Conservative author and tea party grassroots activist Michael Patrick Leahy's new book, Covenant of Liberty: The Ideological Origins of the Tea Party Movement, will be released by Broadside Books on March 20, 2012. You can pre-order your copy at Amazon here.

About the Book

American citizens are fed up with our politicians. Across the country, we the people do not feel that our elected officials are supporting our best interests, or the best interests of this country. From this sweeping sense of discontent the Tea Party has emerged, revitalizing the spirit of activism in the conservative world. As today's political class-in both parties and at all levels of government-shows blatant disregard for the letter of the Constitution, members of the tea party have taken action to prevent our government from continuing to overstep its role. Concerns about the use and abuse of governmental power are, of course, not new. A similar lack of political accountability is what inspired our founding fathers to embark on this "grand experiment" establishing our country and drafting our uniquely American Constitution.

The founding fathers and the citizens of America spent four long years in vigorous national debate to form the secular covenant -- the Constitution and the Bill of Rights -- which legitimized our American system of federal governance, and narrowly limited the powers of the federal government. Over the past century, however, constitutional constraints on these powers have been so thoroughly removed by an activist judiciary, an over-reaching executive, and a corrupt and complacent Congress, that our personal liberties have been increasingly restricted by an ever more intrusive federal government. Today's tea party activists are fighting to preserve the same governing principles which inspired our nation's founders. Just as the founders sought to remove the "Norman yoke" of English tyranny, the tea party seeks to throw off the "Collectivist yoke" this century of unconstitutional overreach has imposed upon the individual liberty of every American citizen.

In Covenant of Liberty, Michael Patrick Leahy explores the historical origins of the tea party movement, showing that the core values of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets are deeply rooted in the political and intellectual history of our country, and thus how fundamental these issues are to our republic and to our understanding of what it means to be American.

The tea party arose because our elected officials betrayed four promises of our Constitution in their efforts to centralize and consolidate power: to abide by the written words of the Constitution, to refrain from interfering in private economic matters, to honor the traditions and principles comprising the "fiscal constitution," and to exercise thoughtful deliberation of legislation, giving respectful consideration to the views of their constituents. It is this final attack upon the constitution that led tea party activists to come together-to put aside the details of their various strains of populism, conservatism, libertarianism-to fight back. Drawing on his personal experience as the organizer of the online conservative community that launched the Tea Party movement in February, 2009 , Leahy documents how these principles have been used to launch and grow one of the most active and influential political movements in America.