Making a Constitution by Zachary K German

Making a Constitution by Zachary K German

The most comprehensive account of Montesquieu’s influence on the debates over the Constitution during the American founding.

Few thinkers loom larger over the American founding than Montesquieu. The Framers repeatedly invoked his authority while drafting, debating, and ratifying the Constitution—yet the true depth and complexity of his influence has never been fully explained. In Making a Constitution, Zachary K. German offers the most definitive account to date, revealing how Montesquieu’s political philosophy shaped not just familiar concepts like separation of powers but the very logic of American constitutional design.

German argues that Montesquieu’s central insight—the need to tailor laws and institutions to a people’s distinctive “spirit”—was foundational to how the Framers understood the possibilities and limits of republican government. Drawing on Montesquieu’s spiritoriented approach, German reframes the core problems of constitutionalism: how to reconcile liberty with republican rule, how to divide power vertically between levels of government, and how to separate power horizontally among institutions. He then shows how Federalists and AntiFederalists alike, all steeped in Montesquieu’s thought, reached sharply different conclusions about how best to preserve liberty within the particular character and circumstances of the American people.

As the “spirit” of the American people has changed in profound ways since the founding, so too has our understanding of the Constitution. German reminds us that Montesquieu’s insights remain perennially relevant. At a moment of renewed controversy over constitutional meaning, this book offers a vital framework for rethinking the enduring challenges of American constitutionalism.

"This book is both timely and timelessWhen examining the current struggles in the American constitutional order, German’s work offers a wellreasoned justification for turning towards Montesquieu, the Federalists, and the Antifederalists for answers. Bringing Montesquieu into a dialogue with the founder provides a unique lens on the controversies of the time that continue to have important lessons for today’s politics. The Spirit of Laws profoundly influenced the statesman shaping the nation due to its careful accounting of different political systems, the challenges of designing an effective separation of powers system, and his caution about tailoring the laws to the spirit of the people."—Sarah Burns, Associate Professor of Political Science at Rochester Institute of Technology, and author of The Politics of War Powers: The Theory and History of Presidential Unilateralism

Zachary K. German is assistant professor in the Institute of American Civics at the Howard H. Baker Jr. School of Public Policy and Public Affairs at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.