Publication Date

1963

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Dionisopoulos, P. Allan||Sherbenou, Edgar

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

Department of Political Science

LCSH

Constitutional history--United States; United States--History--Confederation; 1783-1789

Abstract

The following study concerns the voting behavior of the twelve states attending the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The objective of this study is to ascertain if their votes would scale using a scalogram analysis. The approach has been limited to a narrow examination of the positions of these states on one hundred votes taken only from Madison's Journal. This has been the first time, to the author's knowledge, that a scalogram analysis has been used to gain an insight into the different divisions to be found at the convention of 1787. It has been said that two major divisions existed at the convention: (1) a small state—large state division, (2) a Northern—Southern division. This study has shown that these divisions did exist during the convention. While the small state—large state division evidenced itself clearly, the northern-southern division, due to a lack of scalable issues, was not clearly defined. A states' rights—national division, however, was found to be the major division at the convention. This study has shown that the states divided according to the feeling of the delegates on this dimension. The Guttman, Jackson, and Cornell methods of scalogram analysis were used for this study. This study has attempted to show only one of many possible approaches that could be used to indicate the voting divisions within the convention. It should be kept in mind that a different sampling of Items might conceivably but not probably change the results of this study.

Comments

Includes bibliographical references.

Extent

v, 66 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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