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Article: The Failure of the Founding Fathers: Jefferson, Marshall, and the Rise of Presidential Democracy.(Book review)
- Article from:
- Presidential Studies Quarterly
- Article date:
- March 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Center for the Study of the Presidency. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Failure of the Founding Fathers: Jefferson, Marshall, and the Rise of Presidential Democracy. By Bruce Ackerman. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005. 384 pp.
In The Failure of the Founding Fathers, Bruce Ackerman makes a powerful and convincing argument for revising the conventional wisdom about the "third act" of "the Founding drama," which tends to consider Marbury v, Madison (1803) as the final piece in a nationalizing "constitutional puzzle" (p. 12). He contends that the third act should begin at 1800 and end with the War of 1812, encompassing "the great phase" of "the Republicans against the Federalists over the future of ...