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Reviews of Books
German sectarians swelled the Republicans ranks,
giving them majority control of the state legislature in
1786 and thereafter. The Republicans produced a
two-to-one majority in the ratification convention, and
by 1789 they were able to replace the Pennsylvania
Constitution of 1776 with a new state constitution that
reflected the separation of powers and checks and
balance of the new federal Constitution.
Where Ireland is least convincing is in his contention
that the ease with which the federal Constitution was
ratified in Pennsylvania took the leading political
figures of the day by complete surprise. This seems
implausible, given so much of the rest of his argument.
Certainly sophisticated partisans like James Wilson
and George Bryan knew that the Quakers were returning to thc electorate and lining up with the Republicans. Thc strength of Ireland's fine book is in its
demonstration of thc importance of ethno-religious
continuities in Pcnnsylvania politics from the Revolution to the adoption of the fcdcral Constitution.
CALVIN JILLSON
Southern Methodist University
SCOTT DOUGLAS GERBER. To Secure These Rights: The
Declaration of Independence and Constitutional Interpretation. New York: New York University Press. 1995.
Pp. xv, 315. $45.00.
The clearly stated thesis of this book is that the
Constitution "is grounded in natural rights philosophy,
because the Framers enacted the Constitution to serve
as the institutional framework through which the
natural-rights principles of the Declaration of Independence can be advanced" (p. IOn). Scott Douglas
Gerber thus positions himself as a "liberal originalist,"
in distinction from both a "conservative originalist"
who insists directly and literally on interpreting the
Constitution as the framers intended (Edwin Meese,
Robert Bork, and William Rehnquist) and a liberal
"living Constitution" advocate who sees its basic principles as changing and hopefully "progressing" (William Brennan, Ronald Dworkin, and Lawrence Tribe).
A "liberal originalist" believes that we can know and
understand the original intention of the framers (and
the people who accepted their view by ratitying the
Constitution) but that the essence of the Constitution
is not detailed and time-specific provisions but simply
the natural law philosophy of John Locke. In terms of
the controversy over the ideology of the founding era,
Gerber stands firmly with those who emphasize Locke
and the rights-based liberal tradition and against the
"public good" interpretation of "civic republican" historians such as John Pocock, Bernard Bailyn, and
Gordon Wood.
In arguing this thesis, Gerber brilliantly explicates
the Lockean philosophy of the Declaration of Independence and its subsequent implanting in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He shows as well that all
the major thinkers of the founding era were generally
imhued with this philosophy. He is persuasive in
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
showing that Locke was the philosopher of the American Revolution, that a natural law ideology pervaded
the era, and that such an ideology remains fundamental to contcmporary understanding of the Constitution.
But Gerber pushes his Lockean natural law emphasis too far. Although he admits that Locke was not the
sole influence on the founders and that the Constitution is not solely about protecting rights, he insists that
"the Founders were Lockean liberals on the basic
purpose of government" (protecting rights) and that
this is what "the Constitution is concerned most
about" (pp. 199n and 200n). Instead, it seems clear
that the founders emphasized both protecting rights
and resting the public life of the new nation on virtue
and the common good. Indeed, they would not have
understood the dichotomy because to them both ideals
rested on reason and natural law. lames Madison
would not, as Gerber supposes, have chosen the
protection of "the natural rights of individuals" over
"the general public good ... if a choice had to be
made" (p. 77). Rather, Madison would have seen each
as implicit in the other and would have worked to
make that manifest under the Constitution. He would
have agreed with Thomas lefferson that "Locke's little
book on government [is] perfect as far as it goes [but
only that far; emphasis added]" (p. 34) and that "the
elementary books of public right" undergirding the
Declaration of Indepcndence included not only the
allegedly "liberal" Locke and Algernon Sidney but also
the profoundly civic-minded Aristotle and Cicero.
Madison and Jefferson (and John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, too) were at once Lockean "liberals"
and Aristotelians intent on good (virtuous) government. Therefore, it is not the civic republican interpreters who are "simply wrong in arguing that the
American Revolution was motivated by concerns for
virtue" but Gerber in asserting that "the essential
political premise of the American regime is that
government exists to secure natural rights, not to
cultivate virtue" (p. 40).
These last quotations, moreover, illustrate a dogmatic quality about the book and an inclination to
quarrel too explicitly and categorically with other
scholars and interpreters. This, combined with a dissertation-like habit of "surveying the literature," a
tendency to re-use and repeat quotations (see long
quotes from Locke on pp. 42 and 130), and much
gratuitous "scaffolding" guidance to readers about
what he intends to do and what he has done, make the
book tedious and irritating to read. Nonetheless, Gerber offers a learned interpretation of our foundational
documents, properly finding them resting on a natural
law philosophy and projecting that view in commentary
on important cases in American constitutional law.
Students will thus find the volume stimulating and
worthwhile, although the best informed among them
will challenge some of its basic arguments.
RALPH KETCHAM
Syracuse University
FEBRUARY
1997