We certainly do not want for books about the Constitution. They are ubiquitous. Why should we read another? What does it tell us that we haven’t already encountered elsewhere? One does not have to proceed far into Senator Mike Lee’s new book to find the answer. In a book about the Constitution, one hardly expects to encounter extensive discussions of Andrew Jackson’s famous duel or John Wilkes’s epic standoff against King George III. Our Lost Constitution uses these stories to teach the reader about some of the Constitution’s fundamental principles. The result is a book that teaches constitutional law and history but reads like a thrilling tour through some of the most interesting episodes in American history.
The book is fundamentally about the strange fact that we live under a Constitution that is still ostensibly in effect, and still revered by most Americans, but has been circumvented time and again in practice. Five provisions of the Constitution are given extensive attention here: the origination clause (all bills for raising revenue must originate in the House), the clause vesting “all legislative powers herein granted” in the Congress, the establishment clause of the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of illegal searches, and the Tenth Amendment. Each chapter addresses its clause in two parts: first by telling an interesting story about the history of the clause, and then by illustrating a contemporary event during which the clause was ignored or abandoned.
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