Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 Paperback by Pauline Maier (Simon &Schuster)

This is a magnificent history of what was the most famous and most consequential debate in the long story of the American republic. The argument, which wound its way through each of the original 13 colonies, was plainly about the method and structure of governing a diverse population, which had only recently defeated the British army and navy and which now needed to construct the grand design of the American republic. This was no easy task. Differences were wide: how were the rights and habits of the individual states to be blended into a national government? How could the interests of each citizen be represented in a national congress? How much power should the central government have relative to the power of the separate states?

The 13 colonies had just been through an enormously exhausting war. Britain was defeated, but barely. The French navy, anxious to avenge centuries of dealing with Britain’s superior naval forces, was critical in the final stage of the colonies’ revolt against British rule. But the colonies were quite different in many ways. Their economies ranged from cotton and tobacco in the south to the beginnings of an industrial revolution in the north. These differences shaped quite different points of view as the debate wound through basic concepts of centralized power, the need for checks and balances within the evolving system of government, the desire for a clear listing of basic rights protecting the individual from what would be a central government.

The document itself was only about 4,000 words. The amendments, now numbering 27, were far shorter. And this is the document that governs the American people. The story of the arguments over its basic tenets is, in a very real sense, critical to understanding the way our system works.
Pauline Maier has done a marvelous job in two major respects: first, she has presented the arguments for and against each of the major concepts contained in the Constitution; only through these arguments can we grasp the importance of each of these concepts. Second, she has organized the history in a way that we can grasp the building momentum, state by state, for supporting the Constitution.

This is difficult history since it is mainly a history of ideas, not major battles, not a history of a brilliant individual. But it is at the essence of who we Americans are as a people. And here we are, 230 years after the drafting of this marvelous document, still governed by its basic concepts.