Kevin R. Constantine Gutzman (; born May 20, 1963) is an American

constitutional A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these prin ...

scholar and historian. He is Professor of History at Western Connecticut State University.

Biography

Gutzman holds a B.A. from the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

(1985); a J.D. from the

University of Texas School of Law The University of Texas School of Law (Texas Law) is the law school of the University of Texas at Austin. Texas Law is consistently ranked as one of the top law schools in the United States and is highly selective—registering the 8th lowest ac ...

(1990), a Master of Public Affairs from the LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas (1990), and an M.A. (1994) and the PhD (1999) in history from the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...

. In addition to scholarly articles, Gutzman has written scholarly books including, ''Virginia’s American Revolution: From Dominion to Republic, 1776-1840'' in which he argues that it was the intense commitment of politically active Virginians that led them not only to break away from Britain, but to then produce the first state constitution based on a

bill of rights A bill of rights, sometimes called a declaration of rights or a charter of rights, is a list of the most important rights to the citizens of a country. The purpose is to protect those rights against infringement from public officials and pr ...

. He further argued that the Virginians who ratified the United States Constitution in 1788 understood it as a revocable agreement entered into by 13

sovereign state A sovereign state or sovereign country, is a political entity represented by one central government that has supreme legitimate authority over territory. International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defined ter ...

s. Gutzman's works for a popular audience include ''The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution,'' which was named one of the "Top Ten Conservative Books of 2007" by

Human Events ''Human Events'' is an American conservative political news and analysis website. Founded in 1944 as a print newspaper, ''Human Events'' became a digital-only publication in 2013. ''Human Events'' takes its name from the first sentence of the U ...

, and ''Who Killed the Constitution?''

Books

* ''The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution'' (Washington, DC: Regenery Publishing, 2007). * ''Virginia’s American Revolution: From Dominion to Republic, 1776-1840'' (Maryland: Lexington Books, 2007) * ''Who Killed the Constitution? The Federal Government vs. American Liberty from World War I to Barack Obama'', co-authored with

Thomas Woods Thomas Ernest Woods Jr. (born August 1, 1972) is an American author and libertarian commentator who is currently a senior fellow at the Mises Institute.Naji FilaliInterview with Thomas E. Woods, Jr. Harvard Political Review, August 16, 2011. Wo ...

(New York: Crown Forum, 2008) * ''James Madison and the Making of America'' (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2012) * ''Thomas Jefferson - Revolutionary: A Radical's Struggle to Remake America'' (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2015) * ''The Jeffersonians: The Visionary Presidencies of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe'' (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2022)

2008 Presidential Election

On a 2012 radio show of pundit

Mike Church Mike Church (born 1962) is an American radio and internet talk show host, and singer/songwriter. ''The Mike Church Show'' was the first-ever produced talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio (now Sirius XM Radio). Prior to its cancellation in October ...

, Gutzman stated that he voted for

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

in the

2008 United States presidential election The 2008 United States presidential election was the 56th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior senator fr ...

, which upset some fans of Church's show. "I voted for Obama," said Gutzman, "because he was the only one promising to end the wars, and he didn't do it, but that's the reason why." Church responded to angry listeners in defense of Gutzman, pointing out that McCain in particular and the Republican Party in general were, from Gutzman's as well as his own perspective, hardly "lesser evils."

References

External links

Kevin Gutzman's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gutzman, Kevin Living people 21st-century American historians Historians of Colonial North America Historians of the United States Historians of Virginia Human Events people National Review people American political writers American male non-fiction writers American scholars of constitutional law 1963 births Western Connecticut State University faculty University of Texas at Austin alumni University of Virginia alumni People from Bethel, Connecticut Historians from Connecticut