Description: A synthesis of legal, political, and social history to show how the post-founding generations were forced to rethink and substantially revise the U.S. constitutional vision
Review Quotes: "Magisterial. . . . The Interbellum Constitution is first-rate legal history and constitutional law scholarship."--Steve Vladeck, Jotwell
"Few constitutional histories are as impressive and engaging as The Interbellum Constitution. . . . LaCroix's mastery of the historian's craft in this book is extraordinary. Each chapter is full of interesting details about the colorful characters and events it chronicles."--John Mikhail, Balkinization "A new history of federalism in the early United States . . . [that] contextualizes and expands constitutional debates today."--Yale Law Report "A clear strength of the book is LaCroix's deft use of biography and storytelling. . . . Well-researched and well-argued."--John A. Moore, International Journal of Maritime History "Deeply engaging stories. . . . LaCroix's most striking contribution is that her history goes deeper than presidents, governors, and judges to the actors on the ground."--Jed Handelsman Shugerman, American Historical Review "Beautifully written and meticulously researched. . . . Its masterful storytelling, complex but accessible arguments, and rethinking of key legal precedents in broad social, cultural, and intellectual contexts make it a book that any scholar interested in the nineteenth century could and should read."--Heather Carlquist Walser, Journal of Southern History "The Interbellum Constitution reminds us of the important insights that have helped transform the historiography of the early American Republic, of slavery, and of relations between European settlers and Indigenous Peoples. . . . By mining the archive for information, [LaCroix] expands our understanding of the range of ideas about union, federalism, and sovereignty."--Annette Gordon Reed, University of Chicago Law Review Winner of the 2025 SHEAR Book Prize from the Society for Historians of the Early Republic 2025 Littleton-Griswold Prize winner, sponsored by the AHA 2025 Order of the Coif Book Award finalist "No scholar is better equipped to challenge our understanding of the history of federalism than Alison LaCroix. In this pioneering study, she recovers the spirited, contingent, decades-long argument that shaped an era that most constitutional historians have dismissed as uneventful. Essential reading."--Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States "Alison LaCroix's invaluable book is a fount of information and brilliant insights about a grievously neglected period of American constitutional development. It is often gripping in the stories it relates. This is truly essential reading."--Sanford Levinson, author of An Argument Open to All: Reading The Federalist in the 21st Century "A brilliant, alternately rollicking and harrowing account of the law in action in the nineteenth-century United States. Prodigiously researched and bristling with startling revisionist arguments, this book is far and away the best account of the roiling world of American federalism in the crucial decades between the War of 1812 and the Civil War. The Interbellum Constitution carries urgent lessons for the emerging federal-state battles of our times."--John Fabian Witt, author of American Contagions: Epidemics and the Law from Smallpox to COVID-19