The Constitution and America's Destiny

This book explains the politics behind the design of the US Constitution.

David Brian Robertson (Author)

9780521607780, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 29 August 2005

304 pages, 4 b/w illus. 5 tables
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.41 kg

"In this extraordinarily useful book, David Brian Robertson shows us no less than how the U.S. Constitution was made. It does no disservice to the American Founders to insist, as Robertson does here, that they were, perhaps above all, politicians. By situating this diverse group of political geniuses within the complex web of policy problems, political agendas, and clashing interests at a decisive political moment, Robertson provides a compelling account of how strategies shifted, compromises were reached, and constitutional agreements were forged. As an added bonus, he then explains how those agreements shaped a politics that remains distinctive to the present day. The Constitution and America's Destiny is an accessible and important study in how constitutions come to be, and how, in turn, they live." Ken I. Kersch, Princeton University

In this ambitious study, Robertson explains how the US Constitution emerged from an intense battle between a bold vision for the nation's political future and the tenacious defense of its political present. Given a once-in-a-lifetime chance to alter America's destiny, James Madison laid before the Constitutional Convention a plan for a strong centralized government that could battle for America's long-term interests. But delegates from vulnerable states resisted this plan, seeking instead to maintain state control over most of American life while adding a few more specific powers to the existing government. These clashing aspirations turned the Convention into an unpredictable chain of events. Step-by-step, the delegates' compromises built national powers in a way no one had anticipated, and produced a government more complex and hard to use than any of them originally intended. Their Constitution, in turn, helped create a politics unlike that in any other nation.

1. Politics and the constitution
2. The policy crisis of the 1780s
3. James Madison's strategy for the constitutional convention
4. The political landscape of the constitutional convention
5. Who governs? Constituting policy agency
6. What can be governed? Constituting policy authority
7. How is the nation governed? Constituting the policy process
8. Our inheritance: the constitution and American politics.

Subject Areas: Constitution: government & the state [JPHC], Politics & government [JP], History of the Americas [HBJK]