t the Constitution was as Daniel Webster had defined it: “...the people’s Constitution, the people’s government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people. The people of the United States have declared that this Constitution shall be supreme law” (Hart, 134). Of geography, Hart writes not of mountains and alluvial plains, but of man-made boundaries and political competition related to enlarging the entities of the competitors. Again, as in Fiske, whom Hart recommends along with George Bancroft and Henry Adams, the view is of and from the top, not of the common citizen. Are these writers of interest other than for the reason already offered? It is important to mention these writers as a corollary of the question that was posed at the outset--and sought at first “to duck”: exactly what is a “progressive historian?” Again, spatial limitations require this to be brief: it is clear from examining the work of Fiske and Hart that if a “progressive historian” is defined as a writer of history during the Progressive Era, then the work one will encounter is diverse in its viewpoints and interpretations; if, however one defines a progressive historian as a member of a school of thought, then the events of the times in which they wrote take on a secondary value, supplanted by rivers, mountains, and the like. But then one must remind oneself of the example of Charles Beard, if for no other reason than to sully and sunder that grand generalization... First, lets take a look at a few compare-and-contrast conclusions. Progressive historians have in common the world-view that goes with the economic interpretation of history. They do not, however, always conclude the same things (Jameson and Turner argued greater economic democracy, for example, while Beard argued the Constitution as a document written by the wealthy to protect the wealthy). To a great degree, progres...
