George Washington and American Constitutionalism

Résumé du livre

Phelps shows that Washington's political values remained consistent over time, regardless of who his counselors or "ghost writers" were. Using Washington's letters to friends and family - written free from the constraints of public politics - Phelps reveals a man committed to a fully developed plan for a constitutional republic. He demonstrates that the first president developed - long before Madison, Hamilton, and other nationalists - a coherent and consistent view of a republican government on a continental scale, a view grounded in classically conservative Republicanism and continentally minded commercialism. That Washington was only partially successful in building the constitutional system that he intended does not undercut his theoretical contribution, Phelps contends. Even his failures affected the way our constitutional tradition developed.