And through the early '70s, Edwards reminds us, the Republican platform was silent on so-called family values, treating morality as a matter of individual choice. Republicans then were hardly sympathetic to the counterculture, but they didn't attempt to legislate it out of existence, as contemporary conservatives have with antigay amendments and the like. Today, conservative jurists such as Robert Bork inveigh against "unelected" judges for protecting abortion rights. Edwards says tirades of this kind are profoundly mistaken because the Constitution's framers intended judges to be a bulwark against the potential tyranny of majorities.

For Edwards, the early Reagan years were the high-water mark of conservative achievement. The test of principle came when he and other Republican legislators refused to toe the line when they disagreed with Reagan, as was the case with taxes and aid to the Nicaraguan contras. (When a staffer suggested that Edwards condemn congressional Democrats for "interfering" in foreign policy, Edwards promised to do so if the aide "would first enlarge a copy of the Constitution … and highlight the sections that state that the president is in charge of foreign policy." There are none.)

But during the Reagan era, Republican hard-liners began to denigrate the powers of Congress and advance a more elevated role for the White House. In the '90s, Newt Gingrich imposed a system of strict discipline on House Republicans, and scoring political points trumped matters of conscience. Gingrich was eventually toppled, but the scorched-earth partisanship persisted. Today, the party votes for whatever the president wants, and Republicans on Capitol Hill have utterly forgotten that Congress is a co-equal branch.

Edwards is just as scathing in his condemnation of Bush, whom he derisively labels a mini-monarch. When, finally, in 2007, a group of congressional Republicans voiced their concerns about Iraq to the president and had the temerity to discuss this with the press, it was reported that a White House staffer—a staffer!—"rebuked" one of the congressmen, as if he were not a member of an independent branch.

Edwards views the neocons who promoted the war in Iraq as similar to the Christian right—a faction that "infiltrated" the conservative movement without absorbing its ideals. The neocons, he argues, trampled on the premise of modest government by launching an ill-conceived war. Edwards ruefully observes that such overreaching would be a lesser sin among liberals, who espouse an activist government. But, he laments, "those who call themselves conservatives have managed to forget whose side they're on."

To his further credit, Edwards rejects the rhetoric of conservative extremists who say that "government is the enemy." Edwards rejoins that the U.S. government, with its splendid constitutional protections, should be celebrated instead of demeaned. His eloquence in the service of a forgotten cause is such that liberals and conservatives alike will read this volume with nostalgia and regret.