Before the Civil War, the Constitution was best understood as a compromise pact between states that allowed the Union to form and function. After Lincoln, the Constitution was a sacred text declaring the nation's highest ideals. How did this come to pass? Here the author of The Three Lives of James Madison argues that Lincoln deliberately and recurrently violated the United States' founding arrangements, suspending civil liberties while using the armed forces against American citizens, all "to form a more perfect union."