Author Neal Q. Herrick considers government corruption to be the predominant problem facing the world today. Although bribery and influence peddling are the most visible aspect of this corruption, they are not, in Herrick's opinion, the most serious. For Herrick, the more serious aspect of government corruption is the laws that bribery and influence peddling produce--laws that favor the corporations--resulting in, what he calls, a kind of delusional corruption that leads to unjust and unnecessary wars. "After Patrick Henry" is a book about both kinds of corruption, as they are inseparable and arise from the same structural failing: the failure to make the interests of government coincident with the interests of the people.

Tracing both forms of corruption back through history, Herrick gives a brief account of governmental descent into lawlessness, identifies the constitutional flaw that led to this lawlessness, and discusses some of the issues that must be considered in devising remedies. After discussing the four principles on which the US Constitution rests and pointing out the causal connections between the failure of the impeachment provisions and presidential wars, eroded political culture, and civil society complaisance, Herrick proposes a constitutional amendment and a strategy for accomplishing it.

Neal Q. Herrick taught at the University of Michigan. He headed the HEW-Labor Task Force that drafted the Occupational Safety and Health Act submitted to Congress in 1968. He is the co-author, with the late Harold Sheppard, of "Where Have All the Robots Gone "and a contributor to "Work in America."