In the course of my work examining the original meaning of the Second Amendment, I have often had cause to sift through some of the great legal textbooks of the past. Among these, I count such efforts as A View of the Constitution of the United States of America by William Rawle, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States by Joseph Story, and General Principles of Constitutional Law by Thomas Cooley. I have always enjoyed perusing these works, not only for their considerable explanatory value, but because, while reading them, I have gotten the unmistakable sense that their authors liked and revered their subject of choice. In our age, detailed descriptions of the Constitution are more often penned by its most aggressive critics. “Here is the system,” they say; “and here is why it shouldn’t be.” Or, even, worse: “Here is the law, and here is how my friends and I think it can be cleverly undermined.” I am happy to report that, at long last, we have an entry into the canon that fits the older, more celebratory model. That book is Yuval Levin’s American Covenant.
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