After Patrick Henry
Neal Q. Herrick

Winner of the IPPY Gold Medal for best book of 2009 in the "Freedom Fighter of the Year" category.

Silver Medal in ForeWord's competition for best political science book of 2009.

Neal Herrick demonstrates, in a lucid manner, that government corruption is the predominant problem facing society. Although bribery and influence peddling are the most visible aspects of this corruption, they are not, in Herrick's analysis, the most serious. For Herrick, the more serious aspect of government corruption is the laws that bribery and influence peddling produce - laws that favour the corporations - resulting in, what he calls, a kind of delusional corruption that leads, for example, to unjust and unnecessary wars. After Patrick Henry is a book about both kinds of corruption, as they are inseparable and arise from the same structural failing: the failure to make the interests of government coincident with the interests of the people.

Tracing both forms of corruption back through American history, Herrick gives a brief account of governmental descent into lawlessness, identifies the constitutional flaw that led to this lawlessness, and discusses some of the issues that must be considered in devising remedies. After discussing the four principles on which the U.S. Constitution rests, and pointing out the causal connections between the failure of the impeachment provisions and presidential wars, eroded political culture, and civil society complaisance, Herrick then proposes a constitutional amendment and a strategy for accomplishing this amendment

Even though other contemporary books on political theory agree that the executive branch is out of control and must be "reined in," they do not offer the historical analysis necessary, and cannot therefore propose a remedy, other than arguing that Congress do its job.

A powerful indictment, well researched and grounded. A clarion call to all of us to demand a halt to "the gradual and silent encroachments of those in power."
- A. Robert Smith, The Tiger in the Senate

Herrick, who knows not just politics, but government from the inside, has reread American history with a critical eye. A good critical read.
- Dick Howard, The Specter of Democracy

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction

Part I: Our Country in Trouble

• Chapter 1: Presidential Wars
• Chapter 2: An Eroded Political Culture
• Chapter 3: Civil Society Complaisance

Part II: The Broken "Mainspring" of Our Government

• Chapter 4: Should Impeachment Proceedings Consider the Good of the Country?
• Chapter 5: Should Impeachment Proceedings Consider Public Opinion and Party Discipline?
• Chapter 6: Should Impeachment Defendants Be Granted Due Process?
• Chapter 7: Did the 106th Senate Usurp House Impeachement Powers?
• Chapter 8: Did the 106th Senate Usurp the Chief Justice's Authority to Preside?

Part III: Our Journey from Republic to Elective Monarchy and Some Thoughts About a Return Trip

• Chapter 9: Stepping-Stones on the Path We Have Travelled
• Chapter 10: Potholes on the Way Back

Part IV: Stepping Back From the Brink of Tyranny

• Chapter 11: Prudent "Measures" We Should Take
• Chapter 12: A First Step on the Road Back
• Afterword
• Cases
• References
• Index

Neal Q. Herrick is a retired University of Michigan academic in industrial relations. He is co-author, with late Howard Sheppard, of Where Have all the Robots Gone and he served on the Task Force that produced Work in America, published by the MIT Press.

475 pages, 6x9, bibliography, index

After Patrick Henry:  Retail Prices
Paperback:
978-1-55164-320-5 $24.99
Hardcover:
978-1-55164-321-2 $53.99
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