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3 unusual facts about Forrest McDonald


Forrest McDonald

McDonald and the late Grady McWhiney presented the "Celtic hypothesis" stating that the distinctiveness of Southern culture derives largely from the majority of the Southern population being descendants of Celtic herdsmen while the majority of the Northern population was the descendants of farmers.

In his book We The People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution, McDonald argued that Charles A. Beard (in his book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States) had misinterpreted the economic interests involved in writing the Constitution.

The New York Times pointedly noted that on the same day as McDonald's Jefferson Lecture, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall gave a speech criticizing "complacent belief" in the perfection of the Constitution, given the stain of slavery.


Grady McWhiney

McWhiney and Forrest McDonald were the authors of the "Celtic Thesis," which holds that most Southerners were of Celtic ancestry (as opposed to Anglo-Saxon), and that all groups he declared to be "Celtic" (Scots-Irish, Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Cornish) were descended from warlike herdsmen, in contrast to the peaceful farmers who predominated in England.


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