A Constitution for the Living

Book excerpt: What would America's Constitutions have looked like if each generation wrote its own? "The earth belongs...to the living, the dead have neither powers nor rights over it." These famous words, written by Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, reflect Jefferson's lifelong belief that each generation ought to write its own Constitution. According to Jefferson each generation should take an active role in endorsing, renouncing, or changing the nation's fundamental law. Perhaps if he were alive today to witness our seething debates over constitutional interpretation, he would feel vindicated in this belief. Madison's response was that a Constitution must endure over many generations to gain the credibility needed to keep a nation strong and united. History tells us that Jefferson lost that debate. But what if he had prevailed? In A Constitution for the Living, Beau Breslin reimagines American history to answer that question. By tracing the story from the 1787 Constitutional Convention up to the present, Breslin presents an engaging and insightful narrative account of historical figures and how they might have shaped their particular generation's Constitution. For all those who want to be in the candlelit taverns where the Founders sat debating fundamental issues over wine; to witness towering figures of American history, from Abraham Lincoln to Booker T. Washington, play out hypothetical meetings and conversations that are startling and revealing; and to attend a Constitutional Convention taking place in the present day--this book brings these possibilities to life with sensitivity, verve, and compelling historical detail. This book is, above all, a call for a more engaged American public at a time when change seems close at hand, if we dare to imagine it.