Download or read book Perfecting the Constitution written by Darren Patrick Guerra and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2013-06-10 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He who can change the Constitution controls the Constitution. So who does control the Constitution? The answer has always been: “the people.” The people control the Constitution via the Article V amending process outlined in the Constitution itself. Changes can only be made through Article V and its formal procedures. Article V has always provided a means of perfecting the Constitution in an explicit, democratically authentic, prudent, and deliberative manner. In addition to changing the Constitution Article V also allowed the people to perfect and preserve their Constitution at the same time. In recent years Article V has come under attack by influential legal scholars who criticize it for being too difficult, undemocratic, and too formal. Such scholars advocate for ignoring Article V in favor of elite adaptation of the Constitution or popular amendment through national referendums. In making their case, critics also assume that Article V is an unimportant and expendable part of the Constitutional structure. One notable scholar called the Constitution “imbecilic” because of Article V. This book shows that, to the contrary, Article V is a unique and powerful extension of the American tradition of written constitutionalism. It was a logical extension of American constitutional development and it was a powerful tool used by the Federalists to argue for ratification of the new Constitution. Since then it has served as a means of “perfecting” the US Constitution for over 200 years via a wide range of amendments. Contrary to contemporary critics, the historical evidence shows Article V to be a vital element in the Constitutional architecture, not an expendable or ancillary piece. This book defends Article V against critics by showing that it is neither too difficult, undemocratic, nor too formal. Furthermore, a positive case is made that Article V remains the most clear and powerful way to register the sovereign desires of the American public with regard to alterations of their fundamental law. In the end, Article V is an essential bulwark to maintaining a written Constitution that secures the rights of the people against both elites and themselves.
Download or read book Nature of the Amending Process written by Homer Stillé Cummings and published by . This book was released on 1938 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Responding to Imperfection written by Sanford Levinson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1995-01-24 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An increasing number of constitutional theorists, within both the legal academy and university departments of government, are focusing on the conceptual and political problems attached to the notion of constitutional amendment. Amendments are, among other things, recognitions of the imperfection of existing schemes of government. The relative ease or difficulty of amendment has significant implications for the ways that governments respond to problems that call either for new structures of governance or new powers for already established structures. This book brings together essays by leading legal authorities and political scientists on a range of questions from whether the U.S. Constitution is subject to amendment by procedures other than those authorized by Article V to how significant change is conceptualized within classical rabbinic Judaism. Though the essays are concerned for the most part with the American experience, other constitutional traditions are considered as well. The contributors include Bruce Ackerman, Akhil Reed Amar, Mark E. Brandon, David R. Dow, Stephen M. Griffin, Stephen Holmes and Cass R. Sunstein, Sanford Levinson, Donald Lutz, Walter Murphy, Frederick Schauer, John R. Vile, and Noam J. Zohar.
Download or read book The Amending of the Federal Constitution written by Lester Bernhardt Orfield and published by . This book was released on 2012-06-01 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Why ERA Failed written by Mary Frances Berry and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1988-02-22 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why ERA Failed looks at the systemic problems of politics and the amending process. The author, Mary Frances Berry, considers the behavior of the two sides from the perspective of a historian and lawyer. She describes the history of the amending process, from the Constitutional Convention to the present day, and its application to the struggles for amendments concerned with the status of blacks after the Civil War, income tax, prohibition, child labor, and woman suffrage. Berry concludes that ERA approval was problematic at best and defeat predictable. Supporters did too little of what is required for ratification of a substantive proposal too late. Furthermore, the large number of state ratifications gained was deceptive. Support was eroding instead of increasing in the final stages of the campaign.
Download or read book Constitutional Amendments written by Richard Albert and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-15 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking, and Changing Constitutions is both a roadmap for navigating the intellectual universe of constitutional amendments and a blueprint for building and improving the rules of constitutional change. Drawing from dozens of constitutions in every region of the world, this book blends theory with practice to answer two all-important questions: what is an amendment and how should constitutional designers structure the procedures of constitutional change? The first matters now more than ever. Reformers are exploiting the rules of constitutional amendment, testing the limits of legal constraint, undermining the norms of democratic government, and flouting the constitution as written to create entirely new constitutions that masquerade as ordinary amendments. The second question is central to the performance and endurance of constitutions. Constitutional designers today have virtually no resources to guide them in constructing the rules of amendment, and scholars do not have a clear portrait of the significance of amendment rules in the project of constitutionalism. This book shows that no part of a constitution is more important than the procedures we use change it. Amendment rules open a window into the soul of a constitution, exposing its deepest vulnerabilities and revealing its greatest strengths. The codification of amendment rules often at the end of the text proves that last is not always least.
Download or read book The Amending Process written by Robert W. Bergstrom and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Six Amendments written by Justice John Paul Stevens and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time ever, a retired Supreme Court Justice offers a manifesto on how the Constitution needs to change. By the time of his retirement in June 2010, John Paul Stevens had become the second longest serving Justice in the history of the Supreme Court. Now he draws upon his more than three decades on the Court, during which he was involved with many of the defining decisions of the modern era, to offer a book like none other. Six Amendments is an absolutely unprecedented call to arms, detailing six specific ways in which the Constitution should be amended in order to protect our democracy and the safety and wellbeing of American citizens. Written with the same precision and elegance that made Stevens's own Court opinions legendary for their clarity as well as logic, Six Amendments is a remarkable work, both because of its unprecedented nature and, in an age of partisan ferocity, its inarguable common sense.
Download or read book New Federalist Papers written by Alan Brinkley and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1997 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the aftermath of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, three of its most gifted participants--Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay--wrote a series of 85 essays--the "Federalist Papers"--which were published in newspapers throughout the nation, defending the proposed new government against its opponents. In the "New Federalist Papers", three prominent writers confront the threats posed by current challenges to the American Constitution.
Download or read book The Amending Process written by Katharine Croan Greenough and published by . This book was released on 1938 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Constitutional Amending Process in American Political Thought written by John R. Vile and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1992-05-30 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first full-length work to present debates over the constitutional amending process as a perennial theme in American political thought. Beginning with a discussion of the views of political philosophers, publicists, and legal commentators who may have influenced the views of legal change held by the American Founding Fathers, the work proceeds to look at the historical influences on and discussions surrounding the amending process that was incorporated into Article V of the U.S. Constitution. The reader will gain a new respect for the way the amending process has served and still serves as a safety valve for constitutional change in the United States without permitting ill-considered or hastily conceived modifications. This work will be of interest to political scientists, historians, and students of American studies and legal history.
Download or read book American Government 3e written by Glen Krutz and published by . This book was released on 2023-05-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Black & white print. American Government 3e aligns with the topics and objectives of many government courses. Faculty involved in the project have endeavored to make government workings, issues, debates, and impacts meaningful and memorable to students while maintaining the conceptual coverage and rigor inherent in the subject. With this objective in mind, the content of this textbook has been developed and arranged to provide a logical progression from the fundamental principles of institutional design at the founding, to avenues of political participation, to thorough coverage of the political structures that constitute American government. The book builds upon what students have already learned and emphasizes connections between topics as well as between theory and applications. The goal of each section is to enable students not just to recognize concepts, but to work with them in ways that will be useful in later courses, future careers, and as engaged citizens. In order to help students understand the ways that government, society, and individuals interconnect, the revision includes more examples and details regarding the lived experiences of diverse groups and communities within the United States. The authors and reviewers sought to strike a balance between confronting the negative and harmful elements of American government, history, and current events, while demonstrating progress in overcoming them. In doing so, the approach seeks to provide instructors with ample opportunities to open discussions, extend and update concepts, and drive deeper engagement.
Download or read book The Living Constitution written by David A. Strauss and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-05-19 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once remarked that the theory of an evolving, "living" Constitution effectively "rendered the Constitution useless." He wanted a "dead Constitution," he joked, arguing it must be interpreted as the framers originally understood it. In The Living Constitution, leading constitutional scholar David Strauss forcefully argues against the claims of Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, and other "originalists," explaining in clear, jargon-free English how the Constitution can sensibly evolve, without falling into the anything-goes flexibility caricatured by opponents. The living Constitution is not an out-of-touch liberal theory, Strauss further shows, but a mainstream tradition of American jurisprudence--a common-law approach to the Constitution, rooted in the written document but also based on precedent. Each generation has contributed precedents that guide and confine judicial rulings, yet allow us to meet the demands of today, not force us to follow the commands of the long-dead Founders. Strauss explores how judicial decisions adapted the Constitution's text (and contradicted original intent) to produce some of our most profound accomplishments: the end of racial segregation, the expansion of women's rights, and the freedom of speech. By contrast, originalism suffers from fatal flaws: the impossibility of truly divining original intent, the difficulty of adapting eighteenth-century understandings to the modern world, and the pointlessness of chaining ourselves to decisions made centuries ago. David Strauss is one of our leading authorities on Constitutional law--one with practical knowledge as well, having served as Assistant Solicitor General of the United States and argued eighteen cases before the United States Supreme Court. Now he offers a profound new understanding of how the Constitution can remain vital to life in the twenty-first century.
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 How Our Laws are Made written by John V. Sullivan and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Failure of Popular Constitution Making in Turkey written by Felix Petersen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-16 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers an in-depth case study of the failure of popular constitution making in Turkey from 2011 to 2013.
Download or read book Constitution written by United States and published by . This book was released on 1893 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
