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The Failure of the Founding Fathers: Jefferson, Marshall, and the Rise of Presidential Democracy
by: Bruce Ackerman

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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 320.97309034
EAN: 9780674018662
ISBN: 0674018664
Label: Belknap Press
Manufacturer: Belknap Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: October 28, 2005
Publisher: Belknap Press
Sales Rank: 226199
Studio: Belknap Press

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The ink was barely dry on the Constitution when it was almost destroyed by the rise of political parties in the United States. As Bruce Ackerman shows, the Framers had not anticipated the two-party system, and when Republicans battled Federalists for the presidency in 1800, the rules laid down by the Constitution exacerbated the crisis. With Republican militias preparing to march on Washington, the House of Representatives deadlocked between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. Based on seven years of archival research, the book describes previously unknown aspects of the electoral college crisis. Ackerman shows how Thomas Jefferson counted his Federalist rivals out of the House runoff, and how the Federalists threatened to place John Marshall in the presidential chair. Nevertheless, the Constitution managed to survive through acts of statesmanship and luck.

Despite the intentions of the Framers, the presidency had become a plebiscitarian office. Thomas Jefferson gained office as the People's choice and acted vigorously to fulfill his popular mandate. This transformation of the presidency serves as the basis for a new look at Marbury v. Madison, the case that first asserted the Supreme Court's power of judicial review. Ackerman shows that Marbury is best seen in combination with another case, Stuart v. Laird, as part of a retreat by the Court in the face of the plebiscitarian presidency. This 'switch in time' proved crucial to the Court's survival, allowing it to integrate Federalist and Republican themes into the living Constitution of the early republic.

Ackerman presents a revised understanding of the early days of two great institutions that continue to have a major impact on American history: the plebiscitarian presidency and a Supreme Court that struggles to put the presidency's claims of a popular mandate into constitutional perspective.

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- Fascinating look at political parties & the constitution in early America
Bruce Ackerman has taken the election of 1800 and declared it to be the turning point in early American Constitutional history. His title "The Failure of the Founding Fathers" does a good job of setting the stage for his thesis that the founding fathers creating the electoral crisis of 1800 by not contemplating the rise of political parties.

The tie between Jefferson and Burr led to a partisan battle led by Jefferson himself. This, in turn, led to the "Republican revolution" of 1800, and an ongoing battle between the Republican led executive branch of the government (embodied by both Jefferson and Madison) and the Federalist led judicial branch (led by John Marshall).

Probably the most intriguing part of the book to me was Ackerman's claim that the case of Stuart v. Laird was equally important (or perhaps more important) than Marbury v. Madison in the way that the judiciary moved forward ... Read More

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- What Might Have Been
This superb book begins with a description of how the US stood on the razor's edge in early 1801 as the deadlocked Congress chose between Jefferson and Burr. Ackerman describes the scheming and politicking by the Republicans and Federalists in the weeks before inauguration day (Marshall's wheeling and dealing most especially), and how a combination of luck and the restraint of some of the founding fathers resulted in the republic's first peaceful transition from one party to the other. The beginning of Ackerman's book provides a background for a discussion Marshall's strategic thrusts and withdrawals in the face of Republican dominance in the two other branches. The central role of Marbury as the touchstone of constitutional law proves to be the product of strategy and historical contingency. Ackerman provides a sense of how often things might have unfolded in different ways, making this a page-turner, even for those ... Read More

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- Interesting analysis
It's hard to imagine an author covering the 1800 election, the Marbury v. Madison Supreme Court decision, and several other topics that this book treats and coming up with something coherent. But Ackerman does just that. I came to this book after reading another book by the same author dealing with the nomination, election, and assassination of James Garfield ("Dark Horse," reviewed by me earlier) and I am impressed by Ackerman's ability to write a book on political history that is almost impossible to put down. He puts in all sorts of information that is essential for a modern reader to follow the happenings of a different era with understanding, while never letting his writing become too tedious.

The Constitution was not written with an eye toward the political party system that soon developed, and the constitutional mechanism for election of the Presidency soon developed obvious flaws as soon as Washington ... Read More

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- Ackerman needs a better editor.
Here's the problem. Professor Ackerman has some original and thought-provoking ideas on the development of constitutional law by the Marshall Court and American history in the wake of the disputed election of 1800. He correctly points out that the trouble with most legal or historical analysis of this time period is that it passes through the imperfect prism of each writer's point of view, and that there is insufficient attention paid to how the participants viewed events as they occured. It correctly points out how the Constitution of 1787 was markedly and significantly changed in practice by the fallout from the election of 1800 and our own Jeffersonian "regime change." HOWEVER, this reads like a law review article that got out of hand and is filled with extraneous material that does not advance the central points of his thesis. I really enjoyed the book, but it really could have been edited better.

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