The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend...

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Corey Brettschneider (Fordham Law School)

The Presidents and the People

Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It

Corey Brettschneider (Fordham Law School)

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English

Norton
07 October 2025

History

Imagine an American president who imprisoned critics, spread a culture of white supremacy, and tried to upend the law so that he could commit crimes with impunity.

In this propulsive and eminently readable history, constitutional law and political science professor Corey Brettschneider provides a thoroughly researched account of assaults on democracy by not one such president but five. John Adams waged war on the national press of the early republic, overseeing numerous prosecutions of his critics. In the lead-up to the Civil War, James Buchanan colluded with the Supreme Court to deny constitutional personhood to African Americans. A decade later, Andrew Johnson urged violence against his political opponents as he sought to guarantee a white supremacist republic after the Civil War. In the 1910s, Woodrow Wilson modernized, popularized, and nationalized Jim Crow laws. In the 1970s, Richard Nixon committed criminal acts that flowed from his corrupt ideas about presidential power. Through their actions, these presidents illuminated the trip wires that can damage or even destroy our democracy.

Corey Brettschneider shows that these presidents didn't have the last word; citizen movements brought the United States back from the precipice by appealing to a democratic understanding of the Constitution and pressuring subsequent reform-minded presidents to realize the promise of ""We the People."" This is a book about citizens-Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Daniel Ellsberg, and more-who fought back against presidential abuses of power. Their examples give us hope about the possibilities of restoring a fragile democracy.

By: Corey Brettschneider (Fordham Law School)
Imprint: Norton
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 211mm, Width: 140mm, Spine: 23mm
Weight: 300g
ISBN: 9781324110880
ISBN 10: 1324110880
Pages: 368
Publication Date: 07 October 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Corey Brettschneider is a professor at Brown University, where he teaches constitutional law and politics. He has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Time. He is also the author of The Oath and the Office. He lives in New York.

Reviews for The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It

""Corey Brettschneider traces a stunning pattern right across American history. Again and again, brave citizens wielded the Constitution against power, arrogance and racism to save the republic. The Presidents and the People challenges our conventional wisdom about the presidents, the people, the courts and democracy itself. Deeply researched, beautifully written, dramatic, wise and inspiring—a must-read for scholars, citizens and anyone interested in how the United States really works."" -- James A. Morone, author of Hellfire Nation and Republic of Wrath ""An inspired history dramatically rendered: the crises five past presidents inflicted on the nation and the moral sense, political skill and persistence the people mustered to restore constitutional order. Richard Nixon’s abuse of power, however, eluded recovery—why? The Presidents and the People supplies a guide and issues a warning."" -- Nancy L. Rosenblum, Senator Joseph Clark Research Professor of Ethics in Politics and Government, Harvard University - 0