cover image The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding

The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding

Eric Nelson. Harvard/Belknap, $29.95 (388p) ISBN 978-0-674-73534-7

This deeply scholarly book from Nelson, professor of government at Harvard, continues in new dress an argument that’s existed since the 1770s: whether the United States came into existence in opposition to Parliament and its ministers or in opposition to the King. If the former, then there was little worry about a strong executive in the revolutionary era, and by extension the argument would follow that there shouldn’t be a worry today. Embroiling himself in an active debate among scholars, Nelson comes down squarely on the side of those who argue that the American Revolution was a “revolution against a legislature, not against a king.” Because the Whigs of 1776 were opposing the British legislature, he argues, the Founders never turned their backs on the executive function. Instead, they argued over what powers to give it. Accordingly, the debates over the Constitution in 1787 and 1788 were about the American version of the royal prerogative—what became the American presidency. The result was, and is, an executive branch whose powers are enshrined in the Constitution—itself the “successful conclusion of a twenty-year campaign in favor of prerogative power.” Sure to fire up an old debate, Nelson’s book constitutes an important contribution to the literature on early American constitutionalism. [em](Oct.) [/em]