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Foremost among the institutions of liberal democracy that Walter Berns has spent his academic career defending is the United States Constitution. In this collection of essays, he continues that defense, addressing issues such as natural law, civil rights and states' rights, multiculturalism, patriotism, the First Amendment, and the roles of academic and religious institutions. Enduring questions of American political thought are explored: Was the American Revolution really a revolution? What is the origin of our inalienable rights? Did God have something to do with the American Founding? Can we do without Him now? In Democracy and the Constitution, Berns expounds these questions while defending the institutions of liberal democracy in the country that Abraham Lincoln once called "the last, best hope of earth."

Walter Berns is the John M. Olin University Professor Emeritus at Georgetown University and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.