Download or read book The Madisonian Constitution written by George Thomas and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2008-06-18 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description

Download or read book An Historical Introduction to Western Constitutional Law written by R. C. van Caenegem and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1995-03-23 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The constitutional question is of paramount importance in the political and nationalist agenda of late twentieth-century Europe. Professor van Caenegem's new book addresses fundamental questions of constitutional organisation: democracy versus autocracy, unitary versus federal organisation, pluralism versus intolerance, by analysing different models of constitutional government through an historical perspective. The approach is chronological: constitutionalism is explained as the result of many centuries of trial and error through a narrative which begins in the early Middle Ages and concludes with contemporary debates, focusing on Europe, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Special attention is devoted to the rise of the rule of law, and of constitutional, parliamentary, and federal forms of government. The epilogue discusses the future of liberal democracy as a universal model.

Download or read book The Mind of James Madison written by Colleen A. Sheehan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-27 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a compelling and incisive portrait of James Madison the scholar and political philosopher. Through extensive historical research and analysis of Madison's heretofore underappreciated 1791 "Notes on Government," Madison's scholarly contributions are cast in a new light, yielding a richer, more comprehensive understanding of his political thought than ever before. Tracing Madison's intellectual investigations of republics and philosophers, both ancient and modern, this book invites the reader to understand the pioneering ideas of the greatest American scholar of politics and republicanism - and, in the process, to discover anew the vast possibilities and potential of that great experiment in self-government known as the American republic.

Download or read book Original Meanings written by Jack N. Rakove and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-04-21 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From abortion to same-sex marriage, today's most urgent political debates will hinge on this two-part question: What did the United States Constitution originally mean and who now understands its meaning best? Rakove chronicles the Constitution from inception to ratification and, in doing so, traces its complex weave of ideology and interest, showing how this document has meant different things at different times to different groups of Americans.

Download or read book Madison s Nightmare written by Peter M. Shane and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-08-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The George W. Bush administration’s ambitious—even breathtaking—claims of unilateral executive authority raised deep concerns among constitutional scholars, civil libertarians, and ordinary citizens alike. But Bush’s attempts to assert his power are only the culmination of a near-thirty-year assault on the basic checks and balances of the U.S. government—a battle waged by presidents of both parties, and one that, as Peter M. Shane warns in Madison’s Nightmare, threatens to utterly subvert the founders’ vision of representative government. Tracing this tendency back to the first Reagan administration, Shane shows how this era of "aggressive presidentialism" has seen presidents exerting ever more control over nearly every arena of policy, from military affairs and national security to domestic programs. Driven by political ambition and a growing culture of entitlement in the executive branch—and abetted by a complaisant Congress, riven by partisanship—this presidential aggrandizement has too often undermined wise policy making and led to shallow, ideological, and sometimes outright lawless decisions. The solution, Shane argues, will require a multipronged program of reform, including both specific changes in government practice and broader institutional changes aimed at supporting a renewed culture of government accountability. From the war on science to the mismanaged war on terror, Madison’s Nightmare outlines the disastrous consequences of the unchecked executive—and issues a stern wake-up call to all who care about the fate of our long democratic experiment.

Download or read book James Madison and the Making of America written by Kevin R. C. Gutzman and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-02-14 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking new account, historian Gutzman looks beyond Madison's traditional moniker--The Father of the Constitution--to find a more complex and realistic portrait of this influential founding father, who often performed his founding deeds in spite of himself.

Download or read book One Supreme Court written by James E Pfander and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-04 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In offering a general account of the Court as department head, Pfander takes up such important debates in the federal courts' literature as Congress's power to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction to review state court decisions, its authority to assign decision-making authority to state courts, and much more.

Download or read book A Culture of Rights written by Michael James Lacey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-11-27 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume provide insights into the rights thinking and consciousness at the core of American political culture.

Download or read book The Sacred Fire of Liberty written by Lance Banning and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lance Banning's powerful and persuasive reexamination of Madison's thought at the critical early and central stages of his career now changes that presumption, and provides a new base from which thinking about Madison and the Founding must start.

Download or read book Race and the Wild West written by Laura J. Arata and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2020-07-02 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Western Writers of America “SPUR Award” and the Western Association of Women Historians “Gita Chaudhuri Prize”! Born a slave in eastern Tennessee, Sarah Blair Bickford (1852–1931) made her way while still a teenager to Montana Territory, where she settled in the mining boomtown of Virginia City. Race and the Wild West is the first full-length biography of this remarkable woman, whose life story affords new insight into race and belonging in the American West around the turn of the twentieth century. For many years, Sarah Bickford’s known biography fit into a single paragraph. By examining her life in all its complexity, Arata fills in what were long believed to be unrecoverable “silent spaces” in her story. Before establishing herself as a successful business owner, we learn, she was twice married, both times to white men. Her first husband, an Irish immigrant, physically abused her until she divorced him in 1881. Their three children all died before the age of ten. In 1883, she married Stephen Bickford and gave birth to four more children. Upon his death, she inherited his shares of the Virginia City Water Company, acquiring sole ownership in 1917. For the final decade of her life, Bickford actively preserved and promoted a historic Virginia City building best known as the site of the brutal lynching in 1864 of five men. Her conspicuous role in developing an early form of heritage tourism challenges long-standing narratives that place white men at the center of the “Wild West” myth and its promotion. Bickford’s story offers a window into the dynamics of race in the rural West. Although her experiences defy easy categorization, what is clear is that her navigation of social norms and racial barriers did not hinge on exceptionalism or tokenism. Instead, she built a life that deserves to be understood on its own terms. Through exhaustive research and nuanced analysis, Laura J. Arata advances our understanding of a woman whose life embodied the contradictory intersections of hope and disappointment that characterized life in the early-twentieth-century American West for brave pioneers of many races.

Download or read book The Religion Clauses of the First Amendment written by Ellis M. West and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012-07-10 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution begins: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . ." The Supreme Court has consistently held that these words, usually called the "religion clauses," were meant to prohibit laws that violate religious freedom or equality. In recent years, however, a growing number of constitutional law and history scholars have contended that the religion clauses were not intended to protect religious freedom, but to reserve the states' rights to legislate on. If the states' rights interpretation of the religion clauses were correct and came to be accepted by the Supreme Court, it could profoundly affect the way the Court decides church-state cases involving state laws. It would allow the states to legislate on religion-even to violate religious freedom, discriminate on the basis of religion, or to establish a particular religion. This book carefully, thoroughly, and critically examines all the arguments for such an interpretation and, more importantly, all the available historical evidence. It concludes that the clauses were meant to protect religious freedom and equality of the individuals not the states' rights

Download or read book The Law of Freedom written by Jacob Eisler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-07-20 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Supreme Court has been at the center of great upheavals in American democracy across the last seventy years. From the end of Jim Crow to the rise of wealth-dominated national campaigns, the Court has battled over if democracy is an egalitarian collaboration to serve the good of all citizens, or a competitive struggle by private interests. In The Law of Freedom, Jacob Eisler questions why the Court has the moral authority to shape democracy at all. Analyzing leading cases through the lens of philosophy and social science, Eisler demonstrates how the soul of election law is a battle between two philosophical understandings of democratic freedom and popular self-rule. This remarkable book reveals that the Court's battle over democracy has shaped how Americans rule themselves, marking election law as the most dramatic judicial intervention in constitutional history.

Download or read book Creative Breakthroughs in Politics written by Neal Riemer and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1996-07-11 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neal Riemer's new book is itself a creative breakthrough in politics. In it he addresses the challenging political dilemmas facing us in the late 20th century--war and peace, tyranny and freedom, poverty and prosperity, ecological malaise and balance, social disorder and health--outlining bold and creative approaches to address those problems.

Download or read book A Companion to James Madison and James Monroe written by Stuart Leibiger and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-07-31 with total page 831 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to James Madison and James Monroe features essays from leading academics that consider various aspects of the lives and legacies of our fourth and fifth presidents. Provides historians and students of history with a wealth of new insights into the lives and achievements of two of America’s most accomplished statesmen, James Madison and James Monroe Features 32 state-of-the field historiographic essays from leading academics that consider various aspects of the lives and legacies of our fourth and fifth presidents Synthesizes the latest findings, and offers new insights based on original research into primary sources Addresses topics that readers often want to learn more about, such as Madison and slavery

Download or read book James Madison written by Terence Ball and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-30 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James Madison (1751-1836) - 'the Father of the American Constitution' - was a legal and political thinker of great originality and range. The essays by eminent scholars reprinted in this volume explore various facets and aspects of Madison's legal, constitutional and political thought. These include his views of human nature, republican political theory and practice, federalism, natural and civil rights, religious liberty, and constitutional interpretation. The volume is edited and introduced by Terence Ball whose scholarly publications include an authoritative annotated edition of Hamilton, Madison and Jay's The Federalist (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Download or read book James Madison and the Spirit of Republican Self Government written by Colleen A. Sheehan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-12 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a study that combines an in-depth examination of Madison's National Gazette essays of 1791–2 with a study of The Federalist, Colleen Sheehan traces the evolution of Madison's conception of the politics of communication and public opinion throughout the Founding period, demonstrating how 'the sovereign public' would form and rule in America. Contrary to those scholars who claim that Madison dispensed with the need to form an active and virtuous citizenry, Sheehan argues that Madison's vision for the new nation was informed by the idea of republican self-government, whose manifestation he sought to bring about in the spirit and way of life of the American people. Madison's story is 'the story of an idea' - the idea of America.

Download or read book Madison s Metronome written by Greg Weiner and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2019-08-02 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the wake of national crises and sharp shifts in the electorate, new members of Congress march off to Washington full of intense idealism and the desire for instant change—but often lacking in any sense of proportion or patience. This drive for instant political gratification concerned one of the key Founders, James Madison, who accepted the inevitability of majority rule but worried that an inflamed majority might not rule reasonably. Greg Weiner challenges longstanding suppositions that Madison harbored misgivings about majority rule, arguing instead that he viewed constitutional institutions as delaying mechanisms to postpone decisions until after public passions had cooled and reason took hold. In effect, Madison believed that one of the Constitution's primary functions is to act as a metronome, regulating the tempo of American politics. Weiner calls this implicit doctrine "temporal republicanism" to emphasize both its compatibility with and its contrast to other interpretations of the Founders' thought. Like civic republicanism, the "temporal" variety embodies a set of values—public-spiritedness, respect for the rights of others—broader than the technical device of majority rule. Exploring this fundamental idea of time-seasoned majority rule across the entire range of Madison's long career, Weiner shows that it did not substantially change over the course of his life. He presents Madison's understanding of internal constitutional checks and his famous "extended republic" argument as different and complementary mechanisms for improving majority rule by slowing it down, not blocking it. And he reveals that the changes we see in Madison's views of majority rule arise largely from his evolving beliefs about who, exactly, was behaving impulsively-whether abusive majorities in the 1780s, the Adams regime in the 1790s, the nullifiers in the 1820s. Yet there is no evidence that Madison's underlying beliefs about either majority rule or the distorting and transient nature of passions ever swayed. If patience was a fact of life in Madison's day—a time when communication and travel were slow-it surely is much harder to cultivate in the age of the Internet, 24-hour news, and politics based on instant gratification. While many of today's politicians seem to wed supreme impatience with an avowed devotion to original constitutional principles, Madison's Metronome suggests that one of our nation's great luminaries would likely view that marriage with caution.