Christianity Today Book Award
The Gospel Coalition Book Awards Honorable Mention
Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalist

The success and survival of American democracy have never been guaranteed. Political polarization, presidential eccentricities, the trustworthiness of government, and the prejudices of the voting majority have waxed and waned ever since the time of the Founders, and there are no fail-safe solutions to secure the benefits of a democratic future.

What we must do, argues the historian Robert Tracy McKenzie, is take an unflinching look at the very nature of democracy -- its strengths and weaknesses, what it can promise, and where it overreaches. And this means we must take an unflinching look at ourselves.

We the Fallen People presents a close look at the ideas of human nature to be found in the history of American democratic thought, from the nation's Founders through the Jacksonian Era and Alexis de Tocqueville. McKenzie, following C. S. Lewis, claims there are only two reasons to believe in majority rule: because we have confidence in human nature -- or because we don't. The Founders subscribed to the biblical principle that humans are fallen and their virtue is always doubtful, and they wrote the US Constitution to frame a republic intended to handle our weaknesses. But by the presidency of Andrew Jackson, contrary ideas about humanity's inherent goodness were already taking deep root among Americans, bearing fruit in such perils as we now face for the future of democracy.

Focusing on the careful reasoning of the Founders, the seismic shifts of the Jacksonian Era, and the often misunderstood but still piercing analysis of Tocqueville's Democracy in America, McKenzie guides us in a conversation with the past that can help us see the present -- and ourselves -- with new insight.

• We started tracking this book on September 11, 2021.
• This book was $26.60 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 33 times in the past 1,309 days.
• The current price of this book is $6.99 last checked 21 hours ago.
• This lowest price this book has been offered at in the past year is $2.99.
• The lowest price to date was $2.99 last reached on March 24, 2025.
• This book has been $2.99 2 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $26.60 last reached on September 21, 2021.
• This book has been $26.60 2 times since we started tracking it.

• HistoryAmericasUnited States19th Century
• FrancePractical Politics
• Religion & SpiritualityReligious Studies & ReferenceChurch & State
• HistoryScience & MedicineAnthropology
• HistoryAmericas
• HistoryUnited States19th Century

• Publication Date: September 21, 2021
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 285 Pages
• File Size: 105 KB