| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.3

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

Book Review

Reconstructing Reconstruction: The Supreme Court and the Production of Historical Truth. By Pamela Brandwein. (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999. xii, 272 pp. Cloth, $49.95, ISBN 0-8223-2284-6. Paper, $17.95, ISBN 0-8223-2316-8.)

This is a good read. It successfully investigates the "construction" (also referred to as the "production" or the "creation") of historical "truth" and the impact of selecting that "truth"—over other versions—on subsequent actions in law and in politics. Pamela Brandwein's examination of conflicting arguments surrounding slavery and Reconstruction—proffered by northern Democrats and by Republicans beginning with the Thirty-ninth Congress—leads her to an examination of how the victor in this battle for historical "truth" affected constitutional decision making and legal education for almost a century. 1

Northern Democrats, the minority in the Thirty-ninth Congress, were believers in "popular sovereignty" and greatly feared a postwar expansive central government. They believed southern Democrats acted incorrectly in two ways in 1860–1861: they demanded federal enforcement of slave law in the territories, and they advocated secession. For northern Democrats, slavery ended, "died," with the formal emancipation of the slaves and southern renunciation of the concept of secession. . . .

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