The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It

Corey Brettschneider

American presidents have often pushed the boundaries established for them by the Constitution; this is the inspirational history of the people who pushed back.

Imagine an American president who imprisoned critics, spread a culture of white supremacy, and tried to upend the law so that he could commit crimes with impunity. Constitutional law and political science professor Corey Brettschneider provides a thoroughly researched account of assaults on democracy by not one such president but by five―John Adams, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Woodrow Wilson, and Richard Nixon. These presidents illuminated the trip wires that can erode or even destroy our democracy. But Brettschneider shows that these presidents didn’t have the last word; citizen movements brought the United States back from the precipice by appealing to a democratic understanding of the Constitution and pressuring subsequent reform-minded presidents to realize the promise of “we the people.” This is a book about citizens―Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Daniel Ellsberg, and more―who fought back against presidential abuse of power. Their examples give us hope about the possibilities of restoring a fragile democracy.

About the author

Corey Brettschneider

Corey Brettschneider is a professor of political science at Brown University, where he teaches constitutional law and politics. He has also been a visiting professor at Fordham Law School, The University of Chicago Law School and Harvard Law School. His writing has appeared in Time, Politico, and the New York Times. His new book is The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It.