Forrest McDonald

Forrest McDonald (1927- ) is an American historian who has written extensively on the early national period, on republicanism, and on the presidency. He is Distinguished University Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Alabama and is considered a leading conservative scholar.

He was born in Orange, Texas, Jan 7, 1927. He earned his BA and PhD degrees (1955) from the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied under Fulmer Mood. He worked at the American History Research Center at the Wisconsin State Historical Society then taught at Brown (1959-67), Wayne State (1967-76), and Alabama (1976 to present).

In We The People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution he argued that Charles Beard had misinterpreted the economic interests involved in writing the Constitution. Instead of just two interests, landed and mercantile interests, which conflicted, there were three dozen identifiable interests that forced the delegates to bargain.