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Contents
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Contents Introduction Paul D. Moreno and Johnathan O’Neill | 1 Prologue: A Second American Revolution? George Washington and the Origins of the Civil War Jeffry H. Morrison | 9 Part I Constitutionalism Endangered: The Road to Civil War 1 Martin Van Buren as Statesman: State Rights and the Rise of the “Free Soil” Party Christian Esh | 29 2 Lincoln on Black Citizenship Joseph R. Fornieri | 55 3 Lincoln, Secession, and Revolution: The Civil War Challenge to the Founding Herman Belz | 81 Part II Legal Change and Constitutional Politics in Reconstruction and the Gilded Age 4 The Trial of Jefferson Davis and the Americanization of Treason Law Jonathan W. White | 113 5 At Every Fireside: Constitutional Politics in the Era of Reconstruction Michael Les Benedict | 133 viii Contents 6 “The Legitimate Object of Government”: Constitutional Problems of Civil War–Era Republican Policy Paul D. Moreno | 161 Part III Contesting the Legacy of Lincoln and the Civil War in the Progressive Era 7 Woodrow Wilson and the Meaning of the Lincoln Legacy Ronald J. Pestritto | 183 8 The Idea of Constitutional Conservatism in the Early Twentieth Century Johnathan O’Neill | 202 Notes 223 List of Contributors 269 Index 273 [3.227.252.87] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 00:15 GMT) The Constitution is neither a machine that would go of itself, nor a living organism that develops according to laws of progress encoded in the culture. It is a rationally designed complex of principles, forms, and procedures for limited government, an instrument of fundamental law written by prudent and clear-sighted statesmen for a liberal republican people. . . . What is constantly necessary, given the nature of democratic politics, are practical reason, moral conviction, and the political will to reaffirm the first principles of American constitutionalism. The forms and institutional resources for this purpose are at hand in the constitutional tradition. —Herman Belz ...