Secular revelations

"The United States Constitution, battleground of a politically divided nation and sponsor of that nation's now threatened cultural unity, is a quintessentially political document. Elected officials swear loyalty to it, and U.S. soldiers die for it. Yet no one has ever seriously considered the formative influence this document, so central for all Americans, has had on American cultural life. In this book, Mitchell Meltzer has for the first time demonstrated the extent to which the Constitution is both source and inspiration for America's greatest literary masterworks."--Jacket.