{"id":1759231,"date":"2022-12-02T08:02:31","date_gmt":"2022-12-02T13:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1759231"},"modified":"2022-12-02T08:02:35","modified_gmt":"2022-12-02T13:02:35","slug":"can-you-imagine-an-america-without-a-constitution-this-new-historical-novel-nails-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/can-you-imagine-an-america-without-a-constitution-this-new-historical-novel-nails-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Can You Imagine An America Without A Constitution? This New Historical Novel Nails It"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcan-you-imagine-an-america-without-a-constitution-this-new-historical-novel-nails-it%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1759231&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>We live in an age that rejects incrementalism \u2014 the slow improvement of society through small but steady reforms. Instead, groups ranging from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2021\/05\/11\/black-lives-matter-thought-they-had-washingtons-ear-now-they-feel-shut-out-487215\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Black Lives Matter<\/a> to dispirited conservatives now contemplate a \u201cnational divorce.\u201d We hear of the need for drastic measures \u2014 revolution, societal upheaval, Build Back Better, or whatever you want to call it. Don\u2019t pray for patience; make revolutionary plans.<\/p>\n<p>But history is what happens when you\u2019re busy making other plans.<\/p>\n<p>A new historical fiction book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Crisis-House-Never-United-America\/dp\/B0BGNKPTLR\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cCrisis of the House Never United: A Novel of Early America,\u201d<\/a> by Chuck DeVore gets that \u2014 and demonstrates not only why procedure and patience matter, but also the genius of the U.S. Constitution (notable in its absence from DeVore\u2019s alternate timeline).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile relatively much has been written about the challenges faced by the colonists and the struggles of the War for Independence, little has been said about that dim time in the American experience between 1783 and 1789 \u2014 after victory over the British and before the ratification of the Constitution,\u201d DeVore, a senior contributor at The Federalist, writes in his introduction. \u201cYet, this was the time of maximum danger, of intrigue, and of heated passions when men were not yet sure as to whether ballots or bullets would decide the fates of governments.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The book begins in the American Revolution, with a young soldier, Jeph Clark, receiving his first battlefield wound and his introduction to the major figures of the era: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Aaron Burr.<\/p>\n<p> A Time of Heated Passions <\/p>\n<p>In the years following the revolution, the Articles of Confederation proved clearly inadequate for governing the new country. Shays\u2019 Rebellion demonstrated this. The Articles lacked the Constitution\u2019s checks and balances, division of powers, and its process for amending the document.<\/p>\n<p>What not enough Americans realize is that ratification of the Constitution was far from a sure thing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt almost failed [during the drafting] in Philadelphia, and it almost failed when it was sent out for approval,\u201d DeVore notes. \u201cThe Constitution needed to be ratified by nine of the 13 states to go into effect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The first five states ratified it fairly quickly. But then things got dicey. Massachusetts narrowly voted in favor of the new Constitution, 187 to 168. And it only passed because Sam Adams and John Hancock extracted a promise from its advocates to add a Bill of Rights as soon as possible. Other states also passed it \u2014 narrowly.<\/p>\n<p>But what if the Constitution had failed to win ratification? That\u2019s the alternative timeline DeVore explores. He points out that John Jay, writing as Publius in Federalist No. 5, warned that without a viable Constitution, the new nation could be doomed to division \u2014 a North and a South, each seeking independence and likely to turn to European nations for protection against the other. Hamilton, in another Federalist paper, wrote that it could be three new, smaller, and weaker nations.<\/p>\n<p>In DeVore\u2019s novel, ratification fails \u2014 and Burr (a satisfyingly well-developed character, much more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chuck DeVore&#8217;s historical fiction book &#8216;Crisis of the House Never United: A Novel of Early America&#8217; demonstrates not only why procedure and patience matter, but also the genius of the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1283,"featured_media":1759234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1759231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1283"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1759231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1759234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1759231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1759231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1759231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}