| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.3

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 256 words from this article are provided below; about 368 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Negotiating the Constitution: The Earliest Debates over Original Intent. By Joseph M. Lynch. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999. xii, 315 pp. $42.00, ISBN 0-8014-3558-7.)

For all the attention we historians devote to nontraditional topics, the founding period of the United States continues to attract talent. Jack N. Rakove's Original Meanings (1996) qualifies as the gold standard of recent endeavors, but it hardly lacks company. Among the other entries are parallel studies by two academic lawyers who recognize that in a real sense the founding extended beyond 1787–1788, as Americans sought and debated the meaning of the new Constitution at the levels of both principle and detail. One of these books is David P. Currie's The Constitution in Congress: The Federalist Period, 1789–1801 (1997). The other, published only two years later, is Joseph M. Lynch's less encyclopedic Negotiating the Constitution. 1

Lynch is an emeritus professor of law at Seton Hall University who believes that "it helps to be a lawyer" when seeking the origins of the law of the Constitution. He traces not just the emergence of constitutional doctrines (Currie's main interest) but also the interpretive methods used during the rich constitutional arguments of 1787–1801. Not least, he explores the impact of politics both on substantive constitutional positions and on interpretative methods. Compared to Currie, Lynch probes more deeply into those debates he covers, and he broadens the focus by pulling in the executive branch and such other key figures as James Madison and Alexander Hamilton once they were out of federal office. . . .

There are about 368 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.