North America

Anthony Trollope's sharp, observant travel account follows him through the North of the United States during the Civil War, from Washington to Boston and beyond, as he studies landscapes, institutions, and national character with a novelist's eye and a political commentator's candor. He reflects on Congress, the courts, the post office, hotels, literature, slavery, secession, and the Constitution itself, while also bidding an affectionate farewell to brilliant Boston, praising its winter life, intellectual distinction, and learned circle. Alongside these personal impressions, Trollope traces the nation's constitutional history from the Declaration of Independence and the weak Articles of Confederation to the ratified Constitution of 1788 and its operation from 1789. He argues that the American system has proved remarkably successful, with Alexander Hamilton as its underappreciated architect and Jefferson and Madison as champions of democratic decentralization. At the heart of the book lies the enduring struggle between state sovereignty and federal authority, revealed in suffrage laws, the Senate's conservative design, and the sectional power that helped shape the crisis of the Union. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.