation's economic and political troubles. Nearly all the states endorsed a convention to grapple with these issues. James Madison, already an accomplished policy strategist, constitutional expert, and experienced legislator, seized this opportunity to plan a thorough reconstitution of American economic policy making.

Madison's plan to structure America's political future began with a thorough critique of the states' handling of economic policy. He warned that the state governments' economic policies were menacing not only America's future prosperity but also the potential of republican government itself. The states, he concluded, must no longer govern the American economy. Authority over economic policy must be transferred to a reconstituted national government. Madison proposed to restructure the national government and to empower national policy makers to pursue the economic interests of the nation as a whole, independent of the interests of individual states or coalitions of states. His proposals aimed to (1) make the national government the presumptive, sovereign economic policy maker for the nation; (2) create a national policy-making process that would motivate national officials to focus on the pursuit of national interests instead of state interests; and (3) enable national policy makers to monitor and veto any state policies at will.

Like Madison, the other delegates came to the Constitutional Convention to change the course of American politics. Virginia's bold agenda forced them to confront the prospect of a strong national government and to consider many specific choices about national policy authority, policy agency, and the policy process. Republican principles provided little or no help in making these constitutional decisions. All the delegates embraced republican ideals, but these ideals alone could not resolve the fundamental dilemma the delegates faced: reconstituting the Confederation government so it could produce better policy outcomes, without harming the vital interests of their constituents. Political interests, not republican values, determined the delegates' approach to the specific problems of reconstituting American government.

Madison's plan to restructure America's political future directly challenged the nation's political present. Virginia's resolutions threatened the existing distribution of political power by redistributing basic tools of political management to the national government and increasing the agency of larger states in determining how these tools would be used. As representatives of existing polities, each delegate evaluated Madison's proposed changes in light of the present and future consequences for the welfare of his state and the nation.

As Madison expected, the delegations from the large and southern states initially lined up behind Virginia's plan. The plan's ambitious scope, however, helped unify delegates from states outside his coalition and provided opportunities to delay fundamental choices and chip away at key provisions.

What problems were the U.S. Constitution's authors trying to solve? How did they imagine their Constitution would answer these problems? We know the framers intended to change America's destiny, and we know they succeeded. But how did they intend to transform the way American government uses its power and the way Americans use their government? What kinds of politics were the delegates to the Constitutional Convention trying to make – and what kinds of politics did their design make? For all that has been written about the Constitution, we do not have satisfactory answers to these questions.

Practicing politicians wrote the Constitution, and they expected politicians to use it. To understand the enduring effects of the Constitution on America's destiny, we need to know what its designers thought they were doing. We need to understand the circumstances that convinced these politicians that they could and should reconstitute the nation's government. We need to understand precisely how these circumstances shaped their strategies for building a new government. We need to reconstruct how these politicians used such strategies to design their Constitution, provision by provision. Better answers to these questions can help us better understand how Americans have used the government they have inherited.