The Partisan Republic
Democracy, Exclusion, and the Fall of the Founders' Constitution, 1780s–1830s

Provides a compelling account of early American constitutionalism in the Founding era.

Gerald Leonard (Author), Saul Cornell (Author)

9781107663893, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 31 January 2019

254 pages
22.7 x 15.1 x 1.5 cm, 0.38 kg

'Leonard and Cornell have distilled and advanced understandings of what the framers intended for the US Constitution to do, and how federalists and Democratic-Republicans respectively interpreted it, even as these parties sometimes changed positions in the process. The authors also highlight how Democratic-Republicans triumphed while continuing to share some of the elitist assumptions of the original framers, and how rising democratic sentiment undermined these assumptions and thus altered constitutional understanding … This is a particularly appropriate book for history and constitutional law classes on antebellum America. Summing Up: Recommended.' J. R. Vile, Choice

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.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], History of the Americas [HBJK]