ABSTRACT
In his survey of economic interests represented in the Philadelphia Convention, Professor Beard considered the delegates in alphabetical order. This arrangement was of no methodological significance, and inasmuch as a state-by-state presentation will facilitate additional analysis, that order of presentation is followed in this chapter. John Langdon was the archetype of the personal property interest. This chapter presents a biographical data that permit the certain generalizations as a more precise characterization of the economic interests of the delegates than that presented earlier by Professor Beard. Including lawyers whose incomes were derived largely or exclusively from mercantile clients, thirteen had interests that were primarily mercantile—that is, in personal property as opposed to real property: King, Hamilton, Dayton, Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, Ingersoll, Langdon, Gorham, Gerry, Robert Morris, Clymer, Fitzsimons, and Pierce. Three are loosely classifiable as pensioners: Sherman, Johnson, and Madison. All three men were in rather trying economic circumstances.
