The Civic Constitution: Civic Visions and Struggles in the Path toward Constitutional Democracy

How have generations of Americans debated and shaped the constitutional meanings of liberty, equality, justice, and "We, the people"? What roles have engaged citizens, civic groups, and social movements played in effecting transformative constitutional change? These questions are at the heart of this compelling study. Traveling across the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century, we see the constitutional visions and struggles of the broad swath of revolutionaries who motivated the Declaration of Independence and the first state constitutions; the streams of critics and antifederalists who influenced the national Constitution and Bill of Rights; the abolitionists who paved the way for the Reconstruction Amendments; and the suffragists whose battles provoked the Nineteenth Amendment.

Beaumont argues that these groups should be recognized as civic founders or co-founders of the U.S. Constitution and some of the most important constitutional commitments, including free speech, equal protection of the law, uniform national rights, and universal suffrage. Through newspaper wars and mass petitions, town halls and soapbox speeches, sermons and boycotts, boisterous protests and civil disobedience, these civic reformers worked to redefine fundamental law. Challenging established authority, they advocated vital new understandings of popular self-governance, rights and liberties, and citizenship itself. Indeed, though their roles are largely overlooked in contemporary debates, these men and women dramatically shaped the legal text and terms of modern constitutionalism - and they reinvented civic membership and the body politic.

The Civic Constitution is a sweeping work of reinterpretation that speaks to students of American politics, history, law, and theory. Its innovative expansion on the concept of popular constitutionalism makes a vital contribution to our understanding of how ordinary people have shaped fundamental laws. By illuminating the role of civic actors in creating, contesting, and transforming the Constitution, this richly documented study offers a deeper understanding of American constitutionalism and a more profound perception of democracy itself.