The Words That Made Us: America's Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840

If Gordon Wood’s 188-page “Power and Liberty” is a tapas style sampling of the Constitution’s foundational ideas, then Akhil Reed Amar’s 688-page “The Words That Made Us” is a continuous feast of those ideas interspersed with celebratory toasts to the document’s greatness. Amar’s immensely enjoyable narrative is flavored with telling anecdotes, incisive characterizations, and engrossing conflicts. While Amar never neglects the Constitution’s flaws, he keeps sight of its democratic roots and its status in world history as “an earthquake in law, government, public policy, geopolitics, and civic discourse” (32). Gordon Wood’s and Akhil Amar’s books are both worth reading, but Amar’s will stick to the ribs and stay in the mind far longer.Like most historians, Amar traces the evolution of constitutional theory from the colonists’ early jabs at Parliamentary and royal power in the 1760s, but unlike others, he includes the 1760-61 writs of assistance dispute. He finds in this disagreement (about open-ended arrest warrants) the seeds of discontent. As Parliament later flexed its power with new tax laws, Americans tackled bigger questions. They challenged the idea of supreme sovereignty vested in Parliament and ultimately identified “we the people” as the true source of sovereignty. They debated proper allocation of power (choosing to split it among three branches), squabbled over appropriate representation (adhering only partially to proportional representation because they needed to gain the consent of small states and slave states), and insisted on guaranteed individual rights (encapsulating the key ideas in the original slate of amendments). In perhaps his biggest contribution to our understanding of the Constitution’s origins, Amar emphasizes that geopolitical threats convinced Americans to create a strong central government headed by a strong president. They saw the Constitution as protection from both foreign interference and internecine strife.Amar gives more credit to Americans collectively, to James Wilson, and especially to George Washington for the Constitution than other historians do. He notes that high- and low-born citizens alike debated ideas publicly through the burgeoning newspaper market, tested the ideas in state constitutions, and then democratically elected delegates for ratifying conventions after the national constitution was proposed. Amar honors James Wilson for devising the idea of popular sovereignty, which punctured the prevailing assumption that sovereignty ought to be monopolized by one representative body. This made it easier to divide power among branches. Regarding Washington, Amar focuses on the great man’s geostrategic conviction, learned in the crucible of war, that the country needed unity and stable funding for defense. After expressing this belief in many letters to contemporaries during the 1780s, Washington kept a close eye on executive power discussions when presiding over the Constitutional convention.Amar also places John Marshall in the pantheon of great early constitutionalists. He praises Marshall for strengthening the Court, through his ability to achieve unanimity, and for strengthening the country, by affirming the Federal Government’s power to legislate for the economy and defense. What credit Amar gives to Marshall, Washington, and others he necessarily takes from Madison. In addition, Madison (along with Jefferson) bears the brunt of criticism for later attempts to weaken unity and promote the spread of slavery.Finally, Amar writes with style, grace, and wit. He has a gift for cleverly juxtaposing opposites. For instance, he writes that for Britain “adding Canada would soon mean subtracting America” (35), and, with concessions to slavery “was born a basic contradiction between what Americans professed at their best and what they practiced at their worst” (144). Amar’s only fault is too much repetition. Although long books require some repetition to help readers connect events to previously cited actions, Amar overdoes it. Still, it’s a small price to pay for such as an insightful and entertaining journey through early American history.[For more on Gordon Wood’s “Power and Liberty, see my four-star Amazon review.]

This book is delightfully difficult to describe, I highly recommend.Context: This is the first of a planned trilogy in which Amar (the author) intends to narrate America's “Constitutional Conversation” in three eighty-year spans (this one is 1760-1840). He explains that “…many of the best works of history are period pieces that illuminate a decade or two but do not even try to trace the analytic and narrative threads across the generations.” Amar employs an intersection of legal and historical analysis; using a blend of constitutional law and constitutional history to address myriad topics, explaining that he “…aims to unite history and law in a wide-angled multigenerational narrative that seeks both to understand the past and to evaluate it using proper historical and legal tools of analysis.” In this light the first eighty years are especially compelling; “Uniquely in the history of the world, Americans in the late eighteenth century constituted themselves as a people and as a nation in a series of epic and self-conscious acts of democratic self-invention.” The book ratifies that statement - the whole thing (the creation of this system of government from almost nothing) ends up feeling kind of jaw dropping.~35 of the 55 convention delegates were lawyers; a blended legal/historical analysis seems (and proves to be) especially apropos. "It is a legal document that invites proper use of the legal tools of analysis that I wear on my daily tool belt as a law professor."While I found every page compelling, I thought the central thread was occasionally a bit disguised. I sometimes found myself having "lost the plot"… to the point that I decided to re-read the first few chapters (because I could not remember how they had fit into the larger narrative I only later fully understood was being told). However even when I found it minimally disorienting, the content was always extremely interesting. Never was I remotely bored – Amar makes super interesting points and connections one after another.I think it is a spectacular scholarly work. It may fail to get its just due because it is kind of (delightfully, intentionally) “between genres.” Not exactly traditional history… but also not strictly legal analysis.One warning: I think my appreciation was much greater as a function of my having already consumed a great deal about the creation of the Constitution (and, to a lesser extent, constitutional law). I recommend at minimum first reading a primer/narrative on the making of the Constitution (e.g., Plain, Honest Men by Richard Beeman, Miracle in Philadelphia by Catherine Drinker Bowen, etc.). The Words That Made Us is kind of like a 300-level college course (listed in History, Political Science and Law departments). You can get value w/out completing the prerequisites, but you will get a lot more with a bit of preparation.

A very detailed dive into the legal aspects of the constitution and its history. Good legal analysis and citation of early legal case law. A book to visit and re-visit.