Book: Constructing Civil Liberties: Discontinuities in the Development of American Constitutional Law
Author: Ken I. Kersch
Pages: 404
Format: pdf
Language: English
ISBN10: 0521811783
Kersch assesses the accuracy of the Whiggish narrative by examining the evolution of privacy rights, criminal justice procedures, labor law, civil rights, and educational policy from the late nineteenth century to the present. He finds a substantial disconnect between an imagined past, conjured up by progressives and liberals, and the historical record. He concludes that "progressives and civil libertarians were just as likely to be opponents of individualistic freedom as its champions" (p. 28). Indeed, he emphasizes that progressives and liberals in the early twentieth century were in fact preoccupied with strengthening governmental power, not defending individual rights. They tended to regard claims of rights as barriers to their state-building project....Quibbles aside, Kersch has written a fascinating book that offers a fresh look at constitutional history and demolishes the Whiggish narrative as an exercise in historical whimsy calculated to serve political ends. This work, which covers many subjects well, should set the stage for a far-ranging debate over the meaning and direction of our constitutional past. It deserves a wide audience.
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