Abraham Lincoln and American Constitutionalism

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6400484
AutoresHerman Belz (autor de correspondencia)
Año1988
Volumen50
Número2
Páginas169-197
Fecha de publicación1988-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Review of Politics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0034-6705 • E-ISSN: 1748-6858
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0034670500015631
OpenAlexW2080192222
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas28

As a contribution to scholarly discussion of Lincoln's place in the American political tradition, this article examines his conception of constitutionalism. Controversy has focused recently on whether Lincoln acted in accordance with the purposes and ideas of the framers, or whether as a wartime president he rejected the constitutionalism of the Founding in favor of a pragmatic, instrumentalist style of leadership that in effect created an organic and unwritten constitution. It has also been suggested that Lincoln's conception of fundamental law can be described as a theory of constitutional aspiration. The article rejects the latter two points of view and argues that Lincoln adhered to the written Constitution of the framers — its forms, procedures, principles, and spirit — and was guided by it in political action aimed at achieving the ideals asserted in the Declaration of Independence. Prudent and practical in his statesmanship, Lincoln possessed in himself and inculcated in the people, constitutionalist conviction that regarded the preservation of republican self-government as the nation's defining and paramount purpose

Constitution · Constitutional theory · Constitutionalism · Conviction · Declaration of independence · Democracy · Epistemology · Independence (probability theory · Instrumentalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence