A Puritanical Constitutionalism – Sarah A. Morgan Smith

Adrian Chastain Weimer's new book, A Constitutional Culture , opens with a bar brawl.

It's a rollicking good tale, and Weimer ’s style is a delight; she writes in the manner of the best narrative historians.

Weimer takes seriously the theological elements of such a culture, recognizing the Reformed understanding that God works providentially through the ordinary means of human agency.

Weimer is oddly unwilling to acknowledge the extent of Puritan sympathies with anti-monarchical elements in England .

Weimer: Some Puritans quietly approved the regicide of Charles I.

He says New Englanders were lukewarm participants in England ’s civil wars at best.

But few of the surviving records directly and clearly address the issue either way.

The very existence of the godly commonwealth of Massachusetts Bay depended upon a certain willingness to engage in resistance to the monarchy.

The constitutional culture in New England , in other words, was inherently revolutionary within the context of the English polity.

Americans are unlikely to be called to a renewed struggle against monarchial authority, but we remain under the threat of an unaccountable executive branch, while also saddled with a national legislature.