The Invoice of Rights: The Combat to Safe America’s Liberties

“Narrative, celebratory historical past at its purest” (
Publishers Weekly)—the
actual story of how the Invoice of Rights got here to be: a vivid account of political technique, large egos, and the partisan pursuits that set the phrases of the continued contest between the federal authorities and the states.

Those that argue that the Invoice of Rights displays the founding fathers’ “authentic intent” are unsuitable. The Invoice of Rights was really a superb political act executed by James Madison to protect the Structure, the federal authorities, and the latter’s authority over the states. Within the expert palms of award-winning historian Carol Berkin, the story of the founders’ struggle over the Invoice of Rights comes alive in a drama stuffed with partisanship, clashing egos, and crafty manipulation.

In 1789, the nation confronted a terrific divide round a query nonetheless unanswered at this time: ought to broad energy and authority reside within the federal authorities or ought to it reside in state governments? The Invoice of Rights, from defending spiritual freedom to the individuals’s proper to bear arms, was a political ploy first and a matter of precept second. The reality of how and why Madison got here to plan this plan, the debates it brought on within the Congress, and its final success is extra engrossing than any of the myths that shroud our nationwide beginnings.

The talk over the Invoice of Rights nonetheless continues via many Supreme Courtroom selections. By pulling again the curtain on the short-sighted and self-interested intentions of the founding fathers, Berkin reveals the nervousness many felt that the brand new federal authorities won’t survive—and exhibits that the true “authentic intent” of the Invoice of Rights was merely to oppose the Antifederalists who hoped to decrease the federal government’s powers. This ebook is “a extremely readable American historical past lesson that gives a deeper understanding of the Invoice of Rights, the fears that generated it, and the miracle of the amendments” (
Kirkus Opinions).