Vol. 14 No. 3 (March 2004)

THE CONSTITUTION AND THE NATION (4 Volumes), by Christopher Waldrep
and Lynne Curry (eds.).  New York: Peter Lang Publishing,  2003. 

Volume 1: ESTABLISHING THE CONSTITUTION, 1215-1829. 214 pp.   Paper $21.95  23.50 € 15.00 £. ISBN: 0-8204-5730-2.

Volume 2: THE CIVIL WAR AND AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONALISM, 1830-1890. 269 pp.  Paper$21.95  23.50 € 15.00 £. ISBN: 0-8204-5731-0. 

Volume 3: THE REGULATORY STATE, 1890-1945.  179 pp. Paper $21.95  23.50 € 15.00 £. ISBN: 0-8204-5732-9. 

Volume 4: A REVOLUTION IN RIGHTS, 1937-2002.  269 pp.  Paper $21.95  23.50 € 15.00 £. ISBN: 0-8204-5733-7.

Reviewed by Samuel B. Hoff, Department of History, Political Science, and Philosophy, Delaware State University. Email: shoff@desu.edu .

This set of books comprises Volumes 22 through 25 of the Teaching Texts in Law and Politics series published by Peter Lang.  The volumes mix political eras of American history with original documents, texts, letters, and court decisions from each period.  In the common Introduction to all four volumes, the editors emphasize the necessity of studying the Constitution in terms of its evolution: "To see law as historical makes powerful assumptions: law does change; law reflects time; political forces mold law" (p.1).  The editors contend that by examining the topic in this manner, the reader can discern how the distribution of power between levels of United States government developed.

Volume 1 encompasses the period from Magna Carta in 1215 to the last major ruling by the Marshall Court in 1824.  Chapter 1 contains seven documents depicting the British contribution to American constitutionalism, Chapter 2 covers the period of the founding of the North American colonies by England, and Chapter 3 encompasses the American Revolution.  Chapter 4 begins with the writing of state constitutions in 1776 and ends with ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791.  Chapter 5 depicts the decade of the early American republic from 1789 to 1799, while Chapter 6 presents five Supreme Court cases decided under the leadership of Chief Justice John Marshall, including MARBURY v. MADISON (1803), FLETCHER v. PECK (1810), DARTMOUTH COLLEGE v. WOODWARD (1819), MCCULLOCH v. MARYLAND (1819), and GIBBONS v. OGDEN (1824).

Volume 2 of the set focuses on a large segment of nineteenth century America.  It begins with Chapter 1's examination of the influence of Andrew Jackson on the maturation of the Constitution.  Chapter 2 deals with slavery.  Chapter 3, labeled "The Impending Crisis," contains documents representative of the period from the publication of the article coining the term "manifest destiny" in 1846 to the Supreme Court's DRED SCOTT decision in 1857.   Except for Jefferson Davis's farewell address to the Senate in 1861, Chapter 4 includes laws, speeches, and an amendment which were written during the presidency of Abraham Lincoln.  Chapter 5 incorporates thirteen different documents of the Reconstruction era, many of which demonstrate the disagreement over policy between President Andrew Johnson and the Republican-controlled Congress. Chapter 6 depicts how civil rights progressed from the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 to the infamous PLESSY v. FERGUSON holding of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896.

Volume 3 traverses the half-century between 1890 and 1945.  Chapter 1 offers excerpts from three books on laissez-faire economic theory published in 1850, 1868, and 1886, respectively as a prologue to the latter economic era.  Of Chapter 2's readings, all but two are Supreme Court cases illustrating how the law was influenced by the hands-off economic beliefs and practices of the late nineteenth century.  Fully twenty documents are found in Chapter 3, which encompasses the Progressive era of American history.  They begin with an article written by future Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1897 and end with the Supreme Court's NEAR v. MINNESOTA ruling in 1931.   Chapter 4 covers the New Deal era and contains eight laws, speeches, and court cases released during the first two terms of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. Chapter 6 contains an executive order along with six Supreme Court cases decided concurrent with World War II.

Volume 4's subtitle is "A Revolution in Rights, 1937-2002."  Chapter 1 depicts the twentieth century development of the First Amendment Freedom of Speech.  Following the Smith Act of 1940, the chapter includes eleven Supreme Court decisions on the topic from 1951 to 1992.  Chapter 2, titled "Second Reconstruction," highlights cases, laws, speeches, and other documents dealing with the civil rights.  Included here are the two BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION rulings by the Supreme Court in 1954 and 1955, with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Chapter 3 presents ten Supreme Court cases which extend personal protections found in the Bill of Rights to the states.  Chapter 4 consists of court cases, laws, and Articles of Impeachment as examples of presidential power.  Finally, Chapter 5 contains thirteen examples of conservative political thinking over the last quarter-century, as exhibited by laws, speeches, and Supreme Court holdings.

The Waldrep-Curry work has some similarities to American political thought books in that the compilation of readings covers political periods of the nation's history.  Too, the four volumes may in some ways be compared to constitutional law books in that they offer a plethora of cases on the powers of government and the rights of individuals.  The uniqueness of this set lies in the juxtaposition of politics and law within the rubric of constitutionalism.  Therefore, the closest publication to THE CONSTITUTION AND THE NATION appears to be the five-volume THE FOUNDERS' CONSTITUTION, edited by Philip Kurland and Ralph Lerner.  That series dissects the American Constitution and Bill of Rights by presenting readings which help explain how the law of the land was created and unfolded.

The four-volume collection of constitutional documents has some noteworthy features.  First, each chapter within every volume contains a short introduction to the topic.  Second, all volumes have an Appendix with the Constitution and amendments, a common glossary, and an index.  Third, the last chapter of Volume 4 ends with a very recent document, the 2002 joint resolution of Congress authorizing the use of military force against Iraq.

However, there are some shortcomings to the Waldrup-Curry compendium.  For one, there is a time overlap both within and between chapters and between actual volumes, as
seen most starkly in Volumes 3 and 4 of the set.  Further, the number of readings found in each chapter is not uniform, perhaps causing the rather large total page discrepancy between Volume 3 and the remaining texts.  Additionally, it is odd that the Introduction in Volume 1 is repeated in the ensuing three volumes and that there is no overall synthesis at the end of Volume 4.   A final deficiency is probably a weakness of all such chronologically-aligned texts-by attempting to place a topic within a limited period of American history, it is easy to overlook the etiology of a controversy - such as slavery - or how a subject area, such as presidential power, has pertinence to the entire span of constitutional history.

The value of this edited set of books may be measured in its seminal approach and eight centuries of examples.  As is so aptly demonstrated here, "constitutionalism is contested" (Introduction, p.2).

REFERENCES:

Kurland, Philip, and Ralph Lerner.  1987.  THE FOUNDERS' CONSTITUTION, 5 Volumes.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

CASE REFERENCES:

BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION I, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION II, 349 U.S. 294 (1955).

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE v. WOODWARD, 17 US 518 (1819).

FLETCHER v. PECK, 10 US 87 (1810).

GIBBONS v. OGDEN, 22 US 1 (1824).

MARBURY v. MADISON, 5 US 137 (1803).

MCCULLOCH v. MARYLAND, 17 US 316 (1819).

NEAR v. MINNESOTA, 283 US 697 (1931).

PLESSY v. FERGUSON, 163 US 537 (1896).

SCOTT v. SANFORD, 60 US 393 (1857).

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Copyright 2004 by the author, Samuel B. Hoff