ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part focuses on the economic perspectives of various participants in the founding of the American republic. It argues that the judiciary always was intended to be "activist" and to practice judicial review. The part suggests the importance of the slave trade and slavery in the work of the British mercantilist, Malachy Postlethwayt. It analyzes the importance Postlethwayt attributed to African slaves and the British colonial plantations in the Caribbean indicated that Postlethwayt was a far more significant figure and a broader, albeit inhumanitarian, visionary than had been assumed beforehand. Postlethwayt subsequently appeared prominently in both Wilson Williams' thesis and in Eric Williams' Capitalism and Slavery. The part proposes a materialist analysis of the basis for the American constitution reflected in the explicitly stated economic opinions of several of the founders.
