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The writings reprinted here trace James Mackintosh’s involvement with the French Revolution from its hopeful beginnings in 1789 to the confused interlude between Napoleon’s first and second abdications in favor of the restored Bourbon monarchy in 1815. They follow a path that was to become all too familiar to those who began as enthusiastic supporters of the Revolution, became disillusioned by its violence and autocratic outcome, and had to live with the consequences of renunciation for the rest of their lives. Those who wielded political ideas during this period ran the risks associated with handling high explosives—even those, like Mackintosh, who did so with eloquence, moderation, and learned illustration. Although Mackintosh shared this predicament with many others, his apostasy has some special features that lend historical interest to the way in which he attempted first to sustain and then to regain an intellectual stance on law and politics that would do credit to his upbringing as a Scottish “philosophic Whig.”

Foreword by Clyde N. Wilson

St. George Tucker’sView of the Constitution of the United States was the first extended, systematic commentary on the Constitution after it had been ratified by the people of the several states and amended by the Bill of Rights. Published in 1803 by a distinguished patriot and jurist, it was for much of the first half of the nineteenth century an important handbook for American law students, lawyers, judges, and statesmen. Though nearly forgotten since, Tucker’s work remains an important piece of constitutional history and a key document of Jeffersonian republicanism.