The Partisan Republic: Democracy, Exclusion, and the Fall of the Founders' Constitution, 1780s-1830s
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Description
The Partisan Republic is the first book to unite a top down and bottom up account of constitutional change in the Founding era. The book focuses on the decline of the Founding generation's elitist vision of the Constitution and the rise of a more 'democratic' vision premised on the exclusion of women and non-whites. It incorporates recent scholarship on topics ranging from judicial review to popular constitutionalism to place judicial initiatives like Marbury vs Madison in a broader, socio-legal context. The book recognizes the role of constitutional outsiders as agents in shaping the law, making figures such as the Whiskey Rebels, Judith Sargent Murray, and James Forten part of a cast of characters that has traditionally been limited to white, male elites such as James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Marshall. Finally, it shows how the 'democratic' political party came to supplant the Supreme Court as the nation's pre-eminent constitutional institution.
ISBN
9781107024168
Publication Date
2019
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
City
New York
Keywords
constitutional history, legal history, politics and government, 18th century, 19th century
Disciplines
Law | Legal | Legal History | United States History
Recommended Citation
Leonard, Gerald F. and Cornell, Saul, "The Partisan Republic: Democracy, Exclusion, and the Fall of the Founders' Constitution, 1780s-1830s" (2019). Books. 170.
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/books/170
Comments
From the series New Histories of American Law