A Machine That Would Go of Itself

In this volume, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Michael Kammen explores the U.S. Constitution's place in the public consciousness and its role as a symbol in American life, from ratification in 1788 to our own time.

Michael Kammen

1: The Problem of Constitutionalism in American Culture; 1: The Most Wonderful Instrument Ever Drawn by the Hand of Man; 2: To Make the Constitution a Practical System; 3: All That Gives Us a National Character; 4: The Constitution Threatens to Be a Subject of Infinite Sects; 2: A Machine That Would Go of Itself; 5: On This Day, One Hundred Years Ago; 6: The American and the British Constitution Are Two Entirely Different Things; 7: The Crisis in Constitutionalism; 3: America is Always Talking About its Constitution; 8: God Knows How Dearly We Need a Constitutional Revival; 9: Decisions Are Politics When Constitutional Questions Are Up for Decision; 10: My God! Making a Racket out of the Constitution; 4: The Pendulum of Public Opinion; 11: Illegal Defiance of Constitutional Authority; 12: Our Bill of Rights Is Under Subtle and Pervasive Attack; 13: The Public Got Strange and Distorted Views of the Court and Its Rulings; 14: It's What Holds Us All Together