America's Constitution

[stoutfellow]

In America's Constitution: A Biography, Akhil Reed Amar attempts to weave together several different strands of study. The Constitution is usually studied from one of three viewpoints: that of law, that of political science, and that of history. Amar's stated goal is to work from all three vantages at once, showing how they illuminate one another. How well he achieves this, I am not qualified to judge, but I will say that I found the book enlightening.

Let's open with Amar's own words, in the preface:

The Constitution has given rise to a remarkable range of interpretations over the years. In the chapters that follow I offer my own take. This book is an opinionated biography of the document. For example, while I try to say at least something in passing about every paragraph of the document, I pay special attention to those aspects of the Constitution that are, in my view, particularly significant or generally misunderstood. Because readers deserve to be told about other views, this book's endnotes identify contrasting perspectives (and also, where appropriate, furnish additional elaboration). In a brief Postscript, I summarize the main areas where my method and substance are, for better or worse, distinctive.

Amar's discussion, as indicated, involves a close reading of the text. He devotes one chapter to the Preamble, including a discussion of the proposed ratification process and its implications for USAn democracy. Article I, on the powers of Congress, gets two chapters, as does Article II, on the Presidency. Articles III and IV (the judiciary, and the nature of the federation) get a chapter each. The concluding three articles of the original Constitution are covered in a single chapter; then Amar plunges into the amendments. The remaining chapters deal, in order, with the first twelve amendments, the Civil War amendments (XIII-XV), the Progressive-era amendments (XVI-XIX), and the amendments of the modern era (XX-XXVII).

As promised, Amar spends at least a moment discussing every part of the Constitution. I'll mention only a few items that struck me as interesting; others will find other attractions, I'm sure.

• In his discussion of the Preamble, Amar draws attention to the words "form a more perfect Union": more perfect, he says, in its unity. He gives evidence that the intent of the Founders was that unilateral secession was forbidden.
• In the same chapter, he points out that the ratification procedure deliberately bypassed the state legislatures, and that the franchise for the state conventions was, in almost all cases, much broader than that for the legislatures themselves. (All of the states, during the next generation, modified their rules to match; South Carolina was the last to do so.)
• The infamous three-fifths clause gets a great deal of attention. Amar discusses the origins of this compromise, but also its consequences: in many of the southern states (and again South Carolina was an extreme example), congressional and even state districts were arranged in accord with this clause, thereby giving the large slaveholders disproportionate power at the state and federal levels.
• The discussion of the Bill of Rights is meaty throughout; Amar's thoughts on the Second Amendment - he disagrees with both major schools of interpretation - and the Tenth Amendment are especially interesting. (On the latter, he points out that, during the period when the amendments were being drafted, South Carolina's Thomas Tudor Tucker proposed adding one word, limiting the central government to powers expressly enumerated, but Madison and his allies rallied to prevent that addition.)
• In the discussion of the Progressive amendments, I found Amar to be enlightening on the Seventeenth Amendment, providing for the direct election of senators. One of the principal problems with having them elected by state legislatures was the infrequency of legislative meetings; combining this with the possibility of faction-fighting and deadlock, Senate seats could, and often did, go unfilled for many months.

There is much more to the book than I've mentioned here, to be sure. I found Amar's account fascinating in its close analysis, and I think that anyone interested in the Constitution from any of the three viewpoints mentioned above is likely to be equally enthralled.