"Federalisms" and Union: The Interbellum Constitution
In her latest book, The Interbellum Constitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms, Professor Alison LaCroix suggests that the period between 1815 and 1861 in the United States has too often been treated as “the flyover country of constitutional history.” What was happening on the constitutional front during those years, sandwiched between what is often seen as the true end of the American Revolutionary era—the War of 1812, when the United States fought its last battles with its former colonial overseer, Great Britain—and the transformative days of the U.S. Civil War when the U.S. Constitution was remade, is what LaCroix means by the phrase “The Interbellum Constitution.” She asserts that this time should be the subject of greater consideration because this “period . . . witnessed a transformation in American constitutional law and politics.” Contrary to “the conventional story,” it was a “foundational era of both constitutional crisis and self-conscious creativity.”
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. Historians and other scholars during the latter half of the twentieth century discovered the importance of moving beyond “great man” history to tell a richer and more truthful story about the past. The story LaCroix tells is not entirely unknown, but her signal contribution is to look beyond the “great man,” “great case” perspective on the years after the War of 1812 and before the Civil War. By mining the archive for information, she expands our understanding of the range of ideas about union, federalism, and sovereignty.