Eric Foner, The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019). 256 pp. $26.95 (Hardcover), ISBN: 978‐0‐393‐65257‐4

• Published date: 01 March 2022
• Author: Maren B. Trochmann
• Date: 01 March 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13479

Book Reviews 369

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 82, Iss. 2, pp. 369–371. © 2022 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13479.

Maren B. Trochmann is an Assistant

Professor at the College of Charleston in

the Political Science Department, where she

teaches MPA and undergraduate courses

in ethics, public administration, and human

resources management. Her research

interests include bureaucratic discretion,

social equity, and public personnel

administration. Her current research

explores the ethical and constitutional

foundations of public service.

Email: trochmannmb@cofc.edu

Eric Foner,The Second Founding: How the Civil War

andReconstruction Remade the Constitution (New York:

W.W. Norton & Company, 2019). 256 pp. $26.95

(Hardcover), ISBN: 978-0-393-65257-4

In The Second Founding: How the Civil War and

Reconstruction Remade the Constitution, preeminent

historian and Columbia University Professor

Emeritus Eric Foner asserts that the American ideals

of equality and democratic egalitarianism were

only constitutionally realized in the late nineteenth

century with the Reconstruction Amendments.

Foner explores the meaning, historical context, and

ongoing relevance of these three amendments: the

Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, the lengthy

Fourteenth constitutionalizing birthright citizenship

and equality before the law, and the Fifteenth securing

Black male suffrage. Yet, even with such monumental

constitutional revisions, the promises of equality before

the law and questions of the nature of civil and social

rights are still evolving today. Foner writes with depth,

clarity, and nuance about the contested meanings of

these amendments both then and now. This review

synthesizes his findings to glean their lessons for public

administration scholars, educators, and practitioners.

Constitutional foundations, such as separation

of powers and the rule of law, undeniably inform

and strengthen American public administration

(Rosenbloom1983). Newbold(2010) articulates the

importance of grounding scholarship and practice

within constitutional tenets, drawing lessons from the

past, and applying them to public service in the present.

The American Constitution underlies democratic

governance and stimulates dialogue within the field

of public administration. Foner’s examination of these

seminal amendments, their original contexts and

purposes, and their contested aims can further inform

this debate. The constitutional foundations of these

amendments contain lessons for public servants and

scholars concerned with achieving a key value of public

administration: substantive and normative social equity.

With its orientation in the past, Foner situates this

book squarely in the modern political landscape

where the concepts central to these amendments—

“citizenship, liberty, equality, rights, and the proper

location of political authority”—are hotly contested

and in flux once again (2019, xxiv). Beyond the utility

of these constitutional changes to inform modern

jurisprudence and political debates, Foner asserts

that many questions of the second founding remain

unanswered: “Key issues confronting American society

today are in some ways Reconstruction questions. Who

is entitled to citizenship? Who should enjoy the right to

vote?… What should be the balance of power between

the federal government at the states?” (xxi). Questions

of federalism and States’ rights, birthright citizenship,

and voting restrictions animate the modern political

landscape. At the federal, state, and local levels, public

administrators—key players in this balance of power—

find themselves at the crossroads of these moral and

ethical dilemmas. Without a deep understanding of

constitutional values, their actions could easily veer

toward administrative evil obscured by technical

rationality (Balfour, Adams and Nickels2019).

Foner argues that public and political institutions

established unity and identity for the fledgling

United States, which lacked traditional markers

of nationhood such as a shared ethic, religious, or

cultural identity and distinct and long-held political

boundaries (5). Foner notes, as de Tocqueville had

before him, the unrequited passion for equality

animated Americans’ patriotism and yet belied a

context in which there was no such equality before

the law. The Constitution did not promise full rights

for those held in the bonds of slavery, and citizenship

was closely tied to male whiteness. Foner outlines

the roots of the Civil War, from the social unrest and

growing moral unease with the institution of slavery

vis-à-vis its centrality as a politically and economically

powerful institution which enjoyed constitutional

protection under States’ rights. He depicts ill-defined

citizenship and debates over rights versus privileges of

citizenship, which sparked what he terms the “Second

Founding” asserting its importance alongside the

original Constitutional Convention of 1787.

In the next three chapters, Foner traces the

foundations of each of the three reconstruction

Maren B. Trochmann

College of Charleston

Book Reviews

Galia Cohen, Editor