Recently published, by Carol Berkin (Baruch College, History): The Bill of Rights: The Fight to Secure America's Liberties (Simon & Schuster 2016). Here is the book description from Amazon:
“Narrative, celebratory history at its purest” (Publishers Weekly)—the real story of how the Bill of Rights came to be: a vivid account of political strategy, big egos, and the partisan interests that set the terms of the ongoing contest between the federal government and the states.
Those who argue that the Bill of Rights reflects the founding fathers’ “original intent” are wrong. The Bill of Rights was actually a brilliant political act executed by James Madison to preserve the Constitution, the federal government, and the latter’s authority over the states. In the skilled hands of award-winning historian Carol Berkin, the story of the founders’ fight over the Bill of Rights comes alive in a drama full of partisanship, clashing egos, and cunning manipulation.
In 1789, the nation faced a great divide around a question still unanswered today: should broad power and authority reside in the federal government or should it reside in state governments? The Bill of Rights, from protecting religious freedom to the people’s right to bear arms, was a political ploy first and a matter of principle second. The truth of how and why Madison came to devise this plan, the debates it caused in the Congress, and its ultimate success is more engrossing than any of the myths that shroud our national beginnings.
The debate over the Bill of Rights still continues through many Supreme Court decisions. By pulling back the curtain on the short-sighted and self-interested intentions of the founding fathers, Berkin reveals the anxiety many felt that the new federal government might not survive—and shows that the true “original intent” of the Bill of Rights was simply to oppose the Antifederalists who hoped to diminish the government’s powers. This book is “a highly readable American history lesson that provides a deeper understanding of the Bill of Rights, the fears that generated it, and the miracle of the amendments” (Kirkus Reviews).
At the L.A. Review of Books, Stephen Rohde has a positive review: A Stronger Constitution: Carol Berkin’s “The Bill of Rights”. From the introduction:
In The Bill of Rights: The Fight to Secure America’s Liberties, Carol Berkin, the presidential professor of History at Baruch College and a member of the history faculty of the Graduate Center of CUNY, Emerita, combines prodigious research and an engaging writing style to provide a fresh look at the fierce political battles over amending the brand new Constitution to add express protections for individual rights. In a relatively brief but erudite account of this pivotal period in American history, Berkin has mastered key source materials to present a nicely paced story laced with lively wit and sure-footed assessments of her important subject.
Berkin considers the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights “the two greatest written legacies of the Revolutionary generation.” She insists that the “men who produced the Bill of Rights were neither demigods nor visionaries. They were mere mortals, some brilliant, some quite ordinary, most of them wealthier and better educated than their neighbors.” Berkin’s most powerful insight is to place readers in the very specific circumstances the Founders faced. For them there was no guarantee that the new government they were building would last. Instead of viewing the Bill of Rights as just a lofty statement of high-minded principles, Berkin demonstrates through contemporaneous letters and speeches how these 10 amendments helped quell widespread opposition to the new Constitution and ensure popular support for the new and more energetic federal system of government.
(Via Legal History Blog).
Note: Professor Berkin is also the author of A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution (Mariner Books 2003).
Posted at 6:39 AM