The original American constitution created a government and private sector elite in which the wealthy and the highly positioned in government (often the same white men) work together to both achieve their goals and to maintain their private wealth and political power. "Most leaders" of the Convention, as Welch writes, were desirous of a new constitution which would empower the government to guide the nation's economic expansion; they "envisioned a commercial empire [and] considered the government too weak to give rise to such an empire" (Welch 26). From the beginning, then, the creators of the Constitution sought a strong government which would feature a close link between government power and commercial profit, a government which would be at least as sympathetic to the exercise of capitalism by the wealthy white man in the slavery-dependent mansion as it was to the exercise of free speech by the common white man in the street. This report examines three texts to discover evidence of this elitist, governmental/business connection in the creation of the Constitution, including consideration of the definition of elitism, how the creators of the Constitution embodied elitism, how the electoral process was rigged to favor those with wealth and power, and how the "debates" over the Constitution were not about freedom or democracy but about competing elites wanting to protect their power, as in the case of the compromise involving slavery, which had nothing to do with slavery and everything to do with protecting the economic self-interest of competing elitist factions in the North and South.
Welch, writing in a 20th century context, says that
elite theory . . . maintains that the holders of a few top jobs in key parts of society rule. They are the leaders of major corporations, . . . universities,
. . . foundations, . . . media outlets [and] . . . government. Shared backgrounds help tie many elite members together. . . . Elite m...