Corey Brettschneider with Emily Zackin: The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It

​Political scientist Corey Brettschneider joins us to discuss his new book, The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It with Emily Zackin.

This event will take place in person at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library on the 7th Floor.

American presidents have often pushed the boundaries established for them by the Constitution; this is the inspirational history of the people who pushed back.

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.

 At this event, Corey Brettschneider will discuss his new book with Emily Zackin.

To join the event in person | Doors will open 30 minutes before the program begins. For free events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. All registered seats are released shortly before start time, and seats may become available at that time. A standby line will form 30 minutes before the program.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

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

Emily Zackin is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Zackin's research focuses on constitutional theory and American political development. Her book, Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places: Why State Constitutions Contain America’s Positive Rights (Princeton University Press, 2013) highlights America's neglected positive rights tradition and explores its origins in a variety of social movements. Her other research in constitutional theory (co-authored with Mila Versteeg) has been published in the Chicago Law Review and the American Political Science Review. Her work also appears in the Law and Society Review, Law and Social Inquiry, Studies in American Political Development, and the Oxford Handbook of the US Constitution. Her new book, The Political Development of American Debt Relief (co-authored with Chloe Thurston), was just released by the University of Chicago Press in June.

GET THE BOOK

• Borrow: NYPL Catalog


• E-Book app: SimplyE, available on iOS and Android

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ACCESSIBILITY NOTES

In-Person

• Assistive listening devices and/or hearing loops are available at the venue.


• You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template.


• This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs.

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All programs are subject to change or cancellation. 

The 7 Stories Up Series at SNFL is made possible by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

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