The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America *[Book]
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice An innovative account of Abraham Lincoln, constitutional thinker and doer Abraham Lincoln is justly revered for his brilliance, compassion, humor, and rededication of the United States to achieving liberty and justice for all. He led the nation into a bloody civil war to uphold the system of government established by the US Constitution―a system he regarded as the “last best hope of mankind.” But how did Lincoln understand the Constitution? In this groundbreaking study, Noah Feldman argues that Lincoln deliberately and recurrently violated the United States’ founding arrangements. When he came to power, it was widely believed that the federal government could not use armed force to prevent a state from seceding. It was also assumed that basic civil liberties could be suspended in a rebellion by Congress but not by the president, and that the federal government had no authority over slavery in states where it existed. As president, Lincoln broke decisively with all these precedents, and effectively rewrote the Constitution’s place in the American system. Before the Civil War, the Constitution was best understood as a compromise pact―a rough and ready deal between states that allowed the Union to form and function. After Lincoln, the Constitution came to be seen as a sacred text―a transcendent statement of the nation’s highest ideals. The Broken Constitution is the first book to tell the story of how Lincoln broke the Constitution in order to remake it. To do so, it offers a riveting narrative of his constitutional choices and how he made them―and places Lincoln in the rich context of thinking of the time, from African American abolitionists to Lincoln’s Republican rivals and Secessionist ideologues. Includes 8 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations Read more
Download Now
Why Must Read The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America?
This book reflects Lincoln’s intellectual, moral and wrestling with the reality of slavery in our constitutional republic. We find him struggling to remain faithful during his years in the state and national legislatures and his presidency to the U.S. Constitution assembled by the Constitutional Convention of 1787. That Constitution finally approved by our founders in order to embrace states whose approval depended upon sustaining slavery - that 1787 document is defined by the author, Noah Lehman, as “The Compromise Constitution.” He sees the 1787 Constitution as a “compromise” between the political necessity of slavery for the formation of a functional “union” of sovereign states and as a moral instrument guaranteeing the profound confidence “ . . . that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness….” The course of this splendid political biography walks us radiantly through Lincoln’s evolving from assiduous professional defense of the “Compromise Constitution” finally to designing the Emancipation Proclamation, offering the Gettysburg Address, delivering the Second Inaugural Address and providing the basis for the 13th, 14th and 15th Civil and Human Rights Amendments. He calls this process our “Second Founding.” And in a closing, Noah Lehman takes us quickly through the failure of Reconstruction, the reality of a “Third Founding” evident in the Civil Rights efforts of The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., his “I Have a Dream Speech” in August, 1963, the prophetic vision of his “Letter From the Birmingham Jail” and finally, with reference to the radical voting rights legislation of 1964-‘65. Indeed a Third Founding.” This book is a loving and inspirational historical treasure - with Abraham Lincoln it’s heart and soul!
Read Now