Front cover image for The failure of the founding fathers : Jefferson, Marshall, and the rise of presidential democracy

The failure of the founding fathers : Jefferson, Marshall, and the rise of presidential democracy

Describes previously unknown aspects of the electoral college crisis of 1800, presenting 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. Through close studies of two Supreme Court cases, Ackerman shows how the court integrated Federalist and Republican themes into the living Constitution of the early republic. 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. [Publisher web site]
Print Book, English, ©2005
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, ©2005
History
384 pages ; 25 cm
9780674018662, 0674018664
58919429
Pt. 1: the people's president
American on the brink
The original misunderstanding
John Marshall for president
Jefferson counts himself in
On the brink
What went right?
Pt. 2: the people and the court
Constitutional brinksmanship
Federalist counterattack
Republican triumph
Marbury v. Stuart
Presidential purge
Synthesis
Reverberations
Documents: Horatius's presidential knot
Judge Bassett's protest