Irving Newton Brant (January 17, 1885 September 18, 1976) was an American biographer, journalist, and historian.

Early life

Brant was born on January 17, 1885, in

Walker, Iowa Walker is a city in Linn County, Iowa. The population was 688 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Cedar Rapids, Iowa metropolitan area. History Walker began as an outgrowth of the Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern Railway. It was named i ...

, the son of David Brant, the editor of the local newspaper, and Ruth Hurd Brant. After attending local schools, he earned a BA in 1909 at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...

. In 1918 Brant became a reporter '' St. Louis Star-Times.'' He left the ''Star-Times'' in 1923, to write poetry, plays and children's novels. In 1930, Brant returned to the newspaper as an editorial writer.

Journalism and writing

Brant wrote about conservation of natural resources for magazines and in 1930 was one of the first members of Rosalie Edge's Emergency Conservation Committee. Brant advised Roosevelt and Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, on conservation issues, such as the protection of migratory ducks against the demands of farmers. In the late 1930s, Brant performed survey work that established the boundaries of the new

Olympic National Park Olympic National Park is a national park of the United States located in Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula. The park has four regions: the Pacific coastline, alpine areas, the west-side temperate rainforest, and the forests of the drier e ...

. In 1936, Brant wrote ''Storm over the Constitution,'' defense of the

constitutionality In constitutional law, constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applic ...

of the

New Deal The New Deal was a series of wide-reaching economic, social, and political reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, in response to the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depressi ...

, which was challenged repeatedly in the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

. Brant's work reportedly encouraged Roosevelt in 1937 to send a bill to the

U.S. Congress The United States Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a bicameral legislature, including a lower body, the U.S. House of Representatives, and an upper body, the U.S. Senate. They both ...

to enlarge the membership of the Supreme Court and overcome the conservative majority. The so-called

court packing A court is an institution, often a government entity, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and administer justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law. Courts general ...

plan lost in Congress after a bitter fight.

Madison biography

Brant's study of the Supreme Court led him to examine the legacy of president

James Madison James Madison (June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison was popularly acclaimed as the ...

, who was largely ignored by historians at the time. When he first started writing the biography, he operated under the assumption that Jefferson overshadowed Madison's political contributions, especially influenced by the writings of the historian

Henry Adams Henry Brooks Adams (February 16, 1838 – March 27, 1918) was an American historian and a member of the Adams political family, descended from two U.S. presidents. As a young Harvard graduate, he served as secretary to his father, Charles Fran ...

and his

history of the United States The history of the present-day United States began in roughly 15,000 BC with the arrival of Peopling of the Americas, the first people in the Americas. In the late 15th century, European colonization of the Americas, European colonization beg ...

. "I began writing the life of Madison without the slightest suspicion that the prevailing estimates of him were incorrect." While he had first focused on the then acknowledged contributions of Madison as architect of the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these pri ...

and author of the

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 pri ...

, he came to believe that Madison was equal in importance to

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

in creating the United States. "Not in the remotest fashion did I suspect that in their political symbiosis, Jefferson might owe as much to Madison as Madison to Jefferson". Brant wanted to rehabilitate Madison's reputation as a theorist of constitutional issues; to demonstrate Madison's mastery of practical politics; and to refute the

states rights In American political discourse, states' rights are political powers held for the state governments rather than the federal government according to the United States Constitution, reflecting especially the enumerated powers of Congress and t ...

interpretation, which denied that the

Founding Fathers The Founding Fathers of the United States, often simply referred to as the Founding Fathers or the Founders, were a group of late-18th-century American revolutionary leaders who united the Thirteen Colonies, oversaw the War of Independence ...

considered the new country to be a single nation rather than a loose confederation of sovereign independent countries.Leonard W. Levy, ''Encyclopedia of the American Constitution'' (1986) 1:146. The first volume of the Madison biography was published in 1941, the sixth and final volume in 1961 Brant died on September 18, 1976.

Bibliography of Brant's writings

* ''James Madison: The Virginia Revolutionist.'' Vol. 1. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1941). * ''James Madison the Nationalist 1780-1787.'' Vol. 2. (Bobbs-Merrill, 1948)
online
* ''James Madison Father of the Constitution 1787-1800.'' Vol. 3. (Bobbs-Merrill, 1950). * "Madison: On the Separation of Church and State." ''William and Mary Quarterly'' (1951): 4-24
Online
* "James Madison and His Times." ''American Historical Review'' 57.4 (1952): 853-870
online
* ''James Madison: Secretary of State, 1800-1809.'' Vol. 4. (Bobbs-Merrill, 1953). *"The Madison Heritage." ''New York University Law Review '' 35 (1960): 882+. * ''James Madison; the President, 1809-1812.'' Vol. 5. (Bobbs-Merrill, 1956.) * ''James Madison: Commander in Chief, 1812-1836.'' Vol. 6. (Bobbs-Merrill, 1961)
online
* '"Madison and the War of 1812." ''The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography'' 74.1 (1966): 51-67. * ''The Fourth President: A life of James Madison.'' (Bobbs-Merrill, 1970), abridged edition of his six volume biography * "Adventures in Conservation Putting It Up to FDR." ''Journal of Forest History'' 32.1 (1988): 32-41. * ''Adventures in conservation with Franklin D. Roosevelt'' (1989
online

Irving Brant's papers
are housed at the University of Iowa Special Collection.

Notes

Sources

* Keene, Ann T. "Brant, Irving Newton (17 January 1885–18 September 1976)" ''American National Biography'' (1999
online
* on Brant's interpretation of Madison's radical shift 1787-1792 {{DEFAULTSORT:Brant, Irving Newton 1885 births 1976 deaths 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers Historians of the United States