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Jefferson, Madison, and the Making of the Constitution

Jeff Broadwater

Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 03/2019
Pages: 296
Subject: History, Political Science | University of North Carolina
Print ISBN: 9781469651019
eBook ISBN: 9781469651026

DESCRIPTION

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, and James Madison, "Father of the Constitution," were two of the most important Founders of the United States as well as the closest of political allies. Yet historians have often seen a tension between the idealistic rhetoric of the Declaration and the more pedestrian language of the Constitution. Moreover, to some, the adoption of the Constitution represented a repudiation of the democratic values of the Revolution.

In this book, Jeff Broadwater explores the evolution of the constitutional thought of these two seminal American figures, from the beginning of the American Revolution through the adoption of the Bill of Rights. In explaining how the two political compatriots could have produced such seemingly dissimilar documents but then come to a common constitutional ground, Broadwater reveals how their collaboration--and their disagreements--influenced the full range of constitutional questions during this early period of the American republic.

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