Wood on Ackerman

by Cliopatria

For those who missed it, this weke's New Republic had a review by Gordon Wood of Bruce Ackerman's new book, The Failure of the Founding Fathers: Jefferson, Marshall, and the Rise of Presidential Democracy. The review is lukewarm, contending that Ackerman overstates his thesis (which contends that the outcome of the 1800 election was reminiscent of a banana republic and downplays the control that John Marshall held over the Supreme Court after 1810) but offers many useful insights about the constitutional history of the early republic.

Wood opens his review, however, with a useful reminder:

Academic historians are not much interested in constitutional history these days. Historians who write on America's constitutional past are a vanishing breed. For much of the academy, constitutional history, with its concentration on the actions of dead white males, is much too old-fashioned, and not to be compared in importance with cultural and social history, especially of the sort focusing on issues of race and gender. And so the teaching and the writing of constitutional history in American universities has been left almost exclusively to law school faculties. This is unfortunate. An understanding of our constitutional past would seem to be an integral part of a liberal-arts education, but few of our undergraduates have an opportunity to gain such an understanding. Having Congress mandate, as it recently did, that universities receiving federal funds find a way every September 17 to celebrate something called"Constitution Day" will scarcely suffice.

Indeed.

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Ralph E. Luker - 11/7/2005

It seems to me that what made and makes Sean Wilentz's recent work so interesting is that he builds out of a rich background in the new social history to a new political history synthesis. It does, however, seem to me to be a mistake to argue that, of course, the social historians' work qualifies as constitutional or political expertise; and, similarly, a mistake to believe that they will eagerly teach constitutional, diplomatic, military, or political history as such.

Rebecca Anne Goetz - 11/7/2005

Like Oscar, I don't disagree with the essence of Wood's complaint, only the manner in which it was made. It is Wood's particular habit to paint social and cultural history as somehow being both mutually exclusive with political history and also anti political history.

Nothing could be further from the truth. My own work would not be possible without the numerous fine studies of early Virginia politics available to me. And I trust that my evaluation of the role of religion in the cultural history of early Virginia will be useful to political historians.

It's a shame when historians get polemical about methodology. It just redraws old battle lines that don't move the conversation forward (which is one reason why Wood and Gary Nash shouldn't review each other's work...they just keep rehashing old arguments that are becoming less and less relevant historiographically).

Jonathan Dresner - 11/6/2005

Well, the American historians at both of the institutions I've taught at were liberal feminists with very strong backgrounds and interests in Constitutional history. It was integrated into the regular US surveys and taught separately. I include Japanese constitutional issues in my Japanese history classes, and discuss the US Constitution in World history.

I'm sorry, but I don't see the problem being quite as acute as all that.

If there is a problem, I imagine that part of it has to do with the growing tide of "originalism" which would put studies of early Constitutionalism largely on the side of a certain brand of judicial conservativism, while studies of evolving legal and social standards (many of them necessitated by flaws and compromises in the original text) are easy to associate with the "living text" supposedly liberal strain.

Oscar Chamberlain - 11/6/2005

Not surprisingly--since antebellum state constitutions are my area of interest--I am always happy when someone points out the importance that constitutional history should have but often does not. What makes Wood's complaint particularly unfortunate is that the division between social and cultural history on one hand and constitutional history on the other is so unnecessary.

I could not understand the constitutions I work on nearly so well without the wonderul work in the social and cultural realm that has emerged over the past 20 or 30 years. In a country like ours, the question of a person's relationship to power is a constant part of our history, I don''t think that social and cultural history can be strong without a strong and constant regard for the role of the constitutions and of constitutional thought in shaping those relationships.