Revolution and Constitutionalism in America
Files
Description
The American Civil War is now conventionally termed by American historians as the second American Revolution. The implicit idea of a relationship between the two events is not merely one of temporal succession in the same general territory; the second American Revolution was understood by both the Union and the Confederacy as a controversy over the political theory of the first Revolution and the constitutional terms under which it justified its claims. The Reconstruction Amendments are the culminating constitutionalism of this controversy, and should be understood within the framework of the genre of what Americans understood as their revolutionary constitutionalism. We need initially to examine the tradition of revolution and constitutionalism of 1776-1787, and then tum to the elaboration of that tradition in the revolution and constitutionalism of 1861-1870.
Source Publication
Constitutionalism, Identity, Difference, and Legitimacy: Theoretical Perspectives
Source Editors/Authors
Michel Rosenfeld
Publication Date
1994
Recommended Citation
Richards, David A. J., "Revolution and Constitutionalism in America" (1994). Faculty Chapters. 1918.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1918
