Meacham shows us how what Abraham Lincoln called the "better angels of our nature" have repeatedly won the day. He had massacred Indians in combat, executed enemy soldiers, fought duels, and imposed martial law on New Orleans. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king, and there ought to be no other., The tension between the widespread Paine view (that central authority was dangerous) and the practical experience of the Revolutionary War and the Confederation period (that a weak national government was even more dangerous) shaped the thoughts and actions of the delegates who gathered in the Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall, in May 1787. Ill tell you, friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the royal brute of Great Britain. All in all, given the expectation of a President Washington, the creation of the office was an act of faith in the future and an educated wager on human character. A Biden official added that Mr. Meacham was involved in discussions about the themes in the victory speech. . The Confidence of the Whole People. We are experiencing technical difficulties. Anyone can read what you share. | ISBN 9780399589812 While interested in providing a usable history with lessons for the present, he tries to judge the past on its own terms, resisting the easy moralizing that smugly elevates the right-thinking living above the thoroughly unenlightened dead. Spanning the period from 1941 to 1998, the book includes writings of noted civil-rights leaders, novelists, and journalists, like John Lewis, James Baldwin, William Faulkner, and David Halberstam. (The delegates did provide that the president had to be a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, suggesting that there has always been a wariness of foreign influence and of the foreign-born.) The Vietnam War, the explosion of white backlash and ghetto violence, and the fitful collapse of the New Deal coalition receive extremely short shrift. Affiliate Program Disclosure. #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Pulitzer Prizewinning author Jon Meacham helps us understand the present moment in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in our history when hope overcame division and fear. Soul. A national Executive will also be necessary, Madison wrote fellow Virginian Edmund Randolph before the convention. I have scarcely ventured to form my own opinion yet, either of the manner in which it ought to be constituted, or the authorities with which it ought to be clothed.. Books by John Mitchum. A Battle for the 'Soul of America'? It's as Old as America, One In 2014 Meacham appeared in Ken Burns' documentary series The Roosevelts: An Intimate History on PBS. It is an easy and uplifting read, and provides a useful overview of America's struggles with its internal divisions during its lifetime, notably the racial one. It was a consuming, all-enveloping one. Physically diminutive but intellectually powerful, James Madison, who laid out a plan for the new government with care, admitted the proper executive structure was a perplexing problem. Thereafter, he shows, the authoritarian strain mutated into numerous deplorable appeals and movements that incited white racism, demonized immigrants and promoted plutocracy. Coming as it does from the biographer of Trump's favourite president - Andrew Jackson - it merits particular attention, Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 10, 2018. The era of suffrage triumph was also the age of segregation, of the suppression of free speech in wartime, of the Red Scare of 1919-20, and of the birth of a new Ku Klux Klan., He continues, hammering it home. | ISBN 9780399589829 Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 23, 2019. McConnell insists hes sitting out debt talks to disbelief. Author Jon Meacham. Just for joining youll get personalized recommendations on your dashboard daily and features only for members. Not since 1861 has the authoritarian part of the American soul so damaged and endangered our democracy and the rule of law. [8][6][b] In 2006, he became editor-in-chief of Newsweek's print and online formats. Meacham was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club thats right for you for free. Mr. Meacham is currently not expected to join the administration. Start earning points for buying books! Although defeated in 1865, this dark strain was never destroyed; indeed, if the Confederacy lost the Civil War, Meacham remarks, in important ways it won the peace following the white Souths fitful overthrow of Reconstruction.
