Ratifying the Republic Antifederalists & Federalists in Constitutional Time by David Siemers

Ratifying the Republic explains how the United States Constitution made the transition from a very divisive proposal to a consensually legitimate framework for governing. This story has never been told in its entirety, mainly because the transition seemed so seamless. But the Federalists' proposal had been bitterly opposed, and constitutional legitimation required a major transformation. The story of that transformation is the substance of this book.

Synopsis
Rather than to any inherent virtue it contains, Siemers attributes the high reputation and central position of the US Constitution in American political discourse to the partisan fragility of the immediate post-ratification era. The document became official law in June 1788, he says, but there followed nearly a year of bitter dispute amidst high doubt whether it would be accepted by the politically active public as a whole. Annotation c. Book
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ISBN: 0804741069 Format: Hardcover, 352pp Pub. Date: September 2002 Publisher: Stanford University Press

E-mail David Siemers at: siemers@uwosh.edu

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Date of last update: January 15, 2003