Almost everyone of them had an elite education, and intended suffrage to be limited to those with similar levels of education.
This was accomplished with allowing states to use property ownership as a requirement to vote. The expansion of voting to non-property owning white males over 21 allowed wage earners to vote for the first time. This occurred in the late 1820s and facilitated the rise of Andrew Jackson and the creation of the Democratic Party.
Here is a description of the educational background of the people who wrote the original U.S. Constitution - prior to the addition of amendments.
- Click here for article.
The Delegates Arranged by School
Harvard
Elbridge Gerry (1762)
Rufus King (1777)
William Samuel Johnson (M.A. 1747)
Caleb Strong (1774)
George Washington (Honorary LLD 1776)
Yale
Abraham Baldwin (1772)
Jared Ingersoll (1766)
William Samuel Johnson (1744)
William Livingston (1741)
Roger Sherman (Honorary MA 1768)
William Livingston (Honorary LLD 1788)
College of New Jersey (Princeton)
Gunning Bedford, Jr. (1771)
William R. Davie (1776)
Jonathan Dayton (1776)
Oliver Ellsworth (1766)
William C. Houston (1768, M.A. 1771)
James Madison Jr. (1771)
Alexander Martin (1756, M.A. 1759)
Luther Martin (1766)
William Paterson (1763)
David Brearly (Honorary M.A. 1781)
John Dickinson (Honorary LLD)
Middle Temple (London)
John Dickinson (1757)
John Rutledge (1760)
John Blair (Juris Doctoris)
Jared Ingersoll (Juris Doctoris 1776)
College of William and MaryJohn Blair
James McClurg (1762)
John F. Mercer (1775)
William L. Pierce (attended)
Edmund J. Randolph (attended)
King’s College (Columbia)
Gouverneur Morris (1768, M.A. 1771)
Alexander Hamilton (attended)
College of Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania)
Thomas Mifflin (1760)
Hugh Williamson (1757, M.A. 1760)
James Wilson (Honorary M.A. 1766)
Dartmouth
John Langdon (Honorary LLD 1805)
Newark AcademyJames McHenry (1772)
Inner Temple (London)William Houstoun (1776)
Oxford (England)Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1764)
St. Andrews (Scotland)James Wilson
Glasgow (Scotland)Richard Dobbs Spaight (1778)
Edinburgh (Scotland)James McClurg (M.D. 1770)
College of Saint Omer (Netherlands)Daniel Carroll (1747)
Tutor or Professor
Abraham Baldwin
William C. Houston
James McClurg
Hugh Williamson
James Wilson
George Wythe
