Download or read book Amending America If We Love the Constitution So Much Why Do We Keep Trying to Change It written by Richard B. Bernstein and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2022-09-25 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of how the Constitution has been reshaped over the past 200 years to meet America’s changing needs. Since 1789, 27 amendments were adopted — creating the Bill of Rights, banning liquor, protecting the right to vote and reworking how we choose presidents and senators — and more than 10,000 failed. Proposed amendments tried to stave off the Civil War and then wrote its results into the Constitution. “[A] thoughtful history of the Amendments to the Constitution... An excellent delineation of issues debated by modern constitutional scholars.” — Kirkus “[A] sober, straightforward history of the process of amending the Constitution” — Publishers Weekly “[A] comprehensive and engaging study of Article V’s procedures for amending the constitution.” — Washington Post “The authors capture the essence of the importance of the amending process in a highly readable, gracefully written book... This book, which discusses knotty legal and constitutional issues without stuffiness and in plain language, should be easy reading for students and laypersons.” — The Journal of American History “[A] readable, intelligently organized, and well-informed history of how and why the Constitution has been amended.” — The Historian “[S]cholarly and readable.” — Human Rights “Bernstein’s work is engaging and stimulating... he is to be commended for explaining so carefully just how complex a set of questions and problems cluster around Article 5.” — The American Historical Review “Well written... this volume fills an important gap in the current literature and is likely to be the standard account of amending history for some time to come.” — The American Journal of Legal History “[A] masterful book, daring in its scope and impeccable in its execution. Amending America is a great work of scholarship that does justice to the United States Constitution as a living and evolving document. It is a tribute to the working of American democracy, and contributes to our understanding of its evolution and its unfinished agenda.” — Vartan Gregorian, President, Brown University “A magnificent treasure trove of American history, which brings to life why our Constitution has remained a ‘living document’ for over two centuries. Amending America is a wonderful book for anyone interested in our country.” — Arthur R. Miller, Bruce Bromley Professor of Law, Harvard Law School “Amending America is invaluable for just about anybody seeking to understand the contradictions of our approach to constitutional government. With grace, insight, and considerable information, Bernstein and Agel have written what should be the standard work for a long time to come.” — Herbert S. Parmet, Distinguished Professor of History, City University of New York, author of Richard Nixon and His America “Amending America admirably illuminates the complex and remarkable history of the American people’s repeated attempts to amend the Constitution, and captures that history’s enduring significance. Written with scholarship, clarity, and grace, this book recovers a previously neglected dimension of American constitutional history.” — William E. Nelson, Professor of Law, New York University, author of The Fourteenth Amendment: From Political Principle to Judicial Doctrine “Instructive and fascinating. The book is thorough, erudite, and packed with the anecdotes that make our political past so enjoyable to review.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune “An intelligent, carefully researched, and highly readable account.” — Detroit News

Download or read book Amending America written by Richard B. Bernstein and published by . This book was released on 1995-11-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Amending America written by R. Bernstein and published by Crown. This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Amending America written by Richard B. Bernstein and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book American Founding Son written by Gerard N. Magliocca and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2013-09-06 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Bingham was the architect of the rebirth of the United States following the Civil War. A leading antislavery lawyer and congressman from Ohio, Bingham wrote the most important part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees fundamental rights and equality to all Americans. He was also at the center of two of the greatest trials in history, giving the closing argument in the military prosecution of John Wilkes Booth’s co-conspirators for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and in the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. And more than any other man, Bingham played the key role in shaping the Union’s policy towards the occupied ex-Confederate States, with consequences that still haunt our politics. American Founding Son provides the most complete portrait yet of this remarkable statesman. Drawing on his personal letters and speeches, the book traces Bingham’s life from his humble roots in Pennsylvania through his career as a leader of the Republican Party. Gerard N. Magliocca argues that Bingham and his congressional colleagues transformed the Constitution that the Founding Fathers created, and did so with the same ingenuity that their forbears used to create a more perfect union in the 1780s. In this book, Magliocca restores Bingham to his rightful place as one of our great leaders. Gerard N. Magliocca is the Samuel R. Rosen Professor at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. He is the author of three books on constitutional law, and his work on Andrew Jackson was the subject of an hour-long program on C-Span’s Book TV.

Download or read book Too Young to Run written by John Evan Seery and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Examines the history, theory, and politics behind the age qualifications for elected federal office in the United States Constitution. Argues that the right to run for office ought to be extended to all adult-age citizens who are otherwise office-eligible"--Provided by publisher.

Download or read book The People s Constitution written by John F. Kowal and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 233-year story of how the American people have taken an imperfect constitution—the product of compromises and an artifact of its time—and made it more democratic Who wrote the Constitution? That’s obvious, we think: fifty-five men in Philadelphia in 1787. But much of the Constitution was actually written later, in a series of twenty-seven amendments enacted over the course of two centuries. The real history of the Constitution is the astonishing story of how subsequent generations have reshaped our founding document amid some of the most colorful, contested, and controversial battles in American political life. It’s a story of how We the People have improved our government’s structure and expanded the scope of our democracy during eras of transformational social change. The People’s Constitution is an elegant, sobering, and masterly account of the evolution of American democracy. From the addition of the Bill of Rights, a promise made to save the Constitution from near certain defeat, to the post–Civil War battle over the Fourteenth Amendment, from the rise and fall of the “noble experiment” of Prohibition to the defeat and resurgence of an Equal Rights Amendment a century in the making, The People’s Constitution is the first book of its kind: a vital guide to America’s national charter, and an alternative history of the continuing struggle to realize the Framers’ promise of a more perfect union.

Download or read book United States Code written by United States and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 1506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The United States Code is the official codification of the general and permanent laws of the United States of America. The Code was first published in 1926, and a new edition of the code has been published every six years since 1934. The 2012 edition of the Code incorporates laws enacted through the One Hundred Twelfth Congress, Second Session, the last of which was signed by the President on January 15, 2013. It does not include laws of the One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, First Session, enacted between January 2, 2013, the date it convened, and January 15, 2013. By statutory authority this edition may be cited "U.S.C. 2012 ed." As adopted in 1926, the Code established prima facie the general and permanent laws of the United States. The underlying statutes reprinted in the Code remained in effect and controlled over the Code in case of any discrepancy. In 1947, Congress began enacting individual titles of the Code into positive law. When a title is enacted into positive law, the underlying statutes are repealed and the title then becomes legal evidence of the law. Currently, 26 of the 51 titles in the Code have been so enacted. These are identified in the table of titles near the beginning of each volume. The Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives continues to prepare legislation pursuant to 2 U.S.C. 285b to enact the remainder of the Code, on a title-by-title basis, into positive law. The 2012 edition of the Code was prepared and published under the supervision of Ralph V. Seep, Law Revision Counsel. Grateful acknowledgment is made of the contributions by all who helped in this work, particularly the staffs of the Office of the Law Revision Counsel and the Government Printing Office"--Preface.

Download or read book Amending America s Unwritten Constitution written by Richard Albert and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-20 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is well known that the US Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times since its creation in 1787, but that number does not reflect the true extent of constitutional change in America. Although the Constitution is globally recognized as a written text, it consists also of unwritten rules and principles that are just as important, such as precedents, customs, traditions, norms, presuppositions, and more. These, too, have been amended, but how does that process work? In this book, leading scholars of law, history, philosophy, and political science consider the many theoretical, conceptual, and practical dimensions of what it means to amend America's 'unwritten Constitution': how to change the rules, who may legitimately do it, why leaders may find it politically expedient to enact written instead of unwritten amendments, and whether anything is lost by changing the constitution without a codified constitutional amendment.

Download or read book Model Rules of Professional Conduct written by American Bar Association. House of Delegates and published by American Bar Association. This book was released on 2007 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.

Download or read book Oregon Blue Book written by Oregon. Office of the Secretary of State and published by . This book was released on 1895 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Constitution of the United States of America with the Bill of Rights and All of the Amendments The Declaration of Independence And the Articles written by Thomas Jefferson and published by Start Classics. This book was released on 2024-03-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collected here in one affordable volume are the most important documents of the United States of America: The Constitution of the United States of America with the Bill of Rights and all of the Amendments; The Declaration of Independence; and the Articles of Confederation. These three documents are the basis for our entire way of life. Every citizen should have a copy.

Download or read book The Second Founding How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution written by Eric Foner and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Pulitzer Prize–winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation’s foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time. The Declaration of Independence announced equality as an American ideal, but it took the Civil War and the subsequent adoption of three constitutional amendments to establish that ideal as American law. The Reconstruction amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed all persons due process and equal protection of the law, and equipped black men with the right to vote. They established the principle of birthright citizenship and guaranteed the privileges and immunities of all citizens. The federal government, not the states, was charged with enforcement, reversing the priority of the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In grafting the principle of equality onto the Constitution, these revolutionary changes marked the second founding of the United States. Eric Foner’s compact, insightful history traces the arc of these pivotal amendments from their dramatic origins in pre–Civil War mass meetings of African-American “colored citizens” and in Republican party politics to their virtual nullification in the late nineteenth century. A series of momentous decisions by the Supreme Court narrowed the rights guaranteed in the amendments, while the states actively undermined them. The Jim Crow system was the result. Again today there are serious political challenges to birthright citizenship, voting rights, due process, and equal protection of the law. Like all great works of history, this one informs our understanding of the present as well as the past: knowledge and vigilance are always necessary to secure our basic rights.

Download or read book Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law written by Maurice Adams and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-02 with total page 559 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rule of law and constitutionalist ideals are understood by many, if not most, as necessary to create a just political order. Defying the traditional division between normative and positive theoretical approaches, this book explores how political reality on the one hand, and constitutional ideals on the other, mutually inform and influence each other. Seventeen chapters from leading international scholars cover a diverse range of topics and case studies to test the hypothesis that the best normative theories, including those regarding the role of constitutions, constitutionalism and the rule of law, conceive of the ideal and the real as mutually regulating.

Download or read book Repeal the Second Amendment written by Allan J. Lichtman and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2020-01-28 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A radical case for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment as the only way to control gun violence in America There's an average of one mass shooting per day in the United States. Given the ineffectiveness of the gun control lobby, it's time for a strategy with spine. In Repeal the Second Amendment, Allan J. Lichtman has written the first book that uses history, legal theory and up-to-the-minute data to make a compelling case for the amendment’s repeal in order to create a clear road to sensible gun control in the US. Repeal the Second Amendment explores both the true history and current interpretation of the Second Amendment to expose the NRA’s blatant historical manipulations and irresponsible fake news releases. Lichtman looks at the history of firearms and gun regulations from colonial times to the present to explain how a historically forgotten sentence in the Constitution has become a flash point of recent politics that benefits only the gun industry, their lobbyists, and the politicians on their payroll. He probes court decisions and the effective lobbying and public relations strategies of the gun lobby as well as the ineffectiveness of the gun control movement for lessons in doing better. What emerges is a clear and cogent plan--repeal and replace the Second Amendment without taking guns away from anyone who has them now--to make the US a safer place. It's time to Repeal the Second Amendment, and Allan Lichtman is the man to bring this radical plan to America.

Download or read book The Broken Constitution written by Noah Feldman and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice An innovative account of Abraham Lincoln, constitutional thinker and doer Abraham Lincoln is justly revered for his brilliance, compassion, humor, and rededication of the United States to achieving liberty and justice for all. He led the nation into a bloody civil war to uphold the system of government established by the US Constitution—a system he regarded as the “last best hope of mankind.” But how did Lincoln understand the Constitution? In this groundbreaking study, Noah Feldman argues that Lincoln deliberately and recurrently violated the United States’ founding arrangements. When he came to power, it was widely believed that the federal government could not use armed force to prevent a state from seceding. It was also assumed that basic civil liberties could be suspended in a rebellion by Congress but not by the president, and that the federal government had no authority over slavery in states where it existed. As president, Lincoln broke decisively with all these precedents, and effectively rewrote the Constitution’s place in the American system. Before the Civil War, the Constitution was best understood as a compromise pact—a rough and ready deal between states that allowed the Union to form and function. After Lincoln, the Constitution came to be seen as a sacred text—a transcendent statement of the nation’s highest ideals. The Broken Constitution is the first book to tell the story of how Lincoln broke the Constitution in order to remake it. To do so, it offers a riveting narrative of his constitutional choices and how he made them—and places Lincoln in the rich context of thinking of the time, from African American abolitionists to Lincoln’s Republican rivals and Secessionist ideologues. Includes 8 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations

Download or read book America s Constitution written by Akhil Reed Amar and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In America’s Constitution, one of this era’s most accomplished constitutional law scholars, Akhil Reed Amar, gives the first comprehensive account of one of the world’s great political texts. Incisive, entertaining, and occasionally controversial, this “biography” of America’s framing document explains not only what the Constitution says but also why the Constitution says it. We all know this much: the Constitution is neither immutable nor perfect. Amar shows us how the story of this one relatively compact document reflects the story of America more generally. (For example, much of the Constitution, including the glorious-sounding “We the People,” was lifted from existing American legal texts, including early state constitutions.) In short, the Constitution was as much a product of its environment as it was a product of its individual creators’ inspired genius. Despite the Constitution’s flaws, its role in guiding our republic has been nothing short of amazing. Skillfully placing the document in the context of late-eighteenth-century American politics, America’s Constitution explains, for instance, whether there is anything in the Constitution that is unamendable; the reason America adopted an electoral college; why a president must be at least thirty-five years old; and why–for now, at least–only those citizens who were born under the American flag can become president. From his unique perspective, Amar also gives us unconventional wisdom about the Constitution and its significance throughout the nation’s history. For one thing, we see that the Constitution has been far more democratic than is conventionally understood. Even though the document was drafted by white landholders, a remarkably large number of citizens (by the standards of 1787) were allowed to vote up or down on it, and the document’s later amendments eventually extended the vote to virtually all Americans. We also learn that the Founders’ Constitution was far more slavocratic than many would acknowledge: the “three fifths” clause gave the South extra political clout for every slave it owned or acquired. As a result, slaveholding Virginians held the presidency all but four of the Republic’s first thirty-six years, and proslavery forces eventually came to dominate much of the federal government prior to Lincoln’s election. Ambitious, even-handed, eminently accessible, and often surprising, America’s Constitution is an indispensable work, bound to become a standard reference for any student of history and all citizens of the United States.