Journal of Supreme Court History

Review of: Timothy S. Huebner, Liberty and Union: The Civil M/ar Era and American ConstitutionalismJIHGFEDCBA W IL L IA M W IE C E K tsrqponmlkjihgfed The co ns titu tio nalhis to rian Tim o thy Hu e bne rhas s e t him s e lf a dau nting tas k in L ib erty an d U n ion : to re cap itu late within a s ingle vo lu m e thre e “historiographical streams” (p. x) of American constitutional development—a history of the Civil War (and its political antecedents), the constitutional impact of the war and its aftermath in Reconstruction, and African-American history of the era.1 Constitutionalism, as his title indicates, is his central theme: what it is, why it matters, and how it was understood by the American people, including African Americans and pro-slavery southern whites. Each of Huebner’s three foci merits book-length treat­ ment in its own right; blending all three into a coherent narrative for general readers is a challenge to virtuosity. Huebner pulls it off admirably. There are surprisingly few studies that cover exactly the same ground Huebner does, but they are all classics, which makes his achievement all the more impressive. A generation ago, Harold M. Hyman and William M. Wiecek brought out one of the few studies that replicates Huebner’s subject: E q u al J u stice u n d er L aw : C on stitu tion al D evelop m en t, 1835-1875 (1982), one of the four constitutional volumes of the N ew A m erican N ation series. The entire corpus of Harold M. Hyman’s work, but principally A M ore P erfect U n ion : T h e Im p act o f th e C ivil W ar an d R econ stru ction on th e C on stitu tion (1973), is dedicated to the war and Reconstruction. Laura Edwards’s A L egal H istory o f th e C ivil W ar an d R econ stru ction : A N ation o f R igh ts (2015) is an important recent revision of the classical synthesis. All the other landmark studies cover only one part of Huebner’s story. Daniel Walker Howe’s Pulitzer Prize­ winning achievement, W h at H ath G od REVIEW OF LIBERTY AND UNIONJIHGFEDCBA 119 W rou gh t: T h e T ran sform ation o f A m er­ ica, 1815-1848 tsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA (2007), interprets the antebel­ lum era. David M. Potter’s T h e Im p en d in g C risis, 1848-1861 (1976), another N ew A m erican N ation series volume, brought the story up to the war. James McPherson’s B attle C ry o f F reed om : T h e C ivil W ar E ra (1988) covered both the coming of the war and the war itself. William W. Freehling’s two-volume treatment of secession, T h e R oad to D isu n ion : S ecession ists at B ay, 1776-1854 (1990) and S ecession ists T riu m ­ p h an t, 1854-1861 (2007) traced the southern component of the story. John Hope Franklin produced the magisterial account ofthe black experience in F rom S lavery to F reed om : A H istory o f A frican A m erican s (1947, 8th ed. 2000). Don E. Fehrenbacher followed up his towering T h e D red S cott C ase: Its S ign ifi­ can ce in A m erican L aw an d P olitics (1978) with his refutation of the neo-Garrisonian critique of the pro-slavery Constitution: T h e S laveh old in g R ep u b lic: A n A cco u n t o f th e U n ited S tates G o v ern m en t’s R elation s to S lavery (2001). Eric Foner’s R econ stru c­ tion : A m erica’s U n fin ish ed R evolu tion , 1863- 1877 (1988, 2014) is the definitive one-volume survey of the war...