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This text argues that constitutional change, seemingly so orderly, formal, and refined, has in fact been a revolutionary process from the first. The Founding Fathers not being the genteel conservatives of myth, set America on a course of revolutionary disruption and constitutional creativity that endures at the close of the millennium. Citing examples like the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, the Great Depression and the New Dealers the author shows how the constitution was changed by these events.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Acknowledgments
• Part 1 In The Beginning
• 1 Higher Lawmaking
• 2 Reframing the Founding
• 3 The Founding Precedent
• Part 2 Reconstruction
• 4 Formalist Dilemmas
• 5 Presidential Leadership
• 6 The Convention/Congress
• 7 Interpreting the Mandate
• 8 The Great Transformation
• Part 3 Modernity
• 9 From Reconstruction to New Deal
• 10 Rethinking the New Deal
• 11 The Missing Amendments
• 12 Rediscovery or Creation?
• 13 Reclaiming the Constitution Frequently
• Cited Works
• Notes
• Index

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CHOICE Review

This, the second volume in a proposed three-volume series by Ackerman (law and political science, Yale), is as equally thoughtful and well written as the first, We the People: Foundations (CH, May'92). The second volume reflects on three critical periods in American history when the rules for formal constitutional amendment were bent and sometimes broken to achieve the goals of a dominant majority. Using history, political science, and law, Ackerman examines the questionable actions of the Federalists in achieving constitutional ratification. Similarly, he analyzes the radical Republicans' actions in achieving the suspect adoptions of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments and the US Supreme Court's 1937 "switch in time". In each case Ackerman shows how the Constitution was changed without relying on the supposedly hard and fast formal rules for constitutional amendment provisions of Article V. He also analyzes the reasons for the failure of the Reagan and Gingrich "revolutions" to achieve similarly dramatic results. Perhaps most intriguing is the author's recommendations to require a two-thirds majority for judicial nominees and to allow second-term presidents to propose constitutional amendments that would ultimately go to the people, and not the states, for direct vote. This well-written, extensively footnoted work is highly recommended for all readers. M. W. Bowers University of Nevada, Las Vegas