Mclaughlin, Andrew C. (1861–1947)
MCLAUGHLIN, ANDREW C. (1861–1947)
A protégéof thomas cooley at the University of Michigan, Andrew Cunningham McLaughlin took over his course in American constitutional history and later taught that subject at the University of Chicago for thirty years. In his 1914 presidential address before the American Historical Association, McLaughlin criticized charles beard's monolithic emphasis on economic factors. McLaughlin also rejected the tone of exaltation that imbued the work of john fiske and others on the constitutional convention of 1787. In his first major book, Confederation and Constitution (1905), McLaughlin emphasized the constructive aspects of the articles of confederation and of the Confederation period. He construed the Articles as the product of a war against centralism and as the world's first written constitution to establish a federal system, whose origins he traced to the British Empire. His other important works, distinguished for their judicious interpretations, were Courts, Constitutions, and Parties (1912), Foundations of American Constitutionalism (1932), and Constitutional History of the United States (1935), which won a Pulitzer Prize.
Leonard W. Levy
(1986)