“Liberty is an old story and every generation has found advocates to retell it. Randy Barnett offers a succinct, informed, and compelling version of one of the best such stories.” — Claremont Review of Books

“Barnett has a gift for the clear exposition of complicated ideas, and curious, intelligent, but non-expert readers will learn much about the battle for the soul of the Constitution from this book.” — the Washington Free Beacon

“Our Republican Constitution is simultaneously intellectually rigorous and a real page-turner, filled with dramatic anecdotes that illustrate Barnett’s powerful and provocative argument that routine deference to elected legislators is the wrong way to interpret the Constitution or create a rich and flourishing society.” — Reason.com

Barnett is not only one of the most important constitutional scholars of our time, but he advocates brilliantly for the restoration of our Republic by embracing our Constitution and defending individual sovereignty. This is a very important book for constitutional conservatives and all Americans who love liberty and the country. — Mark R. Levin, lawyer, radio host and author of Plunder and Deceit and The Liberty Amendments.

“You don’t have to be in agreement with Randy Barnett to respect his scholarship, enjoy his writing, and learn from his arguments. But--trigger warning!-- after reading this book, I predict you’ll find yourself more persuaded than you expected to be of the urgent case for reclaiming our Republican Constitution.” — William Kristol, Editor, The Weekly Standard

Randy Barnett is one of the country’s most important and creative constitutional thinkers. In Our Republican Constitution he revives and restates the natural rights tradition in American constitutional thought, explaining why our system of government is based on respect for the individual sovereignty of each and every one of us. — Jack M. Balkin, Yale Law School

The nation’s leading libertarian legal scholar tells the riveting story of the long struggle between two fundamentally opposing constitutional traditions and explains that beneath every passionate debate between conservatives and liberals lies a deep disagreement about our founding document.

Americans today are deeply divided—politically, ideologically, and culturally. Some of us live in blue states and watch CNN; others live in red states and watch Fox News. Some Americans want more government, others less. We engage in passionate debate over issues like gun control, health care, same-sex marriage, immigration, and the war on terrorism. But above all, says renowned legal scholar Randy E. Barnett, we are in fundamental disagreement about the Constitution.

From the early days of the American republic, the nature of government “of the people, by the people, for the people” has been disputed. This is because there are not one but two very different notions of “We the People” and popular sovereignty, which yield competing schools of constitutional thought. The democrats view We the People collectively and think popul