For the last century, scholars have debated the motivation of the framers at the constitutional convention. Some have argued that the delegates voted according to their personal economic interests, while others have argued that the delegates voted according to national interests or political ideologies. The project extends current understandings of the constitutional convention in three important ways. First, it increases the number of usable observations by inferring delegate voting patterns from the records of state roll call votes and manuscripts that were previously unavailable. Second, it allows for more precise testing of various hypotheses concerning delegate motivation, including Beard's thesis, theories about ideology, and theories of rational self-interest. Third, it analyzes the type of constituent interests that may have affected delegates' voting behavior: the interests of state legislators (who elected delegates to the convention), the interests of citizens within a state (who the delegates allegedly represented), and the interests of people living in the delegate's county (who might elect delegates to future posts). The results have important implications for political science, economics, and the study of the law.
