Constitutional Crises in US History

If you are a typical American it’s probably safe to say that you have at least a passing familiarity with the US Constitution. You surely know that our Constitution contains a Bill of Rights. You are likely aware that there are several Amendments to the Constitution, even if you’re not sure how many exactly, or how we as a nation go about amending our Constitution.

It’s also probably safe to say that you aren’t very familiar with the Constitution of the state in which you live. When was it adopted? How is it amended? What would it take to revise or replace it, if that’s even possible?

State constitutions, their importance and the history of violence and sedition that revolves around the creation, adoption, and amending of some of those constitutions is the heart of law professor Marcus Alexander Gadson’s new book Sedition.

Gadson examines six violent constitutional crises that have arisen around state constitutions. It seems that state constitutions have a longer and bloodier history than we might realize.

The long history goes back to the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Gadsen points out that during the American Revolution state constitutions were written first and helped to inform the later writing of the national constitution drafted by the Second Continental Congress in the late 1780s. The right of free expression and the separation of powers are just two concepts that started out in state constitutions.

While Gadson covers violent incidents before the Civil War, much of the bloodiest history of state constitutions occurred in the South during Reconstruction. Two of the six constitutional crises that Gadson dives into in this book were in South Carolina and North Carolina after the Civil War, as white supremacists fought to restore the social order that existed before the end of slavery.

The bloodiest events surround the constitution of North Carolina. Gadson takes us through many of the shocking events, including white-led race riots and cold-blooded murder that were so ably covered in the 2020 book Wilmington’s Lie, by Victor Bevine (which I reviewed here).

In his conclusion Gadson takes us through some of the ramifications of this bloody history that are still with us today. For one thing, the history of violence is part of the reason why state constitutions are more easily amended than the US Constitution, as a way to vent off the steam of public sentiment arising over time. The violent history has also left federal courts unwilling to intercede in gerrymandering, even as the US Constitution gives the federal government the duty to ensure that states have “a Republican Form of Government”. Finally, this history has also led to a relative lack of respect for state constitutions among us, the governed. Which explains why you probably know more about the US Constitution than you do about the constitution of your own state.

While you might think a book about state constitutions would be a dry affair, there is enough unknown history to learn (especially the cases from before the Civil War), and enough drama around the post-Civil War examples to keep you reading. I thought this was a great book.

It’s also a relatively short book (about 250 pages including index and notes) meaning the writing is concise and mostly easy to follow. (I will say that events were moved through so quickly in the story of Thomas Dorr in Rhode Island that I had a bit of trouble keeping all the names straight, but no such problems with the rest of the book.)

RATING: Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

RATING COMMENTS: A timely and thought-provoking new book takes a look at American constitutional crises that have arisen from state constitutions almost from the beginning of our nation.

WHERE I GOT MY COPY: I read an advanced reviewer’s copy (ARC) of the book provided by NYU Press and NetGalley. The book will be available to the public on May 13th.