A Machine That Would Go of Itself
ALSO BY MICHAEL KAMMEN
SPHERES OF LIBERTY: Changing Perceptions of Liberty in American Culture (1986)
A SEASON OF YOUTH: The American Revolution and the Historical Imagination (1978)
COLONIAL NEW YORK: A History (1975)
PEOPLE OF PARADOX: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization (1972)
EMPIRE AND INTEREST: The American Colonies and the Politics of Mercantilism (1970)
DEPUTYES & LIBERTYES: The Origins of Representative Government in Colonial America (1969)
A ROPE OF SAND: The Colonial Agents, British Politics, and the American Revolution (1968)
(EDITOR)
THE PAST BEFORE US: Contemporary Historical Writing in the United States (1980)
WHAT IS THE GOOD OF HISTORY? Selected Letters of Carl L. Becker, 1900-1945 (1973)
THE HISTORY OF THE PROVINCE OF NEW-YORK,by William Smith, Jr. (1972)
THE CONTRAPUNTAL CIVILIZATION: Essays Toward a New Understanding of the American Experience (1971)
POLITICS AND SOCIETY IN COLONIAL AMERICA: Democracy or Deference? (1967)
(CO-AUTHOR)
SOCIETY, FREEDOM, AND CONSCIENCE: The American Revolution in Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York (1976)
Originally published in 1986 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Published 2006 by Transaction Publishers
Published 2017 by Routledge
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New material this edition copyright 2006 by Taylor & Francis.
Copyright 1986 by Michael Kammen.
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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2006044503
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kammen, Michael G.
A machine that would go of itself : the Constitution in American culture / Michael Kammen with a new introduction by the author.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-4128-0583-X (alk. paper)
1. Constitutional historyUnited States. 2. Public opinionUnited StatesHistory. 3. United StatesCivilization. I. Title.
JK31.K34 2006
342.7302'9dc22 2006044503
ISBN 13: 978-1-4128-0583-4 (pbk)
For Carol
once again
To celebrate the gift and joys
of twenty-five years together
Page 2 Washington Giving the Laws to America, engraving by J. P. Elven (ca. 1800).
Following page 262
THIS work made its initial appearance twenty years ago on the eve of the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution. Because the historical background and context of that event preoccupied me for most of a decade, the book emerged as the broad central panel of a triptych. The side panels or pendants were less weighty in size but complementary in subject matter and focus. The occasion for the first pendant occurred in October 1985 when I was privileged to deliver the Curti Lectures at the University of Wisconsin (Madison), published by the University of Wisconsin Press on July 4, 1986 as Spheres of Liberty: Changing Perceptions of Liberty in American Culture.1
Occasions for the second side panel arose over a period of several years. During the second Reagan administration, when Edwin W. Meese III served as attorney general of the U.S., the doctrine of original intent underwent a vigorous revival but prompted equally strenuous rebuttals from those who believe that the Constitution is a living organism that must be adapted in response to conditions that the Framers could not have imagined.2 The mid- and later 1980s became a fecund time for constitutional debates, intensified by the 1987 nomination of Judge Robert Bork to serve as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. I participated in those discussions, mainly at scholarly conferences that took places in venues that ranged from Washington, D.G. and New York to Charlottesville, Virginia, Arlington, Texas, Edinburgh, Scotland, and Bologna, Italy. I devoted particular attention to personal liberty, an elusive concept in American political thought that had evolved slowly but with notable vitality ever since the mid-1960s. Those essays were collected as a volume titled Sovereignty and Liberty: Constitutional Discourse in American Culture, thereby completing the triptych.'3
Although much has been written about the American Constitution since then, both historical and theoretical in nature, these works have tended to concentrate on what might be called Genesis and Revelation: first, conflicting interpretations of what the Framers had in mind during 1787-89 (from writing the document to ratification to creation of the Bill of Rights in the First Congress). Prime examples of Genesis include Jack R. Rakoves Pulitzer Prizewinning, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (1996) and Marc W. Kruman, State Constitution Making in Revolutionary America (1997).
The Revelation aspectcontested views concerning where we stand todayinvolves decisions that have emerged from the Burger and Rehnquist courts. Also, when nominations have caused the Supreme Court to receive intense media coverage, such problems as judicial activism versus restraint have repeatedly become prominent. Once again the issues are joined: is the Constitution an organic instrument or one that requires strict interpretation faithful to the times and intentions of the Founders?4 Because the Fourteenth Amendment has become a crucial touchstone for those who wish to protect the rights of individuals and minorities, we also have ongoing debates over the literal meaning and implications of that crucial amendment when it was drafted in 1868 and subsequently. The most useful studies are by William E. Nelson, The Fourteenth Amendment: From Political Principle to Judicial Doctrine (1988) and Joseph B. James, The Framing of the Fourteenth Amendment (1956).5
Outstanding works with any kind of cultural dimension treating issues that developed between Genesis and Revelation include Charles W. McCurdy, The Anti-Rent Era in New York Law and Politics, 1839-1865 (2001), Linda K. Kerber, No ConstitutionalRight to Be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship (1998) and William E. Leuchtenburg, The Supreme Court Reborn: The Constitutional Revolution in the Age of Roosevelt (1995).
Meanwhile, only one work has appeared remotely comparable to A Machine That Would Go of Itself in terms of long-term chronological coverageJohn E. Semonche, Keeping the Faith: A Cultural History of the U.S. Supreme Court (1998), whose focus is not so much on the Constitution itself but on the Court as a body and its justices as individuals.6 There have been no challenges in response to my books basic contention: namely, that this most crucial document, so essential to the lives of all Americans, is paradoxically cherished but misunderstood. So many citizens assertively invoke the Constitution (referring to my rights), yet so few actually know what the text contains, never mind actually