What do you think?
Rate this book
Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document
The still-unfolding story of America’s Constitution is a history of heroes and villains—the flawed visionaries who inspired and crafted liberty’s safeguards, and the shortsighted opportunists who defied them. Those stories are known by few today. In Our Lost Constitution, Senator Mike Lee tells the dramatic, little-known stories behind six of the Constitution’s most indispensible provisions. He shows their rise. He shows their fall. And he makes vividly clear how nearly every abuse of federal power today is rooted in neglect of this Lost Constitution. For
• The Origination Clause says that all bills to raise taxes must originate in the House of Representatives, but contempt for the clause ensured the passage of Obamacare.
• The Fourth Amendment protects us against unreasonable searches and seizures, but the NSA now collects our private data without a warrant.
• The Legislative Powers Clause means that only Congress can pass laws, but unelected agencies now produce ninety-nine out of every one hundred pages of legal rules imposed on the American people.
Lee’s cast of characters includes a former Ku Klux Klansman, who hijacked the Establishment Clause to strangle Catholic schools; the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who called the Second Amendment a fraud; and the revered president who began his first of four terms by threating to shatter the balance of power between Congress and the president, and who began his second term by vowing to do the same to the Supreme Court.
Fortunately, the Constitution has always had its defenders. Senator Lee tells the story of how Andrew Jackson, noted for his courage in duels and politics, stood firm against the unconstitutional expansion of federal powers. He brings to life Ben Franklin’s genius for compromise at a deeply divided constitutional convention. And he tells how in 2008, a couple of unlikely challengers persuaded the Supreme Court to rediscover the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms.
Sections of the Constitution may have been forgotten, but it’s not too late to bring them back—if only we remember why we once demanded them and how we later lost them. Drawing on his experience working in all three branches of government, Senator Lee makes a bold case for resurrecting the Lost Constitution to restore and defend our fundamental liberties.
• The Origination Clause says that all bills to raise taxes must originate in the House of Representatives, but contempt for the clause ensured the passage of Obamacare.
• The Fourth Amendment protects us against unreasonable searches and seizures, but the NSA now collects our private data without a warrant.
• The Legislative Powers Clause means that only Congress can pass laws, but unelected agencies now produce ninety-nine out of every one hundred pages of legal rules imposed on the American people.
Lee’s cast of characters includes a former Ku Klux Klansman, who hijacked the Establishment Clause to strangle Catholic schools; the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who called the Second Amendment a fraud; and the revered president who began his first of four terms by threating to shatter the balance of power between Congress and the president, and who began his second term by vowing to do the same to the Supreme Court.
Fortunately, the Constitution has always had its defenders. Senator Lee tells the story of how Andrew Jackson, noted for his courage in duels and politics, stood firm against the unconstitutional expansion of federal powers. He brings to life Ben Franklin’s genius for compromise at a deeply divided constitutional convention. And he tells how in 2008, a couple of unlikely challengers persuaded the Supreme Court to rediscover the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms.
Sections of the Constitution may have been forgotten, but it’s not too late to bring them back—if only we remember why we once demanded them and how we later lost them. Drawing on his experience working in all three branches of government, Senator Lee makes a bold case for resurrecting the Lost Constitution to restore and defend our fundamental liberties.
256 pages, Paperback
First published April 7, 2015
100 people are currently reading
1074 people want to read
About the author
Mike Lee
5 books47 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads' database with this name.
Mike Lee is a United States Senator from Utah. A member of the Republican Party and an advocate for the founding constitutional principles. He has served in the U.S. Senate since 2011. Lee and his wife Sharon live in Alpine, Utah, with their three children.
Mike Lee is a United States Senator from Utah. A member of the Republican Party and an advocate for the founding constitutional principles. He has served in the U.S. Senate since 2011. Lee and his wife Sharon live in Alpine, Utah, with their three children.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews
June 8, 2017
A concise and interesting summary of some key provisions of the U. S. Constitution and Bill of Rights that have, in recent decades, been steered well adrift from their original intent. Mike Lee is a U. S. Senator from Utah, whose father served as U. S. Solicitor General in the 1980's during Reagan's first term.
Not only is this short book a fine refresher on the U. S. Constitution, it also contains several fascinating vignettes from American history. Just some of the handful of subverted Constitutional provisions Lee examines are the Origination Clause, the 4th Amendment (prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures), and the Legislative Powers Clause.
In reviewing each of these provisions, Lee retraces their origin and historical context, which makes for quite interesting reading. My favorite story was the account of an aged (in his eighties) Benjamin Franklin, deftly presenting a solution to resolve the heated debate over what became the Origination Clause. You will also be fascinated to learn how Andrew Jackson survived and won his duel with Charles Dickinson.
This book will reignite an appreciation for our Constitution and our history as a nation, and will definitely raise your awareness of the need for action in these areas where Constitutional limits need to be regained.
Not only is this short book a fine refresher on the U. S. Constitution, it also contains several fascinating vignettes from American history. Just some of the handful of subverted Constitutional provisions Lee examines are the Origination Clause, the 4th Amendment (prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures), and the Legislative Powers Clause.
In reviewing each of these provisions, Lee retraces their origin and historical context, which makes for quite interesting reading. My favorite story was the account of an aged (in his eighties) Benjamin Franklin, deftly presenting a solution to resolve the heated debate over what became the Origination Clause. You will also be fascinated to learn how Andrew Jackson survived and won his duel with Charles Dickinson.
This book will reignite an appreciation for our Constitution and our history as a nation, and will definitely raise your awareness of the need for action in these areas where Constitutional limits need to be regained.
January 23, 2020
An enlightening look at how certain sections of our constitution came to be and how, over the years, various court cases and rulings have chosen to redefine, alter or ignore portions of our law. It goes over such topics as freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the Privacy Act, the Patriot Act, Obama Care, the right to bear arms, and several others. I appreciate how Senator Lee did a parallel of the historical interpretations and actions taken with the constitution and how it is handled today.
Cleanliness: nothing to note.
**Like my reviews? Then you should follow me! Because I have hundreds more just like this one. With each review, I provide a Cleanliness Report, mentioning any objectionable content I come across so that parents and/or conscientious readers (like me) can determine beforehand whether they want to read a book or not. Content surprises are super annoying, especially when you’re 100+ pages in, so here’s my attempt to help you avoid that!
So Follow or Friend me here on GoodReads! You’ll see my updates as I’m reading and know which books I’m liking and what I’m not finishing and why. You’ll also be able to utilize my library for looking up titles to see whether the book you’re thinking about reading next has any objectionable content or not. From swear words, to romance, to bad attitudes (in children’s books), I cover it all!
Cleanliness: nothing to note.
**Like my reviews? Then you should follow me! Because I have hundreds more just like this one. With each review, I provide a Cleanliness Report, mentioning any objectionable content I come across so that parents and/or conscientious readers (like me) can determine beforehand whether they want to read a book or not. Content surprises are super annoying, especially when you’re 100+ pages in, so here’s my attempt to help you avoid that!
So Follow or Friend me here on GoodReads! You’ll see my updates as I’m reading and know which books I’m liking and what I’m not finishing and why. You’ll also be able to utilize my library for looking up titles to see whether the book you’re thinking about reading next has any objectionable content or not. From swear words, to romance, to bad attitudes (in children’s books), I cover it all!
May 31, 2015
Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) offers a detailed glimpse into key constitutional provisions that are overlooked by many today. He also makes a great case against big government policies. Highly recommend you read it!
March 27, 2015
I'll have to reread this book at a later time as I'm not into Politics that much. But right now it is a 3 rated book. It is about Politics and of course about the constitution. Parts of it is Interesting and many other parts ---- not so. Mike Lee is concerned about how some politicians and the current President consciously disregard and don't really understand the Constitution and they abuse it to their advantage.
April 15, 2018
A very informative book that should be read if you care about the Constitution and the politicians who are subverting it. It describes the cowardly politicians who abdicate their oath of office to the unelected agencies who are really setting policy. These agencies are not accountable to the people, which leave no recourse to stop them.
October 7, 2017
READ THIS BOOK!!!!!!!! Everyone! I don't care what your political party is. Our country is a Constitutional Republic (or Democracy depending who you ask). The Constitution is the framework of how our country is supposed to be run. The amendments protect the citizens from government abuses. Why do we allow both parties do whatever they want instead? You can consider the Constitution a "loose" framework or a "strict" framework but we all can agree we are ridiculously far from where we should be. READ THIS BOOK!!!
February 18, 2017
This book is a good refresher for people who learned about the meaning and importance of the Constitution in High School. Unfortunately, I believe you would have to be fairly old to get back to a time when the Constitution was a serious school subject. Judging by what the younger generations say about the Constitution, it appears most of the them don’t have clue.
The purpose of the Constitution was to form a country from thirteen separate colonies with widely diverse interests. The colonies would have liked to remain separated but they needed to ban together to pay the Revolutionary War debt and to protect their mutual interests. The debates during the writing of the Constitution revolved around the delicate balance between a national government and the protection of the interests of each of the states. The result was a Constitution that gave limited powers to a Federal government, leaving most decisions to the individual states and the people.
Lee walks the reader through several of the important powers given to the Federal government, the negotiations that led to them, and the reasoning behind their ultimate inclusion. He also discusses the first 10 amendments (the Bill of Rights). Then he follows Constitutional history showing how states’ rights and individual rights have been eroded away over the years by overreaching Representatives, Senators, Presidents, and Supreme Court Justices. The Constitution is designed to be flexible as times change, but that flexibility lies in the amendment processes contained in the Constitution, not in illegal actions of government officials.
Finally, Lee makes some suggestions of things that could be done to bring back Constitutional rule. It is a relatively easy book to read and Lee has broken a complicated subject into digestible slices.
The purpose of the Constitution was to form a country from thirteen separate colonies with widely diverse interests. The colonies would have liked to remain separated but they needed to ban together to pay the Revolutionary War debt and to protect their mutual interests. The debates during the writing of the Constitution revolved around the delicate balance between a national government and the protection of the interests of each of the states. The result was a Constitution that gave limited powers to a Federal government, leaving most decisions to the individual states and the people.
Lee walks the reader through several of the important powers given to the Federal government, the negotiations that led to them, and the reasoning behind their ultimate inclusion. He also discusses the first 10 amendments (the Bill of Rights). Then he follows Constitutional history showing how states’ rights and individual rights have been eroded away over the years by overreaching Representatives, Senators, Presidents, and Supreme Court Justices. The Constitution is designed to be flexible as times change, but that flexibility lies in the amendment processes contained in the Constitution, not in illegal actions of government officials.
Finally, Lee makes some suggestions of things that could be done to bring back Constitutional rule. It is a relatively easy book to read and Lee has broken a complicated subject into digestible slices.
June 4, 2016
Great book! Excellent illumination into history often overlooked of obfuscated by academia, and a reasonable path to restoring Liberty is presented. Sadly not enough Americans will read this or other books like it as their lives are filled with the impediments of overreaching federal and local governments, trivial pursuits, apathy, and a contentment to eat at the trough of propaganda called the media. I hope I am wrong, but the evidence does not bear that out at the moment.
January 27, 2020
This was pretty disappointing. Knowing Mike Lee is a tea party Rep. I wasn’t expecting completely moderate ideas regarding his book on the constitution. However, I didn’t realize he was a complete ideologue. The chapters followed a similar pattern; here is a clause in the constitution, and here’s why it’s not being fulfilled according to my partisan ideals. His “Lost Constitution” has gone missing because contemporary party dynamics have corrupted the governing process, which to be honest is somewhat true. Congress has evolved substantially since the birth of the country. However, Lee only seems to acknowledge one party as being responsible for this instead of the obvious two parties changing rules and recreating congressional standards.
His ideas are idealistic to the point they come across as naïve to the political process, especially regarding executive agencies and law-making. Congress cannot be responsible for complex regulating for every law in every federal agency. I do credit him for admitting that towards the end of the book. He explains the REINS act only tries to oversee rules with a $100 K budget, but still this seems burdensome to an already burdened Congress. Not to mention the zero expertise that Congress has in complicated regulation that the agencies deal with.
Lee discredits the ACA because it doesn’t follow the Origination clause. Does any major legislation actually originate in the proper chamber?? Again, he needs to call out the process itself not a specific party. Also, using the Federalist society as a source to calculate regulation and call it a multitrillion-dollar tax on Americans is pointless. The reason government exists is to resolve inequalities that come with the costs of a capitalist society, hence regulation, hence taxes. Another cost of society is national defense. While I don’t know the intricacies of the NSA security/privacy debate, I know you must be willing to give up some privacy for a safe country. If the program really is ineffective then I agree it’s unnecessary, but that seems difficult to prove.
I wish Lee was more pragmatic and less partisan, which Jeff Flake proves is possible in his most recent book. The Lost Constitution is a weak attempt to make a point on an important subject.
His ideas are idealistic to the point they come across as naïve to the political process, especially regarding executive agencies and law-making. Congress cannot be responsible for complex regulating for every law in every federal agency. I do credit him for admitting that towards the end of the book. He explains the REINS act only tries to oversee rules with a $100 K budget, but still this seems burdensome to an already burdened Congress. Not to mention the zero expertise that Congress has in complicated regulation that the agencies deal with.
Lee discredits the ACA because it doesn’t follow the Origination clause. Does any major legislation actually originate in the proper chamber?? Again, he needs to call out the process itself not a specific party. Also, using the Federalist society as a source to calculate regulation and call it a multitrillion-dollar tax on Americans is pointless. The reason government exists is to resolve inequalities that come with the costs of a capitalist society, hence regulation, hence taxes. Another cost of society is national defense. While I don’t know the intricacies of the NSA security/privacy debate, I know you must be willing to give up some privacy for a safe country. If the program really is ineffective then I agree it’s unnecessary, but that seems difficult to prove.
I wish Lee was more pragmatic and less partisan, which Jeff Flake proves is possible in his most recent book. The Lost Constitution is a weak attempt to make a point on an important subject.
May 12, 2023
This book is a great companion and subsequent read to his work titled Written Out of History. It's almost as if our great constitution is getting written out of history as well. To further expand on the subject matter, enroll in and take the free online course titled Constitution 101 from Hillsdale College. The content is extremely relavent to our political climate and state as a nation. A return to republican and constitutional principles can only come from "We the people...", the very ones who are supposed to be governing. (At least according to the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.) Senator Lee does a great job in outlining a few areas in which we can make a return to the Founders' vision. Our demise and waywardness didn't happen overnight, nor will a return to our foundational documents happen overnight. Please read this book and resolve to advocate for limited government in the manner laid out in the Constitution.
November 24, 2024
What an absolute excellent, informative and delightful read. It made me wonder if I learned much about anything substantial during my school years. If I did, I wasn't paying attention because this is fundamental truth, both as interesting as informative as we need. I wish I could thank Senator Mike Lee personally for writing and publishing this book. It should be mandatory reading and I hope as we walk through our new challenges he will continue to speak elementary in revealing the genuine Constitutional reality and consequence. It's important.
March 31, 2018
Very well written book about the Constitution, the background leading to the convention in Philadelphia; the concerns of the framers and states during ratification; and the tipping points in American history in which the Constitution’s “original meaning” of the points discussed in the book were abandoned. Great history and civics for everyone. Highly recommend!
September 22, 2017
Mike Lee's father was Solicitor General of the United States under HW. He clerked for Justice Scalia. So he is not stranger to thinking about Constitutional issues. This book takes a series of issues including issues of the Second Amendment, Search and Seizure, and the relative laziness of legislators to delegate law making power to unelected bureaucrats and then gives some history on the issue and the consequences of varying from the original intent.
It is a short very readable summary of some important issues. For example, he has a long section on the Free Exercise clause in the First Amendment and the changes wrought on it by one case which was written by a Supreme Court Justice who was a former member of the KKK and violently anti-Catholic. At issue was whether a NJ law could allow taxpayers to pay for transportation for students attending parochial schools. The Justice who wrote the majority decision, Hugo Black, stretched the truth a bit in his writing for the majority by claiming that Jefferson was constructing a "wall of separation". Establishment Jefferson's term was to prevent the state from establishing ONE religion. But Black to an entirely opposite stance - suggesting that the Establishment Clause prevented any religious involvement in the state (At the time of the adoption of the Constitution almost half the states had a state approved religion.).
Lee's discussions of each of these issues is informative and entertaining. He makes a strong case on why it would be possible to go back to more narrow interpretations of roles in government and why the existing move to an administrative state will lead to more and more tyranny. This book is not complete - so for example in the chapter on the Establishment Clause - there are some other twists in the story. But the book is provocative in the best sense of the word.
It is a short very readable summary of some important issues. For example, he has a long section on the Free Exercise clause in the First Amendment and the changes wrought on it by one case which was written by a Supreme Court Justice who was a former member of the KKK and violently anti-Catholic. At issue was whether a NJ law could allow taxpayers to pay for transportation for students attending parochial schools. The Justice who wrote the majority decision, Hugo Black, stretched the truth a bit in his writing for the majority by claiming that Jefferson was constructing a "wall of separation". Establishment Jefferson's term was to prevent the state from establishing ONE religion. But Black to an entirely opposite stance - suggesting that the Establishment Clause prevented any religious involvement in the state (At the time of the adoption of the Constitution almost half the states had a state approved religion.).
Lee's discussions of each of these issues is informative and entertaining. He makes a strong case on why it would be possible to go back to more narrow interpretations of roles in government and why the existing move to an administrative state will lead to more and more tyranny. This book is not complete - so for example in the chapter on the Establishment Clause - there are some other twists in the story. But the book is provocative in the best sense of the word.
July 27, 2017
I borrowed this through my local public library and finished it last week. Sen. Mike Lee impresses me so much that I wanted to read his books. He comes across as a very serious-minded, well educated, intelligent man with a somewhat homespun background and rock-solid integrity. His subject concerns the clauses of the US Constitution which have been destroyed over the last century:
1. The origination clause that says all bills to raise taxes must originate in the House. Failure to adhere to this law gave us Obamacare;
2. The 4th Amendment that protects us against unreasonable searches and seizures. Failure to care about this anymore has allowed the NSA to routinely collect our private information without a warrant.
3. The legislative powers clause which set Congress up—only—as the body to pass laws. Failure to follow this by bureaucrats in agencies too numerous to count currently produce ninety-nine out of every one hundred pages of legal rules imposed on the American people.
Whether or not his remedy will take root remains to be seen. It will depend on how many patriotic Americans still exist who are willing to stand for the originalist ideas of our Founding Fathers. All ages of serious-minded individuals beyond early grade school can benefit from reading this treasure. I highly recommend it.
1. The origination clause that says all bills to raise taxes must originate in the House. Failure to adhere to this law gave us Obamacare;
2. The 4th Amendment that protects us against unreasonable searches and seizures. Failure to care about this anymore has allowed the NSA to routinely collect our private information without a warrant.
3. The legislative powers clause which set Congress up—only—as the body to pass laws. Failure to follow this by bureaucrats in agencies too numerous to count currently produce ninety-nine out of every one hundred pages of legal rules imposed on the American people.
Whether or not his remedy will take root remains to be seen. It will depend on how many patriotic Americans still exist who are willing to stand for the originalist ideas of our Founding Fathers. All ages of serious-minded individuals beyond early grade school can benefit from reading this treasure. I highly recommend it.
April 3, 2015
Senator Mike Lee is quite the storyteller as well as being a constitutional lawyer and now senator. With his constitutional law background, he breathes new life into the fight for the Constitution and its principles. Though I would have liked to see the background of more sections of the Constitution expounded upon, what he did include, he was able to make relevant to current constitutional struggles. This is a quick read with a lot of food for thought packed in.
I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
April 16, 2015
A must read for any American concerned with the direction the country is going and what should be done to restore faith in the government and individual liberties.
I won the book in a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.
I won the book in a Goodreads First Reads giveaway.
March 20, 2019
Senator Mike Lee is one of the few members of Congress who takes his oath to the Constitution of the United States seriously and has read the document carefully enough to do so consistently. A good read that makes some important points.
September 19, 2019
In just 200 pages, Mike Lee weaves together a compelling story of the importance of the US Constitution and the early struggles to insure that it would be a bulwark against every changing cultural winds (and the corrupting influence of the desire for political power).
He starts out by pointing to how he reminds himself of just how far we've strayed from the Constitutional limits of federal power by describing two towers of documents that he keeps in his office: 1) an 800 page stack that collects all of the legislation passed by Congress in 2013 and 2) an 8,000 page stack of all of the regulations proposed and adopted by federal agencies in the same year. He then references the decades old debate between originalists and "living constitution" advocates (being careful to explain what "living" means to this group).
His motive for the book made clear, he jumps in to an amazing set of stories, each illustrating a clause in the Constitution that have been "lost" (or willfully subverted) and follows each up with a way to restore these and, in the process, resurrect what he calls our Lost Constitution.
In the process we get fascinating stories about founding fathers whom all of us can remember and some that we should but probably don't. He gives us the history of the meaning of the "establishment clause" and how it turned into a "wall of separation" between religion and government where the chief culprit is a Supreme Court Justice who had been a member of the KKK. He talks about how the original concept of "federalism" (where the federal government only had the specific powers granted it by the Constitution) has been corrupted by pointing to FDR's expansion of central power.
The most powerful takeaway for me was how Lee lays the groundwork for every reader to be able to understand (and argue) the "This is why" we have each of these clauses in particular. (and the Constitution in general).
The book is an easy read (Lee provides the voice himself on the audible version) and is set up to be a helpful go to reference.
Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) one of the original members of the "Tea Party" movement elected in 2010. He served as a clerk in the US District Court of Utah and then in the Third Court of Appeal for Judge Samuel Alito (who is now a Supreme Court Justice). His father was Solicitor General in the Reagan administration. If anyone was shaped by the originalist view of constitutional interpretation, it was Mike Lee. In Lee, I found an even bigger fan of our founding legal document than I am.
He starts out by pointing to how he reminds himself of just how far we've strayed from the Constitutional limits of federal power by describing two towers of documents that he keeps in his office: 1) an 800 page stack that collects all of the legislation passed by Congress in 2013 and 2) an 8,000 page stack of all of the regulations proposed and adopted by federal agencies in the same year. He then references the decades old debate between originalists and "living constitution" advocates (being careful to explain what "living" means to this group).
His motive for the book made clear, he jumps in to an amazing set of stories, each illustrating a clause in the Constitution that have been "lost" (or willfully subverted) and follows each up with a way to restore these and, in the process, resurrect what he calls our Lost Constitution.
In the process we get fascinating stories about founding fathers whom all of us can remember and some that we should but probably don't. He gives us the history of the meaning of the "establishment clause" and how it turned into a "wall of separation" between religion and government where the chief culprit is a Supreme Court Justice who had been a member of the KKK. He talks about how the original concept of "federalism" (where the federal government only had the specific powers granted it by the Constitution) has been corrupted by pointing to FDR's expansion of central power.
The most powerful takeaway for me was how Lee lays the groundwork for every reader to be able to understand (and argue) the "This is why" we have each of these clauses in particular. (and the Constitution in general).
The book is an easy read (Lee provides the voice himself on the audible version) and is set up to be a helpful go to reference.
Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) one of the original members of the "Tea Party" movement elected in 2010. He served as a clerk in the US District Court of Utah and then in the Third Court of Appeal for Judge Samuel Alito (who is now a Supreme Court Justice). His father was Solicitor General in the Reagan administration. If anyone was shaped by the originalist view of constitutional interpretation, it was Mike Lee. In Lee, I found an even bigger fan of our founding legal document than I am.
March 4, 2020
3/5 stars. Senator Mike Lee writes a good and easy read about how, insidiously, more and more power has shifted towards the Federal Government in contravention of the Founders' intent and mandates of the U.S. Constitution. Senator Lee sets the stage by using historical background behind select clauses of the Constitution. For example, the Origination Clause (Article I, Section 7) came about during vigorous debate at the Constitutional Convention whereby a compromise came about not only through a bicameral Congress but also with the requirement that all bills for raising revenue (i.e., taxation) had to originate in the House of Representatives. A modern day example of how this requirement has been circumvented was by President Obama and then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who simply gutted a previous bill (House Resolution 3590 - which dealt with homebuyers' credits for those serving in the military) and replaced it with Obamacare. Other chapters of this book deal with a variety of topics, such as the expanding power of the Executive Branch (contrary to the Legislative Powers clause), and the erosion of autonomy of each State by way of the Commerce Clause (contrary to the Bill of Rights, especially the 10th Amendment). Highly recommended.
June 12, 2017
Senator Lee discusses how the United States government has essentially violated the law, weakening the Constitution and opening the door to a largely unrestrained federal bureaucracy. He puts modern day precedent in the context of historical events and explains why that particular item was put in the Constitution by the authors, and then how it was subverted or ignored by future Presidents, Congress or Supreme Court rulings. He reminds the reader why the three branches of government, with their accompanying checks and balances were created, and why that separation of power is still important today. Even if you disagree with Senator Lee's politics, this is a useful reminder of how our government is meant to operate. Five stars for me.
July 10, 2022
I received this book from Senator Lee during a book-signing event, when I was in Washington D.C., fighting a trade agreement that would have trashed our Constitution. That's right. The pending trade agreement created a new global commission that would have ranked higher than Congress. But we defeated it, and Americans mostly have no idea what almost happened to them, because the truth was never discussed via news media.
Anyway, back to Senator Lee's book. Excellent book: well-written, engaging, great stories. You definitely don't need to be a history or political wonk in order to grasp the meaning and drama of the vignettes. This book would make a great gift for your friends who enjoy reading about U.S. founding fathers history and/or politics.
Anyway, back to Senator Lee's book. Excellent book: well-written, engaging, great stories. You definitely don't need to be a history or political wonk in order to grasp the meaning and drama of the vignettes. This book would make a great gift for your friends who enjoy reading about U.S. founding fathers history and/or politics.
July 16, 2021
Gave some good info and examples of how our political leaders neglect the Constitution and have usurped so much power over the people. It was informative, giving me a better understanding of the methods used to trample freedom. I would liked to have seen a more balanced approach showing how both parties are abusing their power. I get the author is a Republican senator, but if you’re going to point out the political leaders willfully subverting the Constitution, better be sure to include both sides or it loses some credibility for me.
October 24, 2022
Incredibly well researched, Mike Lee has written the go-to book for understanding why the Constitution is important, and how it is slowly being destroyed. Thankfully there is a message of hope in the end.I have studied American history my entire adult life, but there were things in this book that were new to me. Much of what I did know was reinforced with historic references as well. Loved it! A must read for everyone who cares for our Nation and doesn't wish for it to be swept away in the tsunami of ignorance, greed and power-hunger.
July 10, 2017
Excellent read. This book should be required reading for anyone in public office and anyone voting. The subtitle says it all. The book explains where we have strayed from the Constitution and how many of our laws are no longer written by Congress but by federal agencies, how much more power the president now has than was originally intended, and how the courts have sometimes abdicated their job.
November 24, 2019
This is a wonderful book. I wish it could be longer and have shared more examples of debates at the Constitutional Convention and clauses argued for and how they are being compromised today. The final chapter on the Senator’s outlook for America’s future and the role its citizens play in defending the Constitution were uplifting. I highly recommend this book to those wanting to explore the Founders’ intent vs. the reality of big government.
October 31, 2018
I finished the book in two days. I could not put it down. An excellent piece of work by Senator Lee who has a comprehensive knowledge of the Constitution and its history. I was intrigued and delighted by his strong position against big government and its expansion in the 20 & 21st centuries. A must read for those interested in the Constitution regardless of party affiliation.
December 30, 2023
Mike Lee is a lot more optimistic about the future of the United States than I am, but I won't hold that against him. The history and analysis in this book are solid. This is a good book to read for anyone wanting to learn more about the foundation our government was built on and should be following.
March 5, 2021
Senator Lee does a good job laying out the years of Legislative abuses "our" government has perpetuated.
The continued subversion of Our Constitution by Establishment players continues to destroy Our Republic.
The methods are well-documented by Sen. Lee and should be on everyone's Read List.
The continued subversion of Our Constitution by Establishment players continues to destroy Our Republic.
The methods are well-documented by Sen. Lee and should be on everyone's Read List.
February 6, 2022
I knew I would very probably not like this book, but I had a personal reason for wanting to read it. I can appreciate Lee's passion for the Constitution; however this book is mostly just propaganda and not worth your time.
September 6, 2017
I liked the premise of the book and most of the ideas therein. I disagreed in his thoughts about government's role vis-a-vis religion.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews