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Home >  Books >  From Parchment to Power
From Parchment to Power
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How James Madison Used the Bill of Rights to Save the Constitution
By Robert A. Goldwin
Posted: Saturday, January 1, 2000
Parchment to Power
Dimensions: 9.75'' x 6.5''
225 pages
AEI Press  (Washington)
Publication Date: January 1998
Paperback
ISBN: 0-8447-4013-6
Price: $ 14.95
Add to Cart  
Hardcover
ISBN: 0-8447-4012-8
Examination Copies

In this book, renowned constitutional historian and AEI resident scholar Robert A. Goldwin tells the story of how and why Madison went from skeptic to advocate of a bill of rights, and how he single-handedly maneuvered his amendments through a reluctant Congress. Goldwin reveals how James Madison thought through, and then implemented, a design to put the Constitution on the firmest possible foundation, a foundation of popular support so solid that the Constitution of the United states has lasted incomparably longer than any other in the world.

From Parchment to Power will appeal to policy makers, historians, and constitution specialists as well as general readers interested in history and politics.

Robert A. Goldwin is a resident scholar of constitutional studies at AEI. He has served in the White House as special consultant to the president and, concurrently, as adviser to the secretary of defense. He has taught political science at the University of Chicago and at Kenyon College and was dean of St. John's College in Annapolis. He is the editor of more than a score of books on American politics, senior editor of the AEI series A Decade of Study of the Constitution, and author of numerous articles, many of which appear in Why Blacks, Women, and Jews Are Not Mentioned in the Constitution (AEI Press, 1990).



Table of Contents

Foreword 
Preface
Constitution Making, Now and Then: An Introduction

  1. Philadelphia: The Last Days of Summer, 1787
  2. New York: The Continental Congress and the Quest for Unanimity 
  3. The States: The Politics of Ratification
  4. "What Use Can a Bill of Rights Serve?" A Madison-Jefferson Dialogue
  5. "To Introduce the Great Work": Congressman Madison Takes the Floor
  6. "Rats and Anti-Rats": The Debate Begins
  7. "Those Solid and Substantial Amendments," All Defeated
  8. "Kill the Opposition, Every Where"
  9. Fisheries, Post Roads, and Ratifications

Notes
Index
About the Author



View Book Summary
Related Links
Review in the American Spectator
Review in the Washington Times
The Author's Bradley Lecture on the Topic
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AEI Print Index No. 8743


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