Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet: The Life of Martin Luther
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
In Martin’s view, the Constitution was the tool of a counterrevolution aimed at reducing the states to ciphers and at fortifying a national government whose powers to tax and coerce would be frightening. Martin delivered the most forceful and sustained attack on the Constitution ever levied—a critique that modern readers might find jarringly relevant. And Martin’s post-convention career, though clouded by drink and scandal, found him as defense counsel in two of the great trials of the age: the Senate trial of the impeached Supreme Court justice Samuel Chase and the treason trial of his friend Aaron Burr.
Kauffman’s Luther Martin is a brilliant and passionate polemicist, a stubborn and admirable defender of a decentralized republic who fights for the principles of 1776 all the way to the last ditch and last drop. In remembering this forgotten founder, we remember also the principles that once animated many of the earliest—and many later—American patriots.
Bill Kauffman
Bill Kauffman is the author of seven previous books, among them Ain't My America; Look Homeward, America (ISI Books), which the American Library Association named one of the best books of 2006; and Dispatches from the Muckdog Gazette, which won the 2003 national Sense of Place Award from Writers & Books. Kauffman writes for the Wall Street Journal, the American Conservative, and Orion, among other publications. He lives in his native Genesee County, New York, with his wife and daughter.
Related to Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet
Related ebooks
History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiberty's First Crisis: Adams, Jefferson, and the Misfits Who Saved Free Speech Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Northern Men with Southern Loyalties: The Democratic Party and the Sectional Crisis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Peasant War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Imagined Civil War: Popular Literature of the North and South, 1861-1865 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Antifederalists: Critics of the Constitution, 1781-1788 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSensibility and the American Revolution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reflections on the Revolution in France (Barnes & Noble Library of Esssential Reading) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Light-Horse Harry Lee: The Rise and Fall of a Revolutionary Hero - The Tragic Life of Robert E. Lee's Father Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The American Union and the Problem of Neighborhood: The United States and the Collapse of the Spanish Empire, 1783-1829 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gentle Puritan: A Life of Ezra Stiles, 1727-1795 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Colonel Hamilton and Colonel Burr: The Revolutionary War Lives of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDebating Race, Ethnicity, and Latino Identity: Jorge J. E. Gracia and His Critics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFighting for Citizenship: Black Northerners and the Debate over Military Service in the Civil War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsScapegoats: Thirteen Victims of Military Injustice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDisjointed Pluralism: Institutional Innovation and the Development of the U.S. Congress Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRoger B. Taney: Jacksonian Jurist Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnderstanding Primary Sources: Colonial Reactions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe French Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lincoln's Men: How President Lincoln Became Father To an Army an Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ring and the Book: "God is the perfect poet" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDemocracy in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jig Is Up: We Are One!: Race Is a Hoax That Fails American Education Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe French Revolution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAin’t Got No Home: America's Great Migrations and the Making of an Interracial Left Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDagger John: Archbishop John Hughes and the Making of Irish America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gentlemen Revolutionaries: Power and Justice in the New American Republic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
United States History For You
Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Library Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer: An Edgar Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet
4 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a life of Luther Martin, one of the most eloquent opponents of the Constitution, whose criticisms within the convention and later outside it during the ratification process made one of the strongest cases against it. Usually, historians have seen him as being on the "wrong side" of history, but Kauffman, as a modern libertarian decentralist, feels Martin was basically right. Personally, as a statist, I do not agree philosophically with Martin or Kauffman, but I think there is no doubt that (as Kauffman repeatedly insists) the Federalist Founding Fathers were as human and fallible as their opponents (if not more so) and Martin had a right to make his case and point to the rather dubious methods used to rush through ratification. Kauffman does not pretend Martin was always right, especially in later life when his notorious drinking caught with him, but he does cover not only the constitutional debate but also Martin's significant as a successful defense attorney for Samuel Chase (Federalist judge impeached by the Jeffersonians) and Aaron Burr (who later repaid Martin's help by taking Martin in during his senile poverty-stricken old age.)