Who Killed the Constitution?

By Thomas E. Woods Jr. and Kevin R. C. Gutzman

For the Constitutional "scholars" out there, this is a book review about the Constitution of the United States. It documents how it has been attacked, abused, and ignored throughout history up to the Bush Administration. Americans worry that our Constitution is dying and that we need to try and stop this destruction. What these authors point-out is the fact that the Constitution is "already dead" and that it died a long time ago. Sounds cynical, but after reading you will discover it is true.

Today's awareness of the crisis we face in America is really the culmination of decades of Constitutional offenses by both Democrats and Republicans. Government is getting too big and it is not representative of the American people. And, these "crimes" against the law of the land are not just exclusive to Congress but also have been committed by United States presidents and Supreme Court justices too. All of these individuals have forsaken and rejected the idea that the Constitution has a fixed meaning limiting the power of the US government. This idea (limited government power) was the exact purpose of the Constitution! The Constitution was meant to serve as a limitation on the federal authority as a guarantee of federalism.

Founder Thomas Jefferson feared that the government could become what it is today. He believed that government would become arbitrary and deteriorate. He believed that the new government would fall just as the Roman Republic collapsed when the ruling class began to ignore the Roman Constitution. Jefferson feared that a republican system would fail and degenerate into tyranny. In other words, there cannot be enduring freedom where the government is not bound by a constitution.

The authors take you through a series of twelve concrete examples in history of not only when, but how the Constitution was breached and ignored. They describe how the Federal government defied the Constitution and explain that these are not the only examples that could be cited. However, they chose what they considered the landmark breaches.

This book is a non-ideological approach detailing the facts to support their arguments. It is a must read for those who want more enlightenment on American history and the Constitution.