HLS in the World | The Framers' Coup: The Making of the U.S. Constitution

During this bicentennial summit session, Michael Klarman, Kirkland & Ellis Professor at Harvard Law School, discussed his recently published book, “The Framers’ Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution” (Oxford University Press, 2016), which describes how the framers at the Philadelphia convention managed to write a Constitution that was far more nationalizing and democracy-constraining than most Americans anticipated or wanted. Klarman examined why the Philadelphia convention was so unrepresentative of national opinion and how the framers were able to convince ordinary Americans to approve a scheme that drastically reduced their political influence on the national government. He is the author of several books, including ""From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality,"" which was awarded the 2005 Bancroft Prize in History, and ""From the Closet to the Altar: Courts, Backlash, and the Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage.""

His talk was part of the HLS in the World bicentennial summit which took place on Friday, October 27, 2017. Read more: http://200.hls.harvard.edu.