Download or read book The Bill of Rights written by Carol Berkin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-05-05 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Narrative, celebratory history at its purest” (Publishers Weekly)—the real story of how the Bill of Rights came to be: a vivid account of political strategy, big egos, and the partisan interests that set the terms of the ongoing contest between the federal government and the states. Those who argue that the Bill of Rights reflects the founding fathers’ “original intent” are wrong. The Bill of Rights was actually a brilliant political act executed by James Madison to preserve the Constitution, the federal government, and the latter’s authority over the states. In the skilled hands of award-winning historian Carol Berkin, the story of the founders’ fight over the Bill of Rights comes alive in a drama full of partisanship, clashing egos, and cunning manipulation. In 1789, the nation faced a great divide around a question still unanswered today: should broad power and authority reside in the federal government or should it reside in state governments? The Bill of Rights, from protecting religious freedom to the people’s right to bear arms, was a political ploy first and a matter of principle second. The truth of how and why Madison came to devise this plan, the debates it caused in the Congress, and its ultimate success is more engrossing than any of the myths that shroud our national beginnings. The debate over the Bill of Rights still continues through many Supreme Court decisions. By pulling back the curtain on the short-sighted and self-interested intentions of the founding fathers, Berkin reveals the anxiety many felt that the new federal government might not survive—and shows that the true “original intent” of the Bill of Rights was simply to oppose the Antifederalists who hoped to diminish the government’s powers. This book is “a highly readable American history lesson that provides a deeper understanding of the Bill of Rights, the fears that generated it, and the miracle of the amendments” (Kirkus Reviews).
Download or read book The Bill of Rights written by Linda R. Monk and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2018-04-10 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a foreword by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court. An Engaging, Accessible Guide to the Bill of Rights for Everyday Citizens. In The Bill of Rights: A User's Guide, award-winning author and constitutional scholar Linda R. Monk explores the remarkable history of the Bill of Rights amendment by amendment, the Supreme Court's interpretation of each right, and the power of citizens to enforce those rights. Stories of the ordinary people who made the Bill of Rights come alive are featured throughout. These include Fannie Lou Hamer, a Mississippi sharecropper who became a national civil rights leader; Clarence Earl Gideon, a prisoner whose handwritten petition to the Supreme Court expanded the right to counsel; Mary Beth Tinker, a 13-year-old whose protest of the Vietnam War established free speech rights for students; Michael Hardwick, a bartender who fought for privacy after police entered his bedroom unlawfully; Suzette Kelo, a nurse who opposed the city's takeover of her working-class neighborhood; and Simon Tam, a millennial whose 10-year trademark battle for his band "The Slants" ended in a unanimous Supreme Court victory. Such people prove that, in the words of Judge Learned Hand, "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court, can save it." Exploring the history, scope, and meaning of the first ten amendments-as well as the Fourteenth Amendment, which nationalized them and extended new rights of equality to all-The Bill of Rights: A User's Guide is a powerful examination of the values that define American life and the tools that every citizen needs.
Download or read book The Heart of the Constitution written by Gerard N. Magliocca and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the untold story of the most celebrated part of the Constitution. Until the twentieth century, few Americans called the first ten constitutional amendments drafted by James Madison in 1789 and ratified by the states in 1791 the Bill of Rights. Even more surprising, when people finally started doing so between the Spanish-American War and World War II, the Bill of Rights was usually invoked to justify increasing rather than restricting the authority of the federal government. President Franklin D. Roosevelt played a key role in that development, first by using the Bill of Rights to justify the expansion of national regulation under the New Deal, and then by transforming the Bill of Rights into a patriotic rallying cry against Nazi Germany. It was only after the Cold War began that the Bill of Rights took on its modern form as the most powerful symbol of the limits on government power. These are just some of the revelations about the Bill of Rights in Gerard Magliocca's The Heart of the Constitution. For example, we are accustomed to seeing the Bill of Rights at the end of the Constitution, but Madison wanted to put them in the middle of the document. Why was his plan rejected and what impact did that have on constitutional law? Today we also venerate the first ten amendments as the Bill of Rights, but many Supreme Court opinions say that only the first eight or first nine amendments. Why was that and why did that change? The Bill of Rights that emerges from Magliocca's fresh historical examination is a living text that means something different for each generation and reflects the great ideas of the Constitution--individual freedom, democracy, states' rights, judicial review, and national power in time of crisis.
Download or read book The Bill of Rights the Courts the Law written by Lynda Lee Butler and published by Virginia Humanities. This book was released on 1999 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Williams School of Law. Melvin Urofsky, Virginia Commonwealth University Doctoral Program in Public PolicyDistributed for the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy
Download or read book Bill of Rights written by James Madison and published by Books of American Wisdom. This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Printed in two colors, this leatherette edition is a guide to the first ten amendments of the U.S.
Download or read book Bills of Rights and Decolonization written by Charles Parkinson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-11-22 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "It presents an alternative perspective on the end of Empire by focusing upon one aspect of constitutional decolonization and the importance of the local legal culture in determining each dependency's constitutional settlement, and provides a series of empirical case studies on the incorporation of human rights instruments into domestic constitutions when negotiated between a state and its dependencies. More generally this book highlights Britain's human rights legacy to its former Empire."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Diminishing the Bill of Rights written by William Davenport Mercer and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2017-04-13 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The modern effort to locate American liberties, it turns out, began in the mud at the bottom of Baltimore harbor. John Barron Jr. and John Craig sued the city for damages after Baltimore’s rebuilt drainage system diverted water and sediment into the harbor, preventing large ships from tying up at Barron and Craig’s wharf. By the time the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1833, the issue had become whether the city’s actions constituted a taking of property by the state without just compensation, a violation of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The high court’s decision in Barron v. Baltimore marked a critical step in the rapid evolution of law and constitutional rights during the first half of the nineteenth century. Diminishing the Bill of Rights examines the backstory and context of this decision as a turning point in the development of our current conception of individual rights. Since the colonial period, Americans had viewed their rights as springing from multiple sources, including the common law, natural right, and English legal tradition. Despite this rich heritage and a prohibition grounded in the Magna Carta against uncompensated state takings of property, the Court ruled against Barron’s claim. The Bill of Rights, Chief Justice John Marshall declared in his opinion for the majority, restrained only the federal government, not the states. The Fifth Amendment, accordingly, did not apply to Maryland or any of the cities it chartered. In explaining how the Court came to reject a multisourced view of human liberties—a position seemingly inconsistent with its previous decisions—William Davenport Mercer helps explain why we now envision the Constitution as essential to guaranteeing our rights. Marshall’s view of rights in Barron, Mercer argues, helped him navigate the Court through the precarious political currents of the time. While the chief justice may have effected a shrewd political maneuver, the decision helped hasten a reconceptualization of rights as located in documents. Its legacy, as Mercer’s work makes clear, is among the Jacksonian era’s significant democratic reforms and marks the emergence of a distinctly American constitutionalism.
Download or read book The Bill of Rights Primer written by Akhil Reed Amar and published by Skyhorse. This book was released on 2013-07-01 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Americans reference the Bill of Rights, a document that represents many of the freedoms that define the United States. Who doesn’t know about the First Amendment’s freedom of religion or Second Amendment’s right to bear arms? In this pocket-sized volume, Akhil Reed Amar and Les Adams offer a wealth of knowledge about the Bill of Rights that goes beyond a basic understanding. The Bill of Rights Primer is an authoritative guide to all American freedoms. Uncluttered and well-organized, this text is perfect for those who want to study up on the Bill of Rights without needing a law degree to do so. This elementary guidebook presents a short historical survey of the people, events, decrees, legislation, writings, and cultural milestones, in England and the American colonies, that influenced the Founding Fathers as they drafted the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. With helpful comments and fun facts in the margins, the book will provide a deeper understanding of the Bill of Rights, exhibiting that it is not a stagnant document but one with an evolving meaning shaped by historical events, such as the American Civil War and Reconstruction.
Download or read book Origins of the Bill of Rights written by Leonard Williams Levy and published by Yale Contemporary Law. This book was released on 2001 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the origins of the Bill of Rights. Leonard W. Levy offers a panoramic view of the liberties secured by the first ten amendments of the Constitution and illuminates the behind-the-scenes manoeuvrings, public rhetoric and political motivations of James Madison and others.
Download or read book The Bill of Rights written by Ruth Bjorklund and published by Children's Press(r. This book was released on 2019-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many of the rights we consider most important to the United States -- from freedom of speech to a fair trial -- are in the Bill of Rights. A True Book: Why it Matters series introduces young readers to the branches of the US government, the constitution and more, while engaging them to become productive citizens. This series includes an age appropriate (grades 3-5) introduction to curriculum-relevant subjects and a robust resource section that encourages independent study. Readers will learn how these important laws came to be and how people continue to discuss and debate them even today.
Download or read book The Bill of Rights written by Learned Hand and published by . This book was released on 1958-02-05 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Creating the Bill of Rights written by Helen E. Veit and published by Johns Hopkins University Press. This book was released on 1991-02-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aside from the declaration of Independence, with its ringing cries for liberty, no public document has become as sacred to the American people as the Bill of Rights-the first ten amendments to the federal Constitution. Protecting individual freedoms and safeguarding state authority, they officially went into effect on December 15, 1791. Two centuries later the Bill of Rights and its meaning remain lively topics-in the courts, in newspapers, and in classrooms. Creating the Bill of Rights documents the legislative history of the amendments and the sharp debates they produced in Congress. The volume shows how James Madison earned the title "Father of the Bill of Rights" while working with other members of the first Federal Congress to secure the gains of the Revolution and put republican theory into practice. It also includes all of the often-colorful letters that the Bill of Rights generated among members of Congress and their constituents. Taken together, these documents offer important lessons in the history of American liberty and vividly illustrate the divisions that beset the country in its formative years. Published as part of the bicentennial commemoration of the amendments' adoption, Creating the Bill of Rights collects original papers relating to the discussions and decisions that helped shape American civic life.
Download or read book A Kids Guide to America s Bill of Rights written by Kathleen Krull and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Which 462 words are so important that they've changed the course of American history more than once? The Bill of Rights: the first ten amendments to the Constitution, the crucial document that spells out how the United States is to be governed. Packed with anecdotes, sidebars, case studies, suggestions for further reading, and humorous illustrations, Kathleen Krull's introduction to the Bill of Rights brings an important topic vividly to life. Whether you're a middle grader or high schooler or even an adult, and whether you're looking to expand your knowledge or to reearch a report, the format of this "kids' guide" makes the information understandable and interesting. Find out what the Bill of Rights is and how it affects your daily life in this fascinating look at the history, significance, and mysteries of these laws that are designed to protect the individual freedoms of Americans—including young people. Some of the questions addressed in this easy-to-follow book: Why did early American founders argue that individuals needed a Bill of Rights to protect them from government? Why is freedom of speech so thrilling and so controversial? What is religious intolerance, and when can it be fatal? What does it really mean to take the Fifth? How does the Bill of Rights affect the rights of kids?
Download or read book The Bill of Rights written by Irving Brant and published by Acls History E-Book Project. This book was released on 2008-11 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Federalist Papers written by Alexander Hamilton and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2018-08-20 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Classic Books Library presents this brand new edition of “The Federalist Papers”, a collection of separate essays and articles compiled in 1788 by Alexander Hamilton. Following the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776, the governing doctrines and policies of the States lacked cohesion. “The Federalist”, as it was previously known, was constructed by American statesman Alexander Hamilton, and was intended to catalyse the ratification of the United States Constitution. Hamilton recruited fellow statesmen James Madison Jr., and John Jay to write papers for the compendium, and the three are known as some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804) was an American lawyer, journalist and highly influential government official. He also served as a Senior Officer in the Army between 1799-1800 and founded the Federalist Party, the system that governed the nation’s finances. His contributions to the Constitution and leadership made a significant and lasting impact on the early development of the nation of the United States.
Download or read book The Bill of Rights written by Library of Congress and published by . This book was released on 1945 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Freedom to Read written by American Library Association and published by . This book was released on 1953 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
