“To Do What Was Right”: the Census Act as a Constitutional Solution to Data Management Problems

Edward Blum, San Diego State University

During the July debates in 1787 at the Constitution Convention, one important issue became a national census. The discussion was not whether the Constitution should include a census. It was whether the government should mandate one. In the notes kept by James Madison, he summarized the position of North Carolina delegate Hugh Williamson, he “was for making it a duty of the Legislature to do what was right, and not leaving it at liberty to do or not to do it.” This position won. When the delegates signed the Constitution and then the states ratified it, the document obligated the new government to conduct regularly an “enumeration." It became a fixed “duty” of the government to do so. While scholars of the Census, such as Margo Anderson and Paul Schor, have admirably discussed its origins within the Constitution, historians of the convention itself have almost completely ignored it. The simple elegance of the census clause, however, hid problems with and conflicts over data acquisition and management. An examination of government debates in the decade before the Constitutional convention and at notes taken during the convention discussing frustrations with numerical data suggest that the census became a crucial means of creating agreement among the delegates. Amid contentious questions over population statistics, the census became a unifying force in 1787. In fact, the census helped make the constitution possible by offering hope for the future of the government with the possibility of solutions to the data acquisition and management problems of the past.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 185. Building Data Infrastructure