Author Q&A

Q&A with David O. Stewart
Author of The Summer of 1787

By Joseph Barbato, Past President

David O. Stewart, WIW board member and president of WIW’s Freedom to Write Fund, is the author of The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution (Simon & Schuster, $27), a new work of popular history that Publishers Weekly calls a challenger to Catherine Drinker Bowen’s classic Miracle at Philadelphia (1966). Not bad work for a Staten Island boy who couldn’t make the NBA. 

A one-time reporter for the Staten Island Advance, Stewart earned undergraduate and law degrees at Yale University and studied at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell from 1979 to 1980 and for appellate judges J. Skelly Wright from 1978 to 1979 and David Bazelon in 1978. For the past 25 years, he has practiced law in Washington, D.C., often handling constitutional law cases, and is currently with Ropes & Gray, LLP. He has written widely on legal topics and, for many years, contributed a monthly column on the Supreme Court for ABA Journal, the journal of the American Bar Association. 

On April 23, Stewart will give a WIW Pubspeak in connection with his book in Bethesda, Md. His other local appearances will include Olsson’s/Courthouse Store in Arlington, Va. (April 12); Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C. (April 14); Barnes & Noble in Rockville, Md. (May 9); and the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Md. (May 22). 

What was your biggest challenge in writing the book? 

The biggest challenge was balancing the depth of detail and analysis with the need to keep the story moving forward. In any book — but particularly with historical narrative — it’s easy for the writer to become too enthusiastic (and too well-informed) about an incident or episode that is not central to the movement of the book. Readers enjoy the occasional side-trip in the course of a story, but not too many of them and not too far. My overriding goal was for the readers to experience the four months of the Constitutional Convention with all of the frustrations and satisfactions that the delegates knew. That meant I had to keep focused and keep moving forward. 

Where and when do you do your writing? 

I write on the third floor of our house (I resist characterizing it as the “attic,” with all the attendant associations of the crazy-guy-in-the-attic). Up there I can fire up the CD player and ignore most of the world, at least until the cell phone rings. I have no special “writing time.” The great double-edged sword of working at home is that you can work there any time, so I do. I go into my law office about one day a week; so any of the other six days or evenings may find me on the third floor.

What pleases you most about the book?  

Based on the undoubtedly objective comments of my friends, it seems that the book is accessible to the legendary “general” reader, which was a critical goal for me. And, because we all know that looks count a lot in this world, I’m really pleased that it’s a pretty book (Simon & Schuster did a great job with it). When I saw it on display at a bookstore for the first time, at B. Dalton at Union Station, I laughed out loud. That was a really good moment.  

If you could go back through time and spend one day at the Constitutional Convention, which day would it be and why? 

Great question! Let me fudge and pick two. In early August, Gouverneur Morris delivered the first abolitionist speech in American history, flinging a harsh challenge to the southern slaveholders. After reading that speech a dozen times and more, I still find it thrilling. Only one other delegate backed him up, but Morris was fearless. It must have been a remarkable moment. The second would be the day they lined up to sign the final Constitution, September 17, a day when Ben Franklin offered some wise and inspiring comments. The emotion of that day must have been so powerful. 

Why do you write?  

I was too short and too slow for the NBA. 

You have a novel that's being represented by an agent. What's it about? 

It’s the story of a political corruption trial in the South “inspired by” my experiences as a trial lawyer in white-collar criminal defense cases.  

You defended Judge Walter L. Nixon, Jr., in a Senate impeachment trial. What was that all about? 

It was an outrage! A travesty of justice! Judge Nixon gave testimony before a grand jury that a federal prosecutor chose to interpret as perjury and then buffaloed a jury of twelve Americans into agreeing with him. (Scooter Libby has been living through an updated version of this scenario.) In any event, while in prison Judge Nixon refused to resign as a federal judge, and we fought his impeachment and removal from office by the Senate. We won some votes and even beat one of the impeachment articles against him, but it wasn’t easy to explain to senators why they should vote to retain a federal judge in office who was in prison. I am drawing on that experience in my new project. 

Now you're working on a book about the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson. What drew you to that project?

In addition to my own experiences with impeachment, I find this story compelling because the stakes were so high. The Civil War worked a revolution in American society, and in its aftermath so much was possible. Yet we had the ill fortune to have Andrew Johnson, a truly execrable president and slave-owner, in the White House. He aggressively undermined the North’s victory in the Civil War and mightily strove to ensure that southern whites would be able to oppress the freed slaves to the fullest extent of their fantasies. But Congress could never agree on the grounds for acting against Johnson. They ended up bringing a case based on a somewhat niggling technicality, which degenerated into a farcical trial and a one-vote escape for the president. The weaknesses and limitations of the impeachment process were brutally illustrated by the experience. Maybe more important, I am fascinated by the human story of Johnson’s struggle against his chief persecutor — Congressman Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, one of the underappreciated figures in American history. Stevens played Captain Ahab to Johnson’s white whale. All the while, General Ulysses Grant stood close at hand, defying Johnson and supporting the impeachers until he finally made off with the presidency for himself. It’s good stuff. 

How has membership in WIW helped your book writing? 

I first secured an agent at the WIW annual conference; without that first step, nothing else would have happened. Also, it has allowed me to meet and get to know other writers who don’t think it’s all that weird to commute up to the third floor of my house. 

What's your best advice for others who want to write books?  

Keep writing. “Sell” is not a dirty word. Keep writing.