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Coenen on the Signatures to the Constitution

By Lawrence Solum

Michael Coenen has posted The Significance of Signatures: Why the Framers Signed the Constitution and What They Meant by Doing So (Yale Law Journal, Forthcoming). on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

The signing of the U.S. Constitution is traditionally understood as the closing act of the Constitutional Convention. This Note provides an alternative account, one that understands the Constitution?s signing as the opening act of the ratification campaign that followed in the Convention?s wake. To begin, the Note explains the signatures? ambiguous form as the product of political maneuvering designed to win support for the Constitution during ratification. The Note then hypothesizes two ways in which the signatures may have helped to secure this support: (1) by highlighting pro-Constitution selling-points likely to resonate with the ratifying public; and (2) by limiting the ability of the signers? to recant their support for the Constitution once ratification battles had begun. Finally, the Note identifies a few respects in which this ratification-centered account of the Constitution?s signing may influence our modern-day understanding of the document.

And from the paper:

The standard account of the Constitution?s signing places the event in the final chapter of the Philadelphia story.61 But there is an alternative account?one that situates the signing in the first chapter of the ratification story. On this account, the signing of the Constitution makes sense not as an act looking back to the grueling efforts of the summer of 1787, but as an act looking forward to the upcoming fight for ratification. The signing, in other words, represented not so much a closing coda to the framers? work, but rather an opening salvo to the ratifiers? work?an act intended to generate and to maintain support for the document throughout the ratification process.

Interesting! My thanks to Seth Tillman for calling this paper to my attention!  Coenan is a Climinko Fellow at Harvard & I believe (but do not know) that this is his student note!

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on November 30, 2009 (boomark / email).