Sedition: How America’s Constitutional Order Emerged from Violent Crisis

In this illuminating debut study, Campbell University law professor Gadson argues that violent clashes over state constitutions had a large, and largely overlooked, impact on the American rule of law. Beginning with three upheavals surrounding state constitutional conventions—the 1838 Buckshot War in Pennsylvania, Dorr’s Rebellion in 1842 Rhode Island, and 1850s Bleeding Kansas—Gadson shows how contentious political questions that were only vaguely addressed in the federal constitution (e.g.: How is a contested election decided? Should only landowners be allowed to vote?) were fiercely debated during state formation. Each of these cases resulted in open revolt—involving extralegal conventions, unsanctioned elections, and politically motivated violence—that, in Gadson’s telling, anticipated the start of the Civil War. The Reconstruction era produced state-level crises accompanied by extreme violence in Arkansas, South Carolina, and North Carolina as new, federally imposed constitutions were picked apart by white politicians trying to disenfranchise Black voters. Though Gadson makes clear how significant these local upheavals were for shaping America on a national level, he finds numerous signs of emerging political violence in present-day events and concludes that the U.S. constitutional order is more vulnerable than many Americans believe. Methodical and troubling, this is a timely reflection on the robustness of the American system. (May)