View of the Constitution of the United States: With Selected Writings Book

This book is mostly a historical curiosity. Unlike Joseph Story's commentary on the Constitution, which still has great insights for us today, this book is interesting only for the light it sheds on Antebellum Jeffersonian thought. He is clear that he views the union as a union of states rather than people. Reading this book, it becomes clear what the problem with that philosophy was. It was based on political expediency, rather than history or the text of the Constitution. Tucker is quite clear in stating his bias in interpreting the Constitution. Rather than interpreting it according to its plain meaning, he interprets it strictly in favor of states, to limit the federal government to as narrow a compass as possible under the Constitution. This work must have been welcome in the old south, but I think it was incorrect then and of little use now. And it isn't as well organized or convincing as Story's Commentaries. No wonder Story's book was read and used so much and this one wasn't. I wish I would have spent my money on a different book.