Download or read book American Constitutional Development The powers of government written by Richard S. Randall and published by Addison-Wesley Longman. This book was released on 2002 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines constitutional law in a unique, developmental framework that shows how key events through American history have shaped the Supreme Court's understanding of the Constitution. Places unique emphasis on the political, economic, social and developmental aspects of the Supreme Court's constitutional decisions. The book examines the great issues and events of government and politics in the early, middle, and modern constitutions, how they have shaped the Supreme Court's understanding of the Constitution, and how the distributive consequences of that understanding, in turn, affect American political life. For those who are interested in the American constitution.
Download or read book Constitutional Construction written by Keith E. Whittington and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-01 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that the Constitution has a dual nature. The first aspect, on which legal scholars have focused, is the degree to which the Constitution acts as a binding set of rules that can be neutrally interpreted and externally enforced by the courts against government actors. This is the process of constitutional interpretation. But according to Keith Whittington, the Constitution also permeates politics itself, to guide and constrain political actors in the very process of making public policy. In so doing, it is also dependent on political actors, both to formulate authoritative constitutional requirements and to enforce those fundamental settlements in the future. Whittington characterizes this process, by which constitutional meaning is shaped within politics at the same time that politics is shaped by the Constitution, as one of construction as opposed to interpretation. Whittington goes on to argue that ambiguities in the constitutional text and changes in the political situation push political actors to construct their own constitutional understanding. The construction of constitutional meaning is a necessary part of the political process and a regular part of our nation's history, how a democracy lives with a written constitution. The Constitution both binds and empowers government officials. Whittington develops his argument through intensive analysis of four important cases: the impeachments of Justice Samuel Chase and President Andrew Johnson, the nullification crisis, and reforms of presidential-congressional relations during the Nixon presidency.
Download or read book Modern Constitutions written by Rogers M. Smith and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2020-08-14 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than two millennia ago, Aristotle is said to have compiled a collection of ancient constitutions that informed his studies of politics. For Aristotle, constitutions largely distilled and described the varied and distinctive patterns of political life established over time. What constitutionalism has come to mean in the modern era, on the other hand, originates chiefly in the late eighteenth century and primarily with the U.S. Constitution—written in 1787 and made effective in 1789—and the various French constitutions that first appeared in 1791. In the last half century, more than 130 nations have adopted new constitutions, half of those within the last twenty years. These new constitutions are devoted to many of the same goals found in the U.S. Constitution: the rule of law, representative self-government, and protection of rights. But by canvassing constitutional developments at the national and state level in the United States alongside modern constitutions in Eastern and Western Europe, Africa, and Asia, the contributors to Modern Constitutions—all leading scholars of constitutionalism—show that modern constitutions often seek to protect social rights and to establish representative institutions, forms of federalism, and courts charged with constitutional review that depart from or go far beyond the seminal U.S. example. Partly because of their innovations, however, many modern constitutional systems now confront mounting authoritarian pressures that put fundamental commitments to the rule of law in jeopardy. The contributions in this volume collectively provide a measure of guidance for the challenges and prospects of modern constitutions in the rapidly changing political world of the twenty-first century. Contributors: Richard R. Beeman, Valerie Bunce, Tom Ginsburg, Heinz Klug, David S. Law, Sanford Levinson, Jaime Lluch, Christopher McCrudden, Kim Lane Scheppele, Rogers M. Smith, Mila Versteeg, Emily Zackin.
Download or read book The Invention of Party Politics written by Gerald Leonard and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A reexamination of party history and a detailed exposition of party politics in Illinois argues that constitutional issues, not economic or social affiliations, were key to early party development.
Download or read book Stephen J Field written by Carl Brent Swisher and published by Ardent Media. This book was released on 1963 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Constitutional Developments in India written by Charles Henry Alexandrowicz and published by . This book was released on 1957 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Second Creation written by Jonathan Gienapp and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunning revision of our founding document’s evolving history that forces us to confront anew the question that animated the founders so long ago: What is our Constitution? Americans widely believe that the United States Constitution was created when it was drafted in 1787 and ratified in 1788. But in a shrewd rereading of the Founding era, Jonathan Gienapp upends this long-held assumption, recovering the unknown story of American constitutional creation in the decade after its adoption—a story with explosive implications for current debates over constitutional originalism and interpretation. When the Constitution first appeared, it was shrouded in uncertainty. Not only was its meaning unclear, but so too was its essential nature. Was the American Constitution a written text, or something else? Was it a legal text? Was it finished or unfinished? What rules would guide its interpretation? Who would adjudicate competing readings? As political leaders put the Constitution to work, none of these questions had answers. Through vigorous debates they confronted the document’s uncertainty, and—over time—how these leaders imagined the Constitution radically changed. They had begun trying to fix, or resolve, an imperfect document, but they ended up fixing, or cementing, a very particular notion of the Constitution as a distinctively textual and historical artifact circumscribed in space and time. This means that some of the Constitution’s most definitive characteristics, ones which are often treated as innate, were only added later and were thus contingent and optional.
Download or read book Modern Constitutional Development in China written by Harold Monk Vinacke and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Constructing Civil Liberties written by Ken I. Kersch and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-08-02 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a revisionist account of the genealogy of contemporary constitutional law and morals.
Download or read book Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State written by Megan Ming Francis and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-21 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book extends what we know about the development of civil rights and the role of the NAACP in American politics. Through a sweeping archival analysis of the NAACP's battle against lynching and mob violence from 1909 to 1923, this book examines how the NAACP raised public awareness, won over American presidents, secured the support of Congress, and won a landmark criminal procedure case in front of the Supreme Court.
Download or read book The Gun the Ship and the Pen written by Linda Colley and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A work of extraordinary range and striking originality, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen traces the global history of written constitutions from the 1750s to the twentieth century, modifying accepted narratives and uncovering the close connections between the making of constitutions and the making of war. In the process, Linda Colley both reappraises famous constitutions and recovers those that have been marginalized but were central to the rise of a modern world. She brings to the fore neglected sites, such as Corsica, with its pioneering constitution of 1755, and tiny Pitcairn Island in the Pacific, the first place on the globe permanently to enfranchise women. She highlights the role of unexpected players, such as Catherine the Great of Russia, who was experimenting with constitutional techniques with her enlightened Nakaz decades before the Founding Fathers framed the American constitution. Written constitutions are usually examined in relation to individual states, but Colley focuses on how they crossed boundaries, spreading into six continents by 1918 and aiding the rise of empires as well as nations. She also illumines their place not simply in law and politics but also in wider cultural histories, and their intimate connections with print, literary creativity, and the rise of the novel. Colley shows how—while advancing epic revolutions and enfranchising white males—constitutions frequently served over the long nineteenth century to marginalize indigenous people, exclude women and people of color, and expropriate land. Simultaneously, though, she investigates how these devices were adapted by peoples and activists outside the West seeking to resist European and American power. She describes how Tunisia generated the first modern Islamic constitution in 1861, quickly suppressed, but an influence still on the Arab Spring; how Africanus Horton of Sierra Leone—inspired by the American Civil War—devised plans for self-governing nations in West Africa; and how Japan’s Meiji constitution of 1889 came to compete with Western constitutionalism as a model for Indian, Chinese, and Ottoman nationalists and reformers. Vividly written and handsomely illustrated, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen is an absorbing work that—with its pageant of formative wars, powerful leaders, visionary lawmakers and committed rebels—retells the story of constitutional government and the evolution of ideas of what it means to be modern.
Download or read book Dimensions of Dignity written by Jacob Weinrib and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-15 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a public law theory that elaborates the idea of human dignity to illuminate and justify innovations in constitutional practice.
Download or read book American Constitutional Development written by Carl Brent Swisher and published by Praeger Pub Text. This book was released on 1978 with total page 1145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete constitutional history, from the British colonies to the Truman era.
Download or read book The Contract Clause written by James W. Ely, Jr. and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2016-10-28 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few provisions of the American Constitution have had such a tumultuous history as the contract clause. Prompted by efforts in a number of states to interfere with debtor-creditor relationships after the Revolution, the clause—Article I, Section 10—reads that no state shall “pass any. . . Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts.” Honoring contractual commitments, in the framers' view, would serve the public interest to encourage commerce and economic growth. How the contract clause has fared, as chronicled in this book by James W. Ely, Jr., tells us a great deal about the shifting concerns and assumptions of Americans. Its history provides a window on matters central to American constitutional history, including the protection of economic rights, the growth of judicial review, and the role of federalism. Under the leadership of Chief Justice John Marshall, the Supreme Court construed the provision expansively, and it rapidly became the primary vehicle for federal judicial review of state legislation before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. Indeed, the contract clause was one of the most litigated provisions of the Constitution throughout the nineteenth century, and its history reflects the impact of wars, economic distress, and political currents on reading the Constitution. Ely shows how, over time, the courts carved out several malleable exceptions to the constitutional protection of contracts—most notably the notion of an inalienable police power—thus weakening the contract clause and enhancing state regulatory authority. His study documents the near-fatal blow dealt to the provision by New Deal constitutionalism, when the perceived need for governmental intervention in the economy superseded the economic rights of individuals. Though the 1970s saw a modest revival of interest in the contract clause, the criteria for invoking it remain uncertain. And yet, as state and local governments try to trim the benefits of public sector employees, the provision has once again figured prominently in litigation. In this book, James Ely gives us a timely, analytical lens for understanding these contemporary challenges, as well as the critical historical significance of the contract clause.
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 Constitutional Change in the Contemporary Socialist World written by Ngoc Son Bui and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-24 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the collapse of the Soviet bloc, there are only five socialist or communist countries left in the world – China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam – which constitute about one-quarter of the world’s population. Yet, there is little scholarship on their constitutions. These countries have seen varying socioeconomic changes in the decades since 1991, which have led in turn to constitutional changes. This book will investigate, from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, how and why the constitutional systems in these five countries have changed in the last three decades. The book then breaks the constitutional changes down into four questions: what are the substantive contents of constitutional change, what are the functions, what are the mechanisms, and what are the driving forces? These questions form a framework to process the changes the five countries have gone through, such as making new constitutions, amending current ones, introducing more rights, allowing citizens to engage in changes, enacting legislation, and defining the constitutional authority of the three state branches and their relationship with the Communist Party. While all five countries have adapted their constitutional systems, the degree, mechanisms, and influential factors are not identical and present considerable variations. This book examines and explores these differences and how they developed. Constitutional Change in the Contemporary Socialist World offers a comprehensive and holistic view of an understudied and overlooked area of constitutional law, essential for anyone studying or working in law, politics, or policy.
Download or read book Constitutional Conflicts in Contemporary Malaysia written by HP Lee and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-19 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, HP Lee explores how the separation of powers doctrine in Malaysia has been adversely affected by a number of major constitutional conflicts among the various important organs of government. The author first analyses the struggle by parliament for supremacy over the Malay Rulers or Sultans by expunging the need for the royal assent to the enactment of legislation and removing royal immunities. Lee then turns to the contemporary role of the Malay Rulers and the reasons for the perceived rejuvenation of these Malay Rulers. The book goes on to examine the series of controversies and scandals which have plagued the judiciary since the tumultuous judiciary crisis of 1988, and the efficacy of the reforms which have been introduced to restore public confidence in the judiciary. These conflicts and a number of statutory enactments are analysed to determine their impact on the state of constitutionalism in Malaysia. The book concludes with the author's thoughts on the trajectory of constitutional development in Malaysia.
