Producers Versus Capitalists: Constitutional Conflict in Antebellum America

This study focuses on how antebellum constitutional law and principles responded to and shaped producers' appeals for protection from capitalists' predations. Placing the constitutional system's operation in the context of the nation's profound ideological and social conflicts, Tony A. Freyer suggests that the normative force of constitutional values often enabled pro-producer, protectionist policies to be enacted, despite an emerging corporate and mercantile capitalist consensus.

This study focuses on how antebellum constitutional law and principles responded to and shaped producers' appeals for protection from capitalists' predations. Placing the constitutional system's operation in the context of the nation's profound ideological and social conflicts, Tony A. Freyer suggests that the normative force of constitutional values often enabled pro-producer, protectionist policies to be enacted, despite an emerging corporate and mercantile capitalist consensus.

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Focuses on how antebellum constitutional law and principles responded to and shaped producers' appeals for protection from capitalists' predations. Treating the mid-Atlantic states as a federal system in miniature, Freyer (University Research Professor of History and Law, U. of Alabama School of Law) suggests that the normative force of constitutional values often enabled pro-producer, protectionist policies to be enacted, despite an emerging corporate and mercantile capitalist consensus. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Tony A. Freyer is University Research Professor of History and Law at the University of Alabama School of Law. His publications include Regulating Big Business: Antitrust in Great Britain and America, 1880 to 1990; Hugo L. Black and the Dilemma of American Liberalism; and Forums of Order: The Federal Courts and Business in American History.