The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It
Imagine an American president who imprisoned critics, spread a culture of white supremacy, and tried to upend the law so that he could commit crimes with impunity.
In this propulsive and eminently readable history, constitutional law and political science professor Corey Brettschneider provides a thoroughly researched account of assaults on democracy by not one such president but five. John Adams waged war on the national press of the early republic, overseeing numerous prosecutions of his critics. In the lead-up to the Civil War, James Buchanan colluded with the Supreme Court to deny constitutional personhood to African Americans. A decade later, Andrew Johnson urged violence against his political opponents as he sought to guarantee a white supremacist republic after the Civil War. In the 1910s, Woodrow Wilson modernized, popularized, and nationalized Jim Crow laws. In the 1970s, Richard Nixon committed criminal acts that flowed from his corrupt ideas about presidential power. Through their actions, these presidents illuminated the trip wires that can damage or even destroy our democracy.
Corey Brettschneider shows that these presidents didn't have the last word; citizen movements brought the United States back from the precipice by appealing to a democratic understanding of the Constitution and pressuring subsequent reform-minded presidents to realize the promise of "We the People." This is a book about citizens--Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Daniel Ellsberg, and more--who fought back against presidential abuses of power. Their examples give us hope about the possibilities of restoring a fragile democracy.
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Rarely can a book be called indispensable, but here the term applies. At a time when aspiring autocrats appear to be winning across the globe, it is essential to remind citizens why they should not lose hope. With deft sketches from US history, one of our finest constitutional theorists demonstrates how so-called ordinary people, rather than having to rely on judges or professional politicians to save the system, can themselves play a crucial role in the process of recovering democracy.--Jan-Werner Müller, Professor of Social Sciences and Politics, Princeton University, and author of What is Populism?
Corey Brettschneider traces a stunning pattern right across American history. Again and again, brave citizens wielded the Constitution against power, arrogance, and racism to save the republic. The Presidents and the People challenges our conventional wisdom about the presidents, the people, the courts, and democracy itself. Deeply researched, beautifully written, dramatic, wise, and inspiring--a must-read for scholars, citizens, and anyone interested in how the United States really works.--James A. Morone, author of Hellfire Nation and Republic of Wrath
[A]n essential survey... [The Presidents and the People] is an invaluable breakdown of present-day concerns in an illuminating historical context.-- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)"
A welcome reminder, in a time of growing repression, of the power of well-placed dissent.-- "Kirkus Reviews"
Timely and provocative... Brettschneider's claims seem less like history than prognostication.--Julia M. Klein "Boston Globe"
Informative and stimulating.... This carefully researched book explores in detail how presidents in different eras abused their power.--Roger Bishop "BookPage"
