Pursuit of Liberty

The bestselling author of The Pursuit of Happiness shows how the opposing constitutional ideologies of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton have defined our country for 250 years, influenced presidents from Washington to Trump, and continue to drive the debate over the power of government today.

With insight and a sweeping historical perspective, bestselling author and former president of the National Constitution Center Jeffrey Rosen explores the clashing constitutional views of Hamilton and Jefferson: Jefferson championed states’ rights and individual liberties, while Hamilton pushed for a strong Federal government and a powerful executive. This ongoing tug-of-war has shaped all the pivotal moments in American history, including Abraham Lincoln’s fight against slavery and southern secession, the expansion of federal power under Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, and Ronald Reagan’s and Donald Trump’s conservative push to shrink the size of the federal government.

Rosen also shows how Hamilton and Jefferson’s disagreement over how to read the Constitution has shaped landmark debates in Congress and the Supreme Court about executive power, from John Marshall’s early battles with Andrew Jackson to the current divisions among the justices on issues from presidential immunity to control over the administrative state.

More than ever, the clash between Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian ideals resonates today in our most urgent national debates over the question of whether modern presidents are consolidating power and subverting the Constitution—the very threat to American democracy that both Hamilton and Jefferson were determined to avoid.?The Pursuit of Liberty?is an “invigorating, marvelously cogent” (Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Revolutionary) history of the opposing forces that have shaped our country since its founding, and the ongoing struggle to define the balance between liberty and power.