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

From a preeminent legal scholar, a “fascinating” and “masterful” (Wall Street Journal) history of the American Constitution's formative decades

When the US Constitution won popular approval in 1788, it was the culmination of thirty years of passionate argument over the nature of government. But ratification hardly ended the conversation. For the next half century, ordinary Americans and statesmen alike continued to wrestle with weighty questions in the halls of government and in the pages ...