|Abraham Lincoln, Alan Levine, Civil War Amendments, Fourteenth Amendment, James R. Stoner Jr., John Bingham, John Holmes, Reconstruction, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas W. Merrill
Was It a Refounding?
by Sean A. Scott|
Was It a Refounding?
An Eternal Introduction
When I read the preface, I thought: What a great story awaits the reader. The authors of The Constitution: An Introduction, Michael Stokes Paulsen and Luke Paulsen, father and son, spent nine summer vacations together discussing the original Constitution and the Amendments. I wish I could have been privy to the conversations. Did the father ever say to the son, “you changed my mind on this point?” Did the son ever say to the father, “you changed my mind on that point?” After all, I think, the key to introducing America is by way of a dynamic conversation within and between the generations. Their aim is both lofty and restrained: to write an introductory book that is “rigorous, accurate, and scholarly” yet at the same time “brief and readable.” But they fall short.
