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This text argues that constitutional change, seemingly so orderly, formal, and refined, has in fact been a revolutionary process from the first. The Founding Fathers not being the genteel conservatives of myth, set America on a course of revolutionary disruption and constitutional creativity that endures at the close of the millennium. Citing examples like the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, the Great Depression and the New Dealers the author shows how the constitution was changed by these events. He demonstrates how the American people have confronted the Constitution in its moments of crisis with dramatic acts of upheaval, always in the name of popular sovereignty. He also reveals how a "dualist democracy" provides for these populist upheavels that the Constitution, often without formalities. The book also sets contemporary events, such as the Reagan revolution and "Roe versus Wade", in deeper constitutional perspective and considers fundamental reforms that might resolve them.