A Concise History of the American Constitution

by Paul Moreno
Department of History
Hillsdale College

Presented via the links at the left are eight chapters that comprise a concise history of the American constitution for teachers of American history. This work is based upon several assumptions. The first is that understanding the American constitution is essential to understanding American history. Unlike any other nation in the world, America is defined by its adherence to certain political principles, rather than by our descent, religion, or even language and history. The nation's founding documents -- the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution primarily -- express these principles.

Americans are unique among the people of the world in the extent to which we have tried and succeeded in living under constitutional government. Constitutional government is, essentially, limited government. The perennial problem in human government is establishing a government that is strong enough to provide the order necessary to human social life, but not so strong that it extinguishes fundamental liberties. With this understanding of political history this account seeks to understand the American Constitution as part of the broader experience of "western civilization."

These premises would be called "traditional" today, although they have been attacked by the right as much as by the left. This history, like the Teaching American History program itself, is based on the belief that we have failed to provide the last generation of American students with a traditional account of their history. This work reflects a return to traditional content and content-based pedagogy. It is "conservative" to the extent that it assumes that America has something worth conserving. Our constitutional legacy is far from perfect, since Americans have often failed to live up to their founding principles, but we have been persistent and serious in our attempts to do so.

Certainly these principles and the Constitution have evolved, developed, and changed over time. But that does not imply that they have no essential meaning. On the other hand, the principles and documents are not immediately self-explanatory. That a truth is "self-evident," to quote our Declaration of Independence, does not mean that it is easily or widely grasped. This work avoids both fundamentalism and latitudinarianism; or, put another way, it interprets these principles, and the Constitution itself, in historical but not historicist terms.

The story also attempts to balance the deep continuities and persistent conflicts that have beset American history regarding the interpretation of these principles. It does not ignore the "struggle" among various groups to impose or gain power or equality; it recognizes the place of race, class, and gender in our history. But it tries not to lose sight of the core larger principles to which participants in these struggles have always appealed.

This history presents a very concise introduction to a rich, deep, and complicated subject. It assumes that teachers need to know and convey substantial subject matter or "content." At the same time, it has only been able to touch upon the most salient narrative details. It does not try to give a comprehensive survey of constitutional law or political history. It places the constitutional principles and documents in the larger context of western intellectual, political, and social developments.

The narrative contains links to web-based resources (the change refelects our intention to develop links to secondary sources as well), which the NAS hopes to keep current and updated. Here readers can explore and use high quality sites to develop content- and especially primary-source based courses.

With these premises stated, here is a brief sketch of the contents.

• The first two chapters treat the origins of the American Constitution in the history of western civilization -- the Hebrew, Greek, Roman, and medieval worlds -- and especially the history of England and her North American colonies.
• Chapter three deals with the American Revolution and the making of the Constitution itself.
• Chapters four and five focus on the first great controversies under the Constitution -- the nature of the Union and slavery.
• Chapters six and seven examine the problems posed by the industrial and urban revolutions -- the "social question" and the problem of the government's role in the nation's economy, culminating in the New Deal.
• The final chapter treats the civil rights movement, and the variety of constitutional problems associated with the "culture wars" since the 1960s.

Each chapter ends with a bibliography of the best and most recent secondary sources, which teachers can use to develop the narrative more fully.