Research Catalog

The broken constitution : Lincoln, slavery, and the refounding of America

Title

The broken constitution : Lincoln, slavery, and the refounding of America / Noah Feldman.

Author

Feldman, Noah, 1970-

Publication

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021.
©2021

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	JFE 22-1066	Schwarzman Building - Milstein Division Room 121

Details

Description

368 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits; 24 cm

Summary

"An innovative account of Abraham Lincoln, constitutional thinker and doer. Abraham Lincoln is justly revered for his brilliance, compassion, humor, and rededication of the United States to achieving liberty and justice for all. He led the nation into a bloody civil war to uphold the system of government established by the US Constitution--a system he regarded as the "last best hope of mankind." But how did Lincoln understand the Constitution? In this groundbreaking study, Noah Feldman argues that Lincoln deliberately and recurrently violated the United States' founding arrangements. When he came to power, it was widely believed that the federal government could not use armed force to prevent a state from seceding. It was also assumed that basic civil liberties could be suspended in a rebellion by Congress but not by the president, and that the federal government had no authority over slavery in states where it existed. As president, Lincoln broke decisively with all these precedents, and effectively rewrote the Constitution's place in the American system. Before the Civil War, the Constitution was best understood as a compromise pact--a rough and ready deal between states that allowed the Union to form and function. After Lincoln, the Constitution came to be seen as a sacred text--a transcendent statement of the nation's highest ideals. The Broken Constitution is the first book to tell the story of how Lincoln broke the Constitution in order to remake it. To do so, it offers a riveting narrative of his constitutional choices and how he made them--and places Lincoln in the rich context of thinking of the time, from African American abolitionists to Lincoln's Republican rivals and Secessionist ideologues."--

Subject

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (pages [329]-350) and index.

Contents

Introduction -- 1. The compromise constitution -- 2. The breaking constitution -- 3. The choice of war -- 4. Political prisoners -- 5. Emancipation and morals -- Conclusion.

Call Number

JFE 22-1066

ISBN

9780374116644
0374116644

LCCN

2021025293
40030840203

OCLC

1227085912

Author

Feldman, Noah, 1970- author.

Title

The broken constitution : Lincoln, slavery, and the refounding of America / Noah Feldman.

Publisher

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021.

Copyright Date

Edition

First edition.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages [329]-350) and index.

Chronological Term

1783-1899

Other Standard Identifier

40030840203

Research Call Number

JFE 22-1066

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