Kammen's A Machine That Would Go of Itself: Book Review
This paper reviews Michael Kammen's A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture (1986), in which Kammen argues that Americans' reverence for the Constitution is a culturally and historically constructed phenomenon rather than a faithful reflection of the Founders' intentions. Drawing on popular culture, Supreme Court decisions, and naturalization materials, Kammen traces contradictory and shifting interpretations of the Constitution across American history — from Andrew Jackson's defiance of the Supreme Court to FDR's court-packing scheme, and from pro-slavery rulings to landmark civil rights decisions. The review evaluates Kammen's central argument that a "cult of constitutionalism" has obscured the document's malleable, human-driven nature.
- Introduction: The Constitution as Sacred Text: Kammen challenges culturally constructed constitutional reverence
- Metaphors and Meanings of the Constitution: Metaphors reveal shifting American views of the Constitution
- Contradictory Interpretations Across History: Slavery rulings illustrate constitutional interpretation's inconsistency
- The Reagan Era and Strict Constructionism: Reagan-era conservatives claim original constitutional intent
- The Cult of Constitutionalism: Popular mythology treats the Constitution as sacred writ
- Conclusion: Toward a More Critical Reading: Kammen urges reflexive, historically informed constitutional citizenship
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What makes this paper effective
- The review opens with a timely contemporary example — the Sotomayor confirmation — to immediately demonstrate the relevance of Kammen's decades-old argument, grounding an abstract historical thesis in a recognizable political moment.
- The writer selects well-chosen historical case studies (Jackson's defiance, FDR's court-packing, Dred Scott, Brown v. Board) that collectively illustrate the book's central claim about constitutional inconsistency without redundancy.
- The review maintains a clear evaluative stance throughout, consistently linking Kammen's evidence back to his core thesis rather than merely summarizing chapter content.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective use of embedded quotation to support critical analysis. Rather than paraphrasing Kammen's conclusions, the writer quotes specific passages — including Kammen's formulation of the "cult of constitutionalism" — and then interprets their significance. This technique shows readers exactly where the author's argument originates and allows for pointed critical engagement with the source text.
Structure breakdown
The review follows a classic book-review structure: it opens with thesis context, introduces the author's argument, surveys key evidence chapters thematically (metaphors, historical contradictions, political context, popular mythology), and closes with an evaluative summary. Each body paragraph advances both a description of Kammen's content and an implicit or explicit assessment of its persuasiveness, maintaining the dual function expected in academic book reviews.
Introduction: The Constitution as Sacred Text
In the 21st century, the U.S. Constitution is often presented as a sacred document by both liberals and conservatives. This was evident in the controversy over the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor as the first Latina justice on the Supreme Court. Conservatives portrayed Sotomayor as an activist judge with little regard for the Founding Fathers' original intentions; liberals suggested that adding Sotomayor to the Court would fulfill the document's implied promise of liberty and justice for all. In his 1986 book, A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture, professor of American history Michael Kammen argues that such interpretations are culturally and historically constructed — not ideas that the Founding Fathers wove into the document at its birth.
Over the course of the book, which draws on popular culture as well as Supreme Court decisions, Kammen demonstrates that the relationship between the Constitution and the men who have served as governors and justices has been complicated, divisive, and contradictory in ways many Americans prefer to forget. By examining the intellectual history of how the Constitution has been viewed in American culture, Kammen hopes to offer a more realistic portrait of the document. He pays particular attention to the metaphors used to describe the Constitution, which function as a kind of Rorschach blot revealing how Americans see the nation.
Works Cited
Kammen, Michael. A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture. New York: Knopf, 1986.
Rosen, Jeffrey. PBS. "The First Hundred Years." The Supreme Court. 2007.
"Text of John Roberts' Opening Statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee." USA Today. September 12, 2005.
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