CONSTITUTION AND AMERICA'S DESTINY

the long version

"In this study, David Brian Robertson explains how the U.S. Constitution emerged from an intense battle between a bold vision for the nation's political future and the tenacious defense of its political present. Given a once-in-a-lifetime chance to alter America's destiny, James Madison laid before the Constitutional Convention a plan for a strong centralized government that could battle for America's longterm interests. But delegates from vulnerable states resisted this plan, seeking instead to maintain state control over most of American life while adding a few more specific powers to the existing government. These clashing aspirations turned the convention into an unpredictable chain of events. Step by step, the delegates' compromises built national powers in a way no one had anticipated and produced a government more complicated than any of them originally intended. Their Constitution, in turn, helped create a politics unlike that in any other nation."--Jacket.