Customer Reviews

The Founders' Constitution: Major Themes

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This is a monumental work, which I think is a must have for student of jurisprudence and constitutional law. I found it incredibly useful as a law student in studying the debates and understanding developments in the common law tradition and constitutional history since the inception of the Republic. It is well organized, and though their is some duplication of materials, it serves the purpose of making the reference more accessible and user-friendly rather than having a cross-referencing scheme. Perhaps, the other user might be right in pointing out that the CD-ROM might be better suited for some users. I have an affinity for the printed matter and the organization makes things relatively easy to find. Though, it is available online for free.

The Title is The Founder's Constitution. I have Vol. 1, Major Themes. 700 pages, about the size of a telephone book. Good heavy paper, very readable type, excellent organization and presentation. But how to give a sense of it? It starts with A Reader's Advisory: "This collection of thoughts, opinions, and arguments of the Founders...." And that is exactly what it is. I think the latest item is Geo. Washington's farewell speech in 1796. It includes letters, debates, broadsides, underpinnings (e.g., a bit of John Locke), reports from towns that debated, and so on. The compleat usual cast of characters is present, but also everyone else who spoke or wrote on it intelligently - and passionately. This is not about the writing of the Constitution; for that there is Madison's Notes (ISBN 0-393-30405-1). This book is a record of the debate that made it our Constitution. Not "about" it, but the debate itself, the entries mostly from the 1700s, but including some relevant earlier commentary. Idiosyncratic spelling and expression is preserved.

That's what the book is. The experience of the book is something else. It is nothing less than an encounter with the American mind of the 1700s, on matters that they understood better than we were of the greatest moment. By encounter I do not mean mere meeting as if in a modern classroom with texts and a professor, or as when one reads a single document or history book. Rather, one enters the immediacy of the debate and hears their voices as if spoken directly to the reader himself. And, of course, in a sense they were.

It is also an amazing record of the quality of that mind, its sheer intelligence, and its responsible, ethical, and moral engagement with the constitution itself and all the issues that swirled around it.

It has to said: we modern readers do not fare well at all in comparison. But one feels total pride of association with a community, a nation, capable of such quality of thought and discussion.

As a source, the book is literally priceless, a collection of libraries in one volume.

But it also has to be said that the style of 1700s America is not our style: it's a hard read, perhaps best read and savored over years.