The Foundations Of American Constitutionalism

by Andrew C. McLaughlin, Henry Steele Commager (Editor)

McLaughlin, Andrew C. The Foundations of American Constitutionalism. New York: The New York University Press, 1932. vii, 176 pp. Reprinted 2002 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-227-1. Cloth. $65. An historian with a legal background, McLaughlin [1861-1947] traces the principles of justice embodied by the United States Constitution to the influence of colonial New England political philosophy and Puritan practices and ideals of personal rights and limited government. A reprint of the Anson G. Phelps Lectures on Early American History delivered at New York University in 1932.

160 pages, Paperback

Published July 28, 2012

About the author

Andrew Cunningham McLaughlin taught history at the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago, and was the first director of the Department of Historical Research at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C., and later president of the American Historical Association.

His A Constitutional History of the United States, written for the average reader, received the 1936 Pulitzer Prize for History.

Reviews

[Rowena Ivanhoe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Foundations of American Constitutionalism was originally published in 1932. It is based on a series of lectures by the author and details political developments in the American colonies that influenced the system of government established in the 1787 United States Constitution. The main theme discussed is the development of the idea of government by covenant or social compact, although the book touches on several other important ideas as well.

The content of this book was very interesting, but I found the writing to be very dry and boring. It is basically a transcript of a lecture series, and it did not transfer over to the written page very well. If I had not been reading it for school, I would have given up after the first chapter.

That being said, the content here was quite good. I was especially interested in what the author had to say about how the Separatists and the organization of the joint-stock companies helped to form American ideas about government by voluntary association.

[Kim Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

It wasn't bad. It had some interesting background on political theory, but sometimes the chapters, since they were originally lectures, didn't seem to hit the point the way I would expect an edited work to do.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this. A must read for anyone wanting to understand American Constitutionalism better. McLaughlin took lectures and put them in book form, so to me it read pretty smoothly.