Research Catalog

Title

A Constitution in full : recovering the unwritten foundation of American liberty / Peter Augustine Lawler and Richard M. Reinsch II.

Author

Lawler, Peter Augustine

Publication

Lawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, [2019]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Reinsch, Richard M.

Description

x, 180 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

• "When political debates devolve, as they often do these days, into a contest between big-government progressivism and natural rights individualism, Americans tend to appeal to the "self-evident" truths inscribed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. But Peter Lawler and Richard Reinsch remind us that these truths understood in the abstract are untethered from a prior, unwritten constitution presupposed by the Framers--one found in culture, customs, traditions, experiences, and beliefs. A Constitution in Full is Lawler and Reinsch's attempt to return this critical context to US constitutionalism--to recover a political sense of individualism in relation to country, family, religious community, and nature. Power, the authors suggest, is a public trust, not a form of obedience to either majoritarian suppression of particular liberties or the endless rights-claims lodged by autonomous individuals against society. Instead, power is ordered to the demands of a shared political enterprise that emerges from man's social nature. Building on political insights from Alexis de Tocqueville, Orestes Brownson, John Courtney Murray, and others Lawler and Reinsch seek to restore the relational person--the individual grounded in family, work, faith, and community--to a central place in our understanding of republican constitutionalism. Their work promotes the ongoing development of constitutional self-government rooted in our historical, legal, and religious foundations. The shared middle-class values that once united almost all Americans as well as any confidence in democratic deliberation or political liberty are rapidly atrophying. This book aims to rebuild this confidence by helping us think seriously about the complex interplay between political and economic liberties and the relational life of creatures and citizens. "--
• "The late Peter Augustine Lawler and Richard M. Reinsch II look to the political thought of the nineteenth-century New England intellectual and Catholic convert Orestes Brownson to understand this unwritten constitution. In contrast to the implicit atheism of classical liberalism, Brownson developed a relational political theory that balanced state authority and individual liberty within the context of social, familial, religious, and economic life. The full American constitution depends upon an unwritten constitution that avoids both abstract universalism and tribal secessionism by recognizing humans as material, political, and spiritual beings"--

Series Statement

American political thought

Uniform Title

American political thought.

Subject

• United States
• Declaration of Independence (United States)
• Constitutional history > United States
• Constitutional history > Political aspects > United States
• Liberty > History
• Individualism > Political aspects > History. > United States
• Universalism
• POLITICAL SCIENCE / Constitutions
• LAW / Constitutional
• POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Ideologies / Conservatism & Liberalism
• Constitutional history
• Individualism > Political aspects
• Liberty

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 169-173) and index.

Contents

What distinguishes america? -- The privileges and responsibilities of american constitutionalism -- The meaning of obergefell -- The republican principle -- A constitution in full : written and providential -- A question of loyalty -- Constitutional thomism.

Call Number

JFE 19-7052

ISBN

• 9780700627813
• 0700627812

LCCN

2018058252

OCLC

1066118516

Author

Lawler, Peter Augustine, author.

Title

A Constitution in full : recovering the unwritten foundation of American liberty / Peter Augustine Lawler and Richard M. Reinsch II.

Publisher

Lawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, [2019]

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

American political thought

American political thought.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 169-173) and index.

Added Author

Reinsch, Richard M., author.

Research Call Number

JFE 19-7052