What sustains a democracy? To answer, Corey Brettschneider focuses on individuals, specifically presidents who threatened democracy (Adams, Buchannan, A. Johnson, Wilson, and Nixon, with Donald Trump as a coda) and the actors who responded to protect and defend democratic principles. With a rich historical perspective, Brettschneider delineates critical actors and actions that prevent “the one wrong turn” that would end the American experiment (22).

Brettschneider’s cases reveal presidents who “stoked the fire of constitutional crisis” (2). Only the efforts of “a democratic constituency” create a cycle where crisis is averted and followed by recovery. Brettschneider turns first to John Adams and the Alien and Sedition Acts, with newspaper editors and publishers representing the democratic constituency (34). Cases two through four focus on slavery and civil rights. William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass led the first antislavery democratic constituency via a network of advocacy organizations (91). The first rival to this constituency was President James Buchanan, who worked arduously to influence the Dred Scott case by coordinating with the Supreme Court Justices via letters. Case three focuses on Andrew Johnson and Frederick Douglass, when Johnson fought to protect the white vote and white disenfranchisement. Cas