Making a Constitution
Montesquieu and the Challenges of the American Founding
Format:Hardback
Publisher:University Press of Kansas
Publishing:17th Nov '26
£44.00
This title is due to be published on 17th November, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
The most comprehensive account of Montesquieu’s influence on the debates over the Constitution during the American founding.
Few thinkers loom larger over the American founding than Montesquieu. The Framers repeatedly invoked his authority while drafting, debating, and ratifying the Constitution—yet the true depth and complexity of his influence has never been fully explained. In Making a Constitution, Zachary K. German offers the most definitive account to date, revealing how Montesquieu’s political philosophy shaped not just familiar concepts like separation of powers but the very logic of American constitutional design.
German argues that Montesquieu’s central insight—the need to tailor laws and institutions to a people’s distinctive “spirit”—was foundational to how the Framers understood the possibilities and limits of republican government. Drawing on Montesquieu’s spiritoriented approach, German reframes the core problems of constitutionalism: how to reconcile liberty with republican rule, how to divide power vertically between levels of government, and how to separate power horizontally among institutions. He then shows how Federalists and AntiFederalists alike, all steeped in Montesquieu’s thought, reached sharply different conclusions about how best to preserve liberty within the particular character and circumstances of the American people.
As the “spirit” of the American people has changed in profound ways since the founding, so too has our understanding of the Constitution. German reminds us that Montesquieu’s insights remain perennially relevant. At a moment of renewed controversy over constitutional meaning, this book offers a vital framework for rethinking the enduring challenges of American constitutionalism.
"Montesquieu and the American Founders is a familiar topic among founding scholars, largely because of their common concern with separation of powers and the argument about small republics. But German has a different and highly welcome take on the subject. He takes off from the French thinker’s concern with ‘mores’ and in doing so reveals new dimensions of the founders' thinking."—Michael Zuckert, Nancy Reeves Dreux Professor of Political Science, Emeritus, University of Notre Dame, and author of A Nation So Conceived: Abraham Lincoln and the Paradox of Democratic Sovereignty
"It is a tonic in our era of civic discord to encounter this study of America’s constitutional founding, Montesquieu, and a political philosophy calling forth prudent statesmanship. Academia largely has rejected the sober insights on self-government that Zack German excavates and reconsiders; and we now can recount both the academic and civic costs. A complex, holistic political science is needed to be found then sustain a decent constitutional republic, and German contributes at the dawn of our America 250 commemorations to rebuilding this discipline and its civic duty to educate for the ongoing work of statecraft."—Paul Carrese, Arizona State University, author of Teaching America: Reflective Patriotism in Schools, College, and Culture
"This book is both timely and timeless. When examining the current struggles in the American constitutional order, German’s work offers a well-reasoned justification for turning towards Montesquieu, the Federalists, and the Antifederalists for answers. Bringing Montesquieu into a dialogue with the founder provides a unique lens on the controversies of the time that continue to have important lessons for today’s politics. The Spirit of Laws profoundly influenced the statesman shaping the nation due to its careful accounting of different political systems, the challenges of designing an effective separation of powers system, and his caution about tailoring the laws to the spirit of the people."—Sarah Burns, Associate Professor of Political Science at Rochester Institute of Technology, and author of The Politics of War Powers: The Theory and History of Presidential Unilateralism
ISBN: 9780700643257
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
280 pages