Home › Books › The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and th…
The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America
by
6/99
Critics' Rating Index
71/99
Readers' Rating Index
n/a
Scholars' Citation Index
77/99
Volume of Reviews
31/99
Volume of Reader Ratings
Sign in to add to your shelf, rate, or review this book.
About This Book
A New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceAn 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
Reviews
"Feldman offers an elucidating look into Lincoln's incremental thinking, neatly demonstrating how he articulated the 'before' and 'after' Constitution in the Gettysburg Address as a compromise versus a moral document, using an Old Testament/New Testament analogy that embodied equality for all promised in the Declaration of Independence."
"The reader should ultimately keep this in mind, whatever one's opinion of our 16th president."
"The Broken Constitution displays its author's usual brilliance and boldness in his contrarianism, and a passionate engagement with the past."
"While Feldman's book...has many valuable insights, its argument downplays some crucial context."
"Though the wealth of detail on Lincoln's life and travels bogs down the narrative somewhat, this is an astute and eye-opening look at an underexamined aspect of the quest to end slavery."
"Vignettes about slavery, the negotiators of the compromises, abolitionists, the Civil War, and beyond offer context for Feldman's innovative legal analysis."
"To dismiss those earlier aspirations as a mere tolerance for slavery flattens our formative national tragedy into a moral melodrama."
Preview
Reader Reviews
0 reviewsSign in to write a review.
No reader reviews yet. Be the first!