The Partisan Republic: Democracy, Exclusion, and the Fall of the Founders' Constitution, 1780s–1830s (New Histories of American Law)
Cambridge University Press, 1/31/2019
EAN 9781107663893, ISBN10: 110766389X
Paperback, 258 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm
Language: English
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.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The new constitution
2. The federalist constitution and the limits of constitutional dissent
3. The democracy vs the law
the role of the federal judiciary, 1789–1815
4. The paradoxes of Jeffersonian constitutionalism
5. The white democracy
6. The Marshall Court, the Indian nations, and the democratic ascendancy
Conclusion
the constitutional triumph and failure of the democratic party
Bibliographical essay
Index.