American Sovereigns: The People and America's Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War

Authors

Christian G. Fritz, University of New Mexico - School of LawFollow

Format

Book

First Page

427 pages

Files

Description

American Sovereigns: The People and America's Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War challenges traditional American constitutional history, theory, and jurisprudence that sees today's constitutionalism as linked by an unbroken chain to the 1787 federal constitutional convention. American Sovereigns examines the idea that after the American Revolution, a collectivity -- the people -- would rule as the sovereign. Heated political controversies within the states and at the national level over what it meant that the people were the sovereign and how that collective sovereign could express its will were not resolved in 1776, in 1787, or prior to the Civil War. The idea of the people as the sovereign both unified and divided Americans in thinking about government and the basis of the Union. Today's constitutionalism is not a natural inheritance, but the product of choices Americans made between shifting understandings about themselves as a collective sovereign.

ISBN

9780521881883

Publication Date

1-1-2008

City

Cambridge, MA

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Keywords

American Constitutionalism, Constituent Power, Popular Sovereignty, Sovereignty of the People, Constitution-Making, Consent of the Governed, Constitutional Tradition, Constitutional Revision, People's Sovereignty, Will of the People, Right of Revolution, Rule of Law

Disciplines

Law | Legal History

Comments

Previously published by Cambridge University Press.

View map of Selected American Determinist Settlements, 1770s-1780s

Recommended Citation

Fritz, Christian G.. "American Sovereigns: The People and America's Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War." (2008): 427 pages. https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/law_facbookdisplay/19