Download or read book Reinterpretation of the formation of the American Constitution written by Robert Eldon Brown and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Philosophy of the American Constitution written by Paul Eidelberg and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 368 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 The American Constitution written by Alfred Hinsey Kelly and published by . This book was released on 1948 with total page 980 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Selected readings": pages 862-885.
Download or read book The Story of the Constitution written by Sol Bloom and published by . This book was released on 1937 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the Constitution. It explores briefly the origins of our country, and the steps that led to the formation of the Constitution.
Download or read book The Political Philosophy of the American Constitution written by Paul Eidelberg and published by . This book was released on 1966 with total page 598 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States written by Charles A. Beard and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-03-08 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This classic study — one of the most influential in the area of American economic history — questioned the founding fathers' motivations and prompted new perceptions of the supreme law of the land.
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 Philosophy of the American Constitution A Reinterpretation of the Intentions of the Founding Fathers By Paul Eidelberg With the Text of the Constitution written by United States and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Theoretical and Foreign Elements in the Formation of the American Constitution written by Archibald Cary Coolidge and published by . This book was released on 1892 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The American Constitution and Ayn Rand s Inner Contradiction written by Henry Mark Holzer and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The American Constitution and Ayn Rand's 'Inner Contradiction'" has been written for two reasons. First, to provide patriotic Americans with an overview of the Constitution's most important provisions as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States. At the same time, I want to demonstrate something unknown to virtually all Americans: that foundational to every political, social, economic, and legal system are ethical principles, and that from our nation's earliest days to the present there has been an ethical leitmotif running through the Supreme Court's most important decisions affecting individual rights and limited government. Not all their decisions, but many—and some of the most important ones.Like many other Americans, for years I've been deeply concerned about our nation's future. My fears have been exacerbated in the past three years because of the often lawless, anti-American, recklessly incompetent reign of Barack Obama. Worse, his presidency will continue for another year. Even worse, he might be reelected.In light of that possibility, consider a recent report in The Weekly Standard of a survey commissioned by the American Revolution Center, which found that nearly 83 percent of Americans failed a simple test of knowledge about the founding of the United States of America. Many of our fellow citizens believe that the founding principles of this nation are passé, that the Declaration of Independence's ringing endorsement of republican institutions, individual rights, and limited government is outdated, that the Constitution's creation of a representative republic belongs to a time gone by, and that the Bill of Rights is not a restraint on government but rather a source of newly found, invented “rights.”Along with this woeful ignorance, and largely because of it, the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights—rooted in republican institutions, individual rights and limited government—are under an unprecedented attack by Barack Obama and his far left Democratic Party, aided and abetted by the complicit mainstream media, unions, academia, and entertainment industry. To say nothing of many courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States in more than a few cases.Employing and legitimizing the exercise of statist power, the Supreme Court of the United States has facilitated state legislatures and Congress in their sacrifice of individual rights to the common good, and made a mockery of the Founders' creation of a limited government.But with a few notable exceptions there is hardly any knowledgeable, explicit and principled defense of our Constitution and Bill of Rights to be found anywhere.Not on radio, television, or in Hollywood. Not in the press. Not at the grassroots. Certainly not in academia. Nor, sadly, emanating from many Republicans, Conservatives, and Libertarians. Most of the media's pontificating so-called constitutional experts, especially those on national television, usually do more harm than good because they spread disinformation that is neither knowledgeable nor principled. And note, for example, the Republican presidential candidates' pitiful and embarrassing “debates.”While many Tea Party activists and other patriots have been valiantly fighting for core constitutional values, many of them are disarmed because they've been taught little about American constitutional law. In order to defend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, everyone fighting for America today needs to know much more about these two documents than most of them know.Those who are committed to fighting for America's future are obligated to acquire at least a basic understanding of the Constitution's origins and birth, its written text, the manner in which it has been deliberately violated, and the consequences of how it has been deliberately misinterpreted by its enemies.
Download or read book To Form A More Perfect Union written by Robert A. McGuire and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-03-27 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many important questions regarding the creation and adoption of the United States Constitution remain unresolved. Did slaveholdings or financial holdings significantly influence our Founding Fathers' stance on particular clauses or rules contained in the Constitution? Was there a division of support for the Constitution related to religious beliefs or ethnicity? Were founders from less commercial areas more likely to oppose the Constitution? To Form a More Perfect Union successfully answers these questions and offers an economic explanation for the behavior of our Founding Fathers during the nation's constitutional founding. In 1913, American historian Charles A. Beard controversially argued in his book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States that the framers and ratifiers of the Constitution were less interested in furthering democratic principles than in advancing specific economic and financial interests. Beard's thesis eventually emerged as the standard historical interpretation and remained so until the 1950s. Since then, many constitutional and historical scholars have questioned an economic interpretation of the Constitution as being too narrow or too calculating, believing the great principles and political philosophies that motivated the Founding Fathers to be worthier subjects of study. In this meticulously researched reexamination of the drafting and ratification of our nation's Constitution, Robert McGuire argues that Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, George Mason and the other Founding Fathers did act as much for economic motives as for abstract ideals. To Form a More Perfect Union offers compelling evidence showing that the economic, financial, and other interests of the founders can account for the specific design and adoption of our Constitution. This is the first book to provide modern evidence that substantiates many of the overall conclusions found in Charles Beard's An Economic Interpretation while challenging and overturning other of Beard's specific findings. To Form a More Perfect Union presents an entirely new approach to the study of the shaping of the U.S. Constitution. Through the application of economic thinking and rigorous statistical techniques, as well as the processing of vast amounts of data on the economic interests and personal characteristics of the Founding Fathers, McGuire convincingly demonstrates that an economic interpretation of the Constitution is valid. Radically challenging the prevailing views of most historians, political scientists, and legal scholars, To Form a More Perfect Union provides a wealth of new findings about the Founding Fathers' constitutional choices and sheds new light on the motivations behind the design and adoption of the United States Constitution.
Download or read book History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States of America written by George Bancroft and published by Hardpress Publishing. This book was released on 2012-01 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
Download or read book The Constitution in 2020 written by J. M. Balkin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The Constitution in 2020' is a powerful blueprint for implementing a more progressive vision of constitutional law in the years ahead. The book provides a new framework for addressing the most important constitutional issues of the future in clear, accessible language.
Download or read book The Framers Coup written by Michael J. Klarman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 881 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans revere their Constitution. However, most of us are unaware how tumultuous and improbable the drafting and ratification processes were. As Benjamin Franklin keenly observed, any assembly of men bring with them "all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests and their selfish views." One need not deny that the Framers had good intentions in order to believe that they also had interests. Based on prodigious research and told largely through the voices of the participants, Michael Klarman's The Framers' Coup narrates how the Framers' clashing interests shaped the Constitution--and American history itself. The Philadelphia convention could easily have been a failure, and the risk of collapse was always present. Had the convention dissolved, any number of adverse outcomes could have resulted, including civil war or a reversion to monarchy. Not only does Klarman capture the knife's-edge atmosphere of the convention, he populates his narrative with riveting and colorful stories: the rebellion of debtor farmers in Massachusetts; George Washington's uncertainty about whether to attend; Gunning Bedford's threat to turn to a European prince if the small states were denied equal representation in the Senate; slave staters' threats to take their marbles and go home if denied representation for their slaves; Hamilton's quasi-monarchist speech to the convention; and Patrick Henry's herculean efforts to defeat the Constitution in Virginia through demagoguery and conspiracy theories. The Framers' Coup is more than a compendium of great stories, however, and the powerful arguments that feature throughout will reshape our understanding of the nation's founding. Simply put, the Constitutional Convention almost didn't happen, and once it happened, it almost failed. And, even after the convention succeeded, the Constitution it produced almost failed to be ratified. Just as importantly, the Constitution was hardly the product of philosophical reflections by brilliant, disinterested statesmen, but rather ordinary interest group politics. Multiple conflicting interests had a say, from creditors and debtors to city dwellers and backwoodsmen. The upper class overwhelmingly supported the Constitution; many working class colonists were more dubious. Slave states and nonslave states had different perspectives on how well the Constitution served their interests. Ultimately, both the Constitution's content and its ratification process raise troubling questions about democratic legitimacy. The Federalists were eager to avoid full-fledged democratic deliberation over the Constitution, and the document that was ratified was stacked in favor of their preferences. And in terms of substance, the Constitution was a significant departure from the more democratic state constitutions of the 1770s. Definitive and authoritative, The Framers' Coup explains why the Framers preferred such a constitution and how they managed to persuade the country to adopt it. We have lived with the consequences, both positive and negative, ever since.
Download or read book Reinterpretaion of the Formation of the American Constitution written by Robert Eldon Brown and published by . This book was released on 1963 with total page 63 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Peace Pact written by David C. Hendrickson and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2003-04-29 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: That New England might invade Virginia is inconceivable today. But interstate rivalries and the possibility of intersectional war loomed large in the thinking of the Framers who convened in Philadelphia in 1787 to put on paper the ideas that would bind the federal union together. At the end of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin rejoiced that the document would "astonish our enemies, who are waiting to hear with confidence . . . that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats." Usually dismissed as hyperbole, this and similar remarks by other Founders help us to understand the core concerns that shaped their conception of the Union. By reexamining the creation of the federal system of the United States from a perspective that yokes diplomacy with constitutionalism, Hendrickson's study, according to Karl Walling, "introduces a new way to think about what is familiar to us." This ground breaking book, then, takes a fresh look at the formative years of American constitutionalism and diplomacy. It tells the story of how thirteen colonies became independent states and found themselves grappling with the classic problems of international cooperation, and it explores the intellectual milieu within which that problem was considered. The founding generation, Hendrickson argues, developed a sophisticated science of international politics relevant both to the construction of their own union and to the foreign relations of "the several states in the union of the empire." The centrality of this discourse, he contends, must severely qualify conventional depictions of early American political thought as simply "liberal" or "republican." Hendrickson also takes issue with conventional accounts of early American foreign policy as "unilateralist" or "isolationist" and insists that the founding generation belonged to and made distinguished contributions to the constitutional tradition in diplomacy, the antecedent of twentieth-century internationalism. He describes an American system of states riven by deep sectional animosities and powerful loyalties to colonies and states (often themselves described as "nations") and explains why in such a milieu the creation of a durable union often appeared to be a quixotic enterprise. The book culminates in a consideration of the making of the federal Constitution, here styled as a peace pact or experiment in international cooperation. Peace Pact is an important book that promises to revolutionize our understanding of the era of revolution and constitution-making. Written in a lucid and accessible style, the book is an excellent introduction to the American founding and its larger significance in American and world history.
