Baird Johnson is a senior majoring in history with a focus on the Atlantic World of the late eighteenth century—specifically the political and philosophical origins of American Democracy. He hails from New York City. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Herodotus (Stanford's undergraduate history journal), a Stanford Constitutional Law Center Undergraduate Fellow, and serves as a History Peer Advisor. He is also a Gilder Lehrman College Fellow. Baird has a passion for historical research and has served as a research assistant on multiple projects as well as studied British intellectual history at Oxford. His work has been published in historical journals as well as online forums. In addition to history, Baird is an avid sports fan and delves deeply into sports analytics. After Stanford, he plans to pursue a career in constitutional law.
SHC Project
Perpetuating the Union: The Struggle for American Federalism
Advisors: Jonathan Gienapp, Josiah Ober
What is the focus of your current research?
While much is written about ratifying the U.S. Constitution, the bizarre nature of a binary choice on an entire system of government is generally neglected. The peculiarity of this binary combined with the uncritical acceptance of terms forced on the debate by the Constitution’s supporters has obscured the natural ideological coalitions of the era. Even the most cursory investigation reveals a host of the men who declared themselves “federalists” were nothing of the sort. America’s most significant financiers (Robert and Gouverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton) favored a fully national government and hinted at dreams of consolidation. My research will focus on how these politicians could work with more federally minded “allies” to ensure ratification.
What drew you to this topic?
I took History 150A, Colonial and Revolutionary America, in the fall of my freshman year. The first paper I wrote as a college student was about the deteriorating relationship between James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. I knew they collaborated closely to ensure the ratification of the Constitution, and I knew they were bitter political enemies within a few years. What I sought to learn was what happened in between. It became clear that the two had never truly shared a long-term vision for the United States; they supported the Constitution for irreconcilable reasons. As my academic career has progressed, I’ve realized that this was a widespread dynamic.
How are you conducting your research?
Unlike many history projects, the sources and discussions relevant to my work are not particularly difficult to locate. What they deliver by way of convenience, however, they more than make up for in volume. Historians have rarely been at a loss for words regarding the United States federal Constitution. The significant works on the topic are difficult enough to enumerate let alone meaningfully grapple with. Those at the time may have had even more to say. My research is trying to—hour by hour, day by day, and month by month—wrestle with and understand this enormous corpus.
What would people be surprised to learn about the topic you are working on?
From our present vantage point, it is easy to take the United States as such for granted. State loyalties haven’t been life-defining identities for a century, and the existence of a single polity stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific is a mainstay of living memory. People would be surprised to learn just how different this is from the early American experience—that a prominent Connecticut politician would rise at his State’s ratifying convention and wonder aloud what other than the Constitution could protect them from “the ambition and rapacity of New York.”
In your view, why is it valuable to study this topic?
The Constitution composed and ratified from 1787 to 1789 remains the fundamental law of the United States of America. A better understanding of the process by which this came to be can not only help us better understand the most formative era of American history but also ourselves. More narrowly, a better (and more complex) understanding of the goals and conflicts between the document’s supporters has tremendous implications for constitutional interpretation, an inquiry of increasing importance to modern law.
How is your honors thesis impacting you academically and/or personally?
Academically, my honors thesis has enabled my return to the subject matter which most interests me. I specialized fairly early and have thoroughly mined Stanford’s catalog on Founding Era American history. I can once again immerse myself in the sources and debates in which I enjoy residing. Personally, my current work has increased what I ask of my friends and family. They admirably pay attention as I earnestly implore them to feel the importance of a potential cession of the new Republic’s navigation rights to the Mississippi in return for a commercial treaty with Spain.
How do you anticipate the fellowship will be able to support your research?
The generous support for research materials is greatly appreciated. I’m new to the Humanities Center and very much enjoy my time there. Having a dedicated workspace definitely helps in structuring my work. The “distraction” of engaging with so many passionate and interesting people from all academic stages is something I am also enjoying immensely. Disciplinary divides can often unnecessarily hinder better understanding of what we study. Being exposed to so many people from so many fields allows me to ask questions and provide answers that I would not have encountered if I remained engrossed in the insular world of historical monographs.
