We the people A history of the U.S. Constitution

Control of the U.S. Constitution as a "living" and inevitably changing text has passed from the hands of the people to those of elites, argues bestselling historian Lepore (These Truths) in this stylish and clear-eyed study. For the nation's first 150 years, the process of amendment was the main path, she contends, by which the Constitution was reinterpreted. These changes would often come after periods of massive upheaval--12 amendments were passed after the Revolutionary War, three after the Civil War, seven after WWI--or following intense, sustained activism, like the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. From FDR's administration onward, however, politicians "abandoned constitutional amendment" in favor of "applying pressure on the Supreme Court"; as a result, Lepore asserts, the Constitution is still "changing all the time" via judicial decisions that are influenced by a select few elites in government and industry. Lepore's narrative tracks various amendments and state constitutions formed in the 19th and early 20th centuries in order to excavate how this shift happened, from the dispiriting failure of the Reconstruction amendments to the surprisingly outsized influence of a constitution formed by Native Americans in Oklahoma. Today, she writes, after the spectacular, prolonged failures of "lost amendments" like the ERA, amendment itself has come to be seen as a boondoggle. Citing mounting threats like climate change and authoritarianism, Lepore urges the public and legislators to seriously take up the cause of amendment once again. It's a galvanizing and paradigm-shifting take on America's slow descent into plutocracy. (Sept.)

The noted historian advances the cause of an aggressively, and progressively, malleable set of rules for government. "The U.S. Constitution was intended to be amended," writes Lepore at the outset. Whereas the functions of government were established in such a way that there would be continuity from generation to generation, and whereas the Constitution sets fairly high hurdles for change, nonetheless, by Lepore's lights, the Founders intended for the document to be changed in order to meet the needs of the day, trusting in the Enlightenment premise that "the human mind is driven by reason." Article V, Lepore continues, is "a sleeping giant": In it the Founders specified that change could come in one of two ways, the first being a congressional proposal, the second a convention of the states, with a "double supermajority" of votes for approval, two-thirds of Congress and three-quarters of the states. Although there have been flurries of amendments--including the first 10, yielding the Bill of Rights--it has been nearly 40 years since the last constitutional convention was held, even as, Lepore calculates, members of Congress proposed 2,100 amendments between 1980 and 2000. Part of the problem is congressional gridlock, a feature of government since the days of President Reagan; another is what Lepore considers the false doctrine of originalism--which, she writes provocatively, "arose from the failure of conservatives to change the Constitution by democratic means." Lepore presses her argument with numerous case studies, including the difficult passage of an amendment to allow direct election of senators (formerly appointed by governors), the argument over an income tax (and one that progressively taxed the rich more than the poor), the failed adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment, and a longtime favorite that has yet to come about: the abolition of the aristocratically inspired Electoral College. With the Constitution under daily threat, Lepore's outstanding book makes for urgent reading. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.