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A More Perfect Union: The Impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on the Constitution
Drawing from a rich and varied literature, Professor Hyman examines not only the impact of the American Civil War on the Constitution, but also the ways in which the Constitution shaped both the War and Reconstruction.
562 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1973
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About the author
Harold Melvin Hyman
19 booksA specialist in U.S. constitutional and legal history and the U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction, Harold M. Hyman was Rice University’s William P. Hobby Professor of History from 1968 until 1997. Hyman received his Ph.D. in history from Columbia University in 1952 and taught at Earlham College, Arizona State University, UCLA, and the University of Illinois before moving to Rice.
Dr. Hyman was a Ford Foundation Fellow, a Senior Fulbright Lecturer, an Organization of American Historians Lecturer, judge for the Pulitzer, Littleton-Griswold (AHA), and other prizes, NEH reviewer, and past president of the American Society for Legal History. He also worked closely with the Texas Bar Association’s Law-Related Education Project, and served on the committees of several professional societies.
Dr. Hyman was a Ford Foundation Fellow, a Senior Fulbright Lecturer, an Organization of American Historians Lecturer, judge for the Pulitzer, Littleton-Griswold (AHA), and other prizes, NEH reviewer, and past president of the American Society for Legal History. He also worked closely with the Texas Bar Association’s Law-Related Education Project, and served on the committees of several professional societies.
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September 8, 2024
“each generation, in its own ways, but with unseverable continuums to the past, tests again the Constitution’s capacity to cope.”
First published in 1973, Harold Hyman’s work illuminates some of those ‘unseverable continuums’, and throws light on the question: How did the people who lived at the time (about 1840 through about 1880) see and understand their world, particularly through the lens of attitudes toward the meaning, intent, limits, and uses of the Constitution?
Was it adequate to the challenges of the time or would it have to be scrapped? Many, especially in Europe (autocratic and overly centralized as ever) gleefully thought the American experiment was a self-evident failure. Many Americans likewise felt that the expansions of central government power were the Death of Liberty and the End of the Republic. (It goes without saying that no one of either Lincoln’s or HH’s day could conceive of the Monster that our central government has become…)
Be that as it may, HH examines these and related issues at a level of detail that I found endlessly fascinating. Habeas Corpus and Federal court vs State court validity/jurisdiction/removal rules and procedures; the Merryman, Slaughterhouse, Cruikshank, Mulligan cases; why did public health in New Orleans deteriorate after the Union army left?; what did telegrams have to do with states’ rights issues; what did Indian ponies have to do with the NYC Board of Health? The seemingly disparate themes actually do form ‘unseverable continuums’ that, no doubt, are traceable up to our own day.
Having become uncomfortably conscious of my own ignorance about so many matters, HH’s footnotes are a priceless source of further reading ideas as well as of reliable historians. This is history the way it should be written—probably near the last of its kind, if I may give in to a bit of despair—and I can only hope that this is required reading in at least some Master’s level history courses, somewhere.
On the plus side and quoting from HH’s bibliography and acknowledgments section, “…I have made a beginning, not an ending, and I know many more questions than answers.” Maybe I’ll get a PhD in American History.
First published in 1973, Harold Hyman’s work illuminates some of those ‘unseverable continuums’, and throws light on the question: How did the people who lived at the time (about 1840 through about 1880) see and understand their world, particularly through the lens of attitudes toward the meaning, intent, limits, and uses of the Constitution?
Was it adequate to the challenges of the time or would it have to be scrapped? Many, especially in Europe (autocratic and overly centralized as ever) gleefully thought the American experiment was a self-evident failure. Many Americans likewise felt that the expansions of central government power were the Death of Liberty and the End of the Republic. (It goes without saying that no one of either Lincoln’s or HH’s day could conceive of the Monster that our central government has become…)
Be that as it may, HH examines these and related issues at a level of detail that I found endlessly fascinating. Habeas Corpus and Federal court vs State court validity/jurisdiction/removal rules and procedures; the Merryman, Slaughterhouse, Cruikshank, Mulligan cases; why did public health in New Orleans deteriorate after the Union army left?; what did telegrams have to do with states’ rights issues; what did Indian ponies have to do with the NYC Board of Health? The seemingly disparate themes actually do form ‘unseverable continuums’ that, no doubt, are traceable up to our own day.
Having become uncomfortably conscious of my own ignorance about so many matters, HH’s footnotes are a priceless source of further reading ideas as well as of reliable historians. This is history the way it should be written—probably near the last of its kind, if I may give in to a bit of despair—and I can only hope that this is required reading in at least some Master’s level history courses, somewhere.
On the plus side and quoting from HH’s bibliography and acknowledgments section, “…I have made a beginning, not an ending, and I know many more questions than answers.” Maybe I’ll get a PhD in American History.
Displaying 1 of 1 review