1. What is Charles Beard’s thesis in An Economic Interpretation of the
    Constitution vis-à-vis the Founding Fathers and the creation of the
    Constitution?

2. What was the source of resentment in western towns of Massachusetts against
    the legislature in Boston?

3. How did disgruntled western farmers seek to improve their shaky economic
    situation?

4. What was Daniel Shays’s objective?

5. What was Thomas Jefferson’s view of popular uprisings? Contrast his view
    with those of the established leadership.

6. Why does Zinn state that democracy’s problem in post-Revolutionary America
    was not primarily due to Constitutional limitations on voting?

7. How is Zinn critical of Madison’s argument in Federalist X.

8. Why does Zinn assert that despite party differences among Federalists and
    Democratic-Republicans they were both fundamentally similar?

9. How does Zinn characterize the Constitution’s compromises?

10. How does Zinn refute one of Beard’s critics, Robert E. Brown?

11. How does the Constitution illustrate the complexity of the American system?

12. How does the Constitution’s contract clause or tax clause favor rich over
    poor?

13. How does Zinn argue the First Amendment is not as stable as one might
    assume?

14. How does Zinn contrast the government’s enforcement of the First
    Amendment and the power to tax?

15. How does Zinn refute Bernard Bailyn’s view of the creation of the
    Constitution.