BOOKS: The Word from the Framers

Of the making of books about the Constitution there is no end, especially in this bicentenary year, when thousands of people from the President to the most unassuming kindergarten teacher are trying to define, not always with impartial clarity, the document's conception and meaning. But for an authentic and authoritative version of what the Constitution is about and how it got that way, it is hard to beat two of the original works written on the subject: James Madison's Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 and The Federalist, by Alexander Hamilton, Madison and John Jay. Both are currently...