"In All of Its Complexity, Contradictions, and Ingenuity"

"Launching today and just ahead of the nation's 250th anniversary, a special issue of The Atlantic brings together a remarkable group of scholars, essayists, and reporters to revisit America's founding era, measuring the success of the American experiment, two and a half centuries later, against the lofty dreams and designs of the founding generation. In an editor's note, The Atlantic's editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, writes of the issue, 'You will see that we are not simplistic, jingoistic, or uncritical in our approach, but we are indeed motivated by the idea that the American Revolution represents one of the most important events in the history of the planet, and its ideals continue to symbolize hope and freedom for humankind.' He continues, 'We are publishing this at the end of 2025 for a number of reasons: This month marks the launch of an Atlantic project meant to explain the meaning of the Revolution and its consequences, which we will carry through all of next year… We also recognize that the American experiment is under extraordinary pressure at the moment, and we think it important to do anything we can to illuminate the challenges we face.'"

The Atlantic unveils "The Unfinished Revolution."

"What Happened on Jan. 6 Is Far Less Significant Than What Happened Before Jan. 6—and What Has and Has Not Happened Since Then"

"As we approach the one-year anniversary of the violent assault on the Capitol, the prevailing argument on the left and much of the center is that the Republican Party poses a novel threat to American democracy. This is a flawed assessment, which oversells and understates the danger we face."

Corey Robin at Politico issues warnings about minority rule.

"Not Designed to Promote Federalism"

"In 'Federalist No. 68,' Alexander Hamilton contended that the Electoral College would frustrate 'the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.' It would also 'afford a moral certainty that the office of President [would] seldom fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.' In addition, it would keep from the office candidates with 'talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity.' In evaluating the Electoral College today, one must judge whether Hamilton's hopes have been vindicated."

G. Alan Tarr at The Atlantic takes on defenders of the Electoral College.

"There Was No Slaveholders' Ploy"

"A good way to summarize what actually happened inside the convention is to recall the place of slavery in the different plans that the convention considered about electing the president.  The delegates weighed three options: the president would be selected by direct popular vote, by Congress, or by electors who would be chosen either by the people or the state legislatures. Direct election failed, but not because it was intolerable to the slaveholders, as Amar maintains. It failed because it enjoyed little support in the convention, for reasons that had nothing to do with slavery. The real choice for the framers was between the congressional method and the electoral method. Both methods gave the slave states an extra measure of power in selecting the president; so once direct election was scrapped, the convention was bound to grant the slave states some sort of bonus. But this was because the great majority of the convention did not trust in the people at large to choose the president." 

Sean Wilentz at History News Network writes that "like most of my fellow American historians, I have been wrong about slavery and the Electoral College."

"Not Enough People Connect the Dots Between Our Political Dysfunctions and the Sacred Constitution of 1787"

"The Framers simply didn't anticipate how deeply partisanship would hollow out Congress' willingness to hold a president accountable. They hated political parties—George Washington bemoaned 'the demon of party spirit'—and failed to account for the ways in which what they called 'factions' would eventually come to make a mockery of the checks and balances they wrote into the system."

Sanford V. Levinson at Politico argues that "The Constitution Needs a Reboot."

"A False Dichotomy"

"But there is no basis for saying that the United States is somehow 'not a democracy, but a republic.' 'Democracy' and 'republic' aren't just words that a speaker can arbitrarily define to mean something (e.g., defining democracy as 'a form of government in which all laws are made directly by the people'). They are terms that have been given meaning by English speakers more broadly. And both today and in the Framing era, 'democracy' has been generally understood to include representative democracy as well as direct democracy."

Eugene Volokh in a 2015 Washington Post article tries to settle the issue.

"'Historians Can Never Forget That It Is a Debate They Are Interpreting'"

"Journalist and author E.J. Dionne once observed that we are a nation conceived in argument. None of these were more important than the meaning attached to the Constitution, which played such a central role in creating our sense of nationhood. I would caution my conservative friends from trying to hijack the meaning of the Constitution for their own ends by playing the trump card (no pun intended), that the founders were all in agreement with modern right-wing politics. How could this be true when they didn't even agree among themselves about how to interpret the Constitution? Instead, lets debate the issues of our day so the American people can make an informed choice without resorting to historically dubious claims."

Donald J. Fraser at History News Network asks, "What do historians make of originalism?"

"But the Main Purpose of Militias—North and South—During This Period Was to Suppress Slave Rebellions"

"Throughout the 17th century, almost all the English colonies along the Eastern Seaboard passed legislation prohibiting women and slaves from owning guns and forbidding the sale of guns to native peoples. By the 18th century, gun ownership had become a defining feature of white masculinity in the English colonies and guns played an integral role in Colonial men's public displays of that masculinity.
"The public training exercises Colonial men participated in as part of their militia service were central to such displays and offered opportunities for them to participate in competitions to demonstrate their martial prowess. In many cases, guns were not only central to these demonstrations but were the prize for victory. The commander of the militia in Henrico County, Va., William Byrd, noted in his diary that he made a practice of awarding pistols to the men who won the competitions that took place on militia days. Such guns thus acted as material manifestations of a Colonial man's physical domination of his peers, augmenting his reputation in terms of property ownership and bodily prowess."

Nathan Wuertenberg at The Washington Post explains the origins of American gun culture.

And Thom Hartmann in a 2013 Truthout article explains how slave patrols ended up in the Second Amendment.

"Historians Find Evidence Of Nation's Founding Lobbyists' Campaign To Influence Constitution"

"Evidence also suggests that the original lobbyists were skilled in dampening opposition to their clients' agendas. Recovered ledgers revealed that an early attempt at universal healthcare—via a welfare clause in Article IV—was voted down after an advocate for the Apothecaries Guild procured front-row duel tickets for the entire Pennsylvania delegation.According to witness accounts of the time, the Constitution's authors were regularly spotted in the colonies' most exclusive taverns, where a different member of the wax or beaver pelt lobbies would cover their exorbitant three-figure tabs and lavish them with exquisite silk garments and spices from beyond the Orient. Preserved woodcuts depict a number of Founding Fathers relaxing on the palm-lined beaches of Hispaniola as they and their families enjoyed luxury accommodations courtesy of the sugarcane industry."

From The Onion.

"We Could Have Been Canada"

"Had the British won, we might now be taught about a fight between brave British emancipators and indigenous slaveholders, with the black slaves who defected to the British-loyalist side seen as self-emancipators, as the blacks who defected to the Union Army are now, and with Washington's and Jefferson's rhetoric of liberty shown the same disdain we have for the not-very-different libertarian and individualist rhetoric of their heirs in the Confederacy. We would perhaps wonder, far more than we are now allowed to, how radical Whigs like Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Paine ever allowed themselves to betray their own Enlightenment principles by making the tragic error of entering into a compact with slaveholders."

Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker looks at recent books on the American Revolution.

"Our Misguided Tendency to Blindly Worship the Constitution"

"Pennsylvania physician Benjamin Rush was less diplomatic. 'What is the present moral character of the citizens of the United States?' he asked during the ratification controversy. 'I need not describe it…. Nothing but a vigorous and efficient government can prevent their degenerating into savages.' 'Democracy,' he insisted, 'is the devil's own government.' By the late-1780s it had become conventional wisdom among political elites that, as Elbridge Gerry put it, 'the evils we experience flow from an excess of democracy.' The Constitution was designed to reverse the democratic trajectory of American politics.
"The problem with the economic interpretation, however, is that it tends to conflate elitism with selfishness."

Matthew C. Simpson at The New Republic reviews Michael J. Klarman's The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution.

"Truly Our First 'Civil War'"

"Taylor's not interested in a triumphalist account of the nation's origins; instead, his core arguments deliberately overturn the notion that the Revolution was fought for egalitarian, democratic principles. Most colonists, Taylor highlights, felt deeply attached to the British monarchy on the eve of the Revolution. There was no distinct American identity to speak of, and everywhere Britain's American colonists looked—north to French Canada, south to Spanish America—they saw settlers with virtually no political autonomy. Their king, meanwhile, granted them greater civil liberties than any other European ruler; for much of the 18^th century, British monarchs allowed elected Colonial assemblies to run their own affairs. But rather than inculcating a sense of independence, these Colonial assemblies only made American colonists cherish more deeply their status as 'free-born Englishmen.'
"So why, then, a war for independence?"

Eric Herschthal in Slate reviews Alan Taylor's American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804.

"For Heaven's Sake, Do Not, Repeat Do Not, Read It the Way a Lawyer Would"

"People could do worse than follow Mr. Khan's advice in how to read it, too. In an interview with NPR, Khan was asked to read aloud his favorite passage. He recited Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment, apologizing that 'I lose my composure when I read these words.' Quoting the phrase 'equal protection of the laws,' he said, 'Try to understand the impact of these four, five words in our life.'
"It is a good place to start: Section One is the center of the U.S. political system and scheme of individual rights. Reading the Constitution is an important exercise; but knowing how to read it is essential to the work."

Garrett Epps at The Atlantic gives some recommended reading regard the U.S. Constitution.

"The Entire Insurrectionist Theory of the Second Amendment Is Fabricated"

"Taken at face value, all of this rhetoric adds up to one very clear belief: If you believe the United States government has grown tyrannical, the Second Amendment protects your right to rebel violently against it, using firearms, to reclaim your liberty. Cruz and his ilk rarely specify precisely what this revolt would look like, but the implication is extraordinarily clear: Armed Americans should shoot enough government officials as is necessary to overthrow perceived oppression. The Cruz-endorsed insurrectionist theory of the Second Amendment, in other words, is basically a tacit permission slip to assassinate political leaders whom one deems to be oppressive.

"And that, it seems, is precisely what Trump implied on Tuesday."

Mark Joseph Stern in Slate discusses how "the GOP's current framing of gun rights quite explicitly licenses an armed revolt against tyrants."

And in a 2011 Atlantic article, Garrett Epps explains the fallacy of "the insurrectionist idea."

"It's Part of Our National Mythology That Does Not Serve Us Well"

"By belittling the enemy, we diminish the magnitude of our American achievement. While well intended, this 'History Channel' fairytale about Cornwallis, the other British generals, the troops they led, and the conduct of the war is counterproductive. It is an instance of American exceptionalism—we are always better, smarter, and more courageous than the 'JV teams' we face—that we should guard against, not encourage. It makes us vain and smug, and therefore tempting prey for the ruthless SOBs of the world who are amused by our assumptions of unassailable virtue and sparkling intelligence and would take advantage."

Allen Pell Crawford in The American Conservative reviews Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy's The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire and Matthew H. Spring's With Zeal and With Bayonets Only: The British Campaign in North America, 1775–1783.

Happy Constitution Day?

"But before you knock Constitution Day for being a drop in the bucket of the ocean of confusion around government, civics, and the law, recognize that a probably unconstitutional holiday inspired by a PR man to peddle a song, promoted by a newspaper magnate with a blockbuster movie, and then tucked into a massive omnibus bill by a determined senator from West Virginia who carried a copy of the Constitution in his pocket every day of his public life, might just be the most American holiday of all."


Dahlia Lithwick in Slate explains this week's special day.

"Statesman Are Merely Dead Politicians"

"Figures like Madison and Hamilton negotiated the best deal they could make, then they set out to sell it to the public, correctly calculating that a compromised Constitution was better than none. The Federalist Papers were an exercise in spin—spin in service of a worthy cause, but spin nonetheless."


Jonathan Chait at New York challenges the idea of sanctifying the Constitution.

First Freedom?

"As both Mr. Clinton’s and Mr. Bush’s uses of the phrase suggest, the ostensible reason for ascribing primacy to religion among constitutionally protected freedoms is its place as the first mentioned in the Bill of Rights. Contrary to Mr. Romney’s 'first freedom' claim, the actual Constitution does not say anything about religious liberty except to state in Article 6 that no religious 'test' will be required of officeholders. Nor does the document once use the word 'God,' an omission that some 18th-century Americans decried. ('A Papist, a Mohomotan, a Deist, yea an Atheist' might someday even become president, one critic warned.)
"The First Amendment, adopted four years later in 1791, does protect 'the free exercise' of religion–but only after barring government from 'establishing' religion. Viewed strictly in terms of sequence, the First Amendement’s 'first freedom' might be seen as freedom from rather than freedom of religion."

Peter Manseau at The New York Times questions the emphasis by politicians on religious liberty.

"The Deep, Founding Roots of Rowdy, American Populist Protest and Insurrection"

"Like it or not, though, it is Occupy Wall Street that has the most in common, ideologically, not with those Boston merchants and their supporters but with the less well-known, less comfortably acknowledged people who, throughout the founding period, cogently proposed and vigorously agitated for an entirely different approach to finance and monetary policy than that carried forward by the famous founders. Amid horrible depressions and foreclosure crises, from the 1750′s through the 1790′s, ordinary people closed debt courts, rescued debt prisoners, waylaid process servers, boycotted foreclosure actions, etc. (More on that here [9] and here [10].) They were legally barred from voting and holding office, since they didn’t have enough property, so they used their power of intimidation to pressure their legislatures for debt relief and popular monetary policies."

William Hogeland in Salon compares Occupy Wall Street with the Shays' and Whiskey Rebellions.

But Lee Fang at Think Progress connects the protests to the Boston Tea Party.

"A Tale of Greed, Legal Chaos, and Corrupt Business Practices"

"Just how these contests over land play into the Revolution is one of the most debated questions in American history. In 1909, historian Carl Becker argued that the American Revolution was not so much about home rule as 'who should rule at home.' The struggle for independence, in other words, centered less on exalted principles than on the quest for political and economic power by provincial elites. Popular among muckraking classes during the age of Robber Barons, this interpretation was hard to reconcile with a patriotic account of the nation's founding and eventually fell out of favor.
"So Randall is stuck between a rock and a hard place, interpretatively speaking. He wants to connect the Vermont insurrection to 'a greater cause,' to make it the first battle of the American Revolution. And perhaps it was. But if so, does it turn Allen and his Green Mountain Boys into patriots, as Randall would have it? Or does it turn the leaders of the Revolution into bandits, seizing an entire continent for personal gain and dressing the crime up with pretty words?"

François Furstenberg in Slate reviews Willard Sterne Randall's Ethan Allen: His Life and Times.