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 America s Constitution written by Akhil Reed Amar and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In America’s Constitution, one of this era’s most accomplished constitutional law scholars, Akhil Reed Amar, gives the first comprehensive account of one of the world’s great political texts. Incisive, entertaining, and occasionally controversial, this “biography” of America’s framing document explains not only what the Constitution says but also why the Constitution says it. We all know this much: the Constitution is neither immutable nor perfect. Amar shows us how the story of this one relatively compact document reflects the story of America more generally. (For example, much of the Constitution, including the glorious-sounding “We the People,” was lifted from existing American legal texts, including early state constitutions.) In short, the Constitution was as much a product of its environment as it was a product of its individual creators’ inspired genius. Despite the Constitution’s flaws, its role in guiding our republic has been nothing short of amazing. Skillfully placing the document in the context of late-eighteenth-century American politics, America’s Constitution explains, for instance, whether there is anything in the Constitution that is unamendable; the reason America adopted an electoral college; why a president must be at least thirty-five years old; and why–for now, at least–only those citizens who were born under the American flag can become president. From his unique perspective, Amar also gives us unconventional wisdom about the Constitution and its significance throughout the nation’s history. For one thing, we see that the Constitution has been far more democratic than is conventionally understood. Even though the document was drafted by white landholders, a remarkably large number of citizens (by the standards of 1787) were allowed to vote up or down on it, and the document’s later amendments eventually extended the vote to virtually all Americans. We also learn that the Founders’ Constitution was far more slavocratic than many would acknowledge: the “three fifths” clause gave the South extra political clout for every slave it owned or acquired. As a result, slaveholding Virginians held the presidency all but four of the Republic’s first thirty-six years, and proslavery forces eventually came to dominate much of the federal government prior to Lincoln’s election. Ambitious, even-handed, eminently accessible, and often surprising, America’s Constitution is an indispensable work, bound to become a standard reference for any student of history and all citizens of the United States.
Download or read book From Independence to the U S Constitution written by Douglas Bradburn and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2022-03-31 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "Critical Period" of American history—the years between the end of the American Revolution in 1783 and the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1789—was either the best of times or the worst of times. While some historians have celebrated the achievement of the Constitutional Convention, which, according to them, saved the Revolution, others have bemoaned that the Constitution’s framers destroyed the liberating tendencies of the Revolution, betrayed debtors, made a bargain with slavery, and handed the country over to the wealthy. This era—what John Fiske introduced in 1880 as America’s "Critical Period"—has rarely been separated from the U.S. Constitution and is therefore long overdue for a reevaluation on its own terms. How did the pre-Constitution, postindependence United States work? What were the possibilities, the tremendous opportunities for "future welfare or misery for mankind," in Fiske’s words, that were up for grabs in those years? The scholars in this volume pursue these questions in earnest, highlighting how the pivotal decade of the 1780s was critical or not, and for whom, in the newly independent United States. As the United States is experiencing another, ongoing crisis of governance, reexamining the various ways in which elites and common Americans alike imagined and constructed their new nation offers fresh insights into matters—from national identity and the place of slavery in a republic, to international commerce, to the very meaning of democracy—whose legacies reverberated through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and into the present day. Contributors:Kevin Butterfield, Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon * Hannah Farber, Columbia University * Johann N. Neem, Western Washington University * Dael A. Norwood, University of Delaware * Susan Gaunt Stearns, University of Mississippi * Nicholas P. Wood, Spring Hill College
Download or read book A History of the American Constitution written by Daniel A. Farber and published by West Academic. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Softbound - New, softbound print book.
Download or read book Colonial Origins of the American Constitution written by Donald S. Lutz and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents 80 documents selected to reflect Eric Voegelin's theory that in Western civilization basic political symbolizations tend to be variants of the original symbolization of Judeo-Christian religious tradition. These documents demonstrate the continuity of symbols preceding the writing of the Constitution and all contain a number of basic symbols such as: a constitution as higher law, popular sovereignty, legislative supremacy, the deliberative process, and a virtuous people. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
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 Plain Honest Men written by Richard Beeman and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2010-02-09 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In May 1787, in an atmosphere of crisis, delegates met in Philadelphia to design a radically new form of government. Distinguished historian Richard Beeman captures as never before the dynamic of the debate and the characters of the men who labored that historic summer. Virtually all of the issues in dispute—the extent of presidential power, the nature of federalism, and, most explosive of all, the role of slavery—have continued to provoke conflict throughout our nation's history. This unprecedented book takes readers behind the scenes to show how the world's most enduring constitution was forged through conflict, compromise, and fragile consensus. As Gouverneur Morris, delegate of Pennsylvania, noted: "While some have boasted it as a work from Heaven, others have given it a less righteous origin. I have many reasons to believe that it is the work of plain, honest men."
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 A More Perfect Union written by and published by National Archives & Records Administration. This book was released on 1986 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reprint. Originally published : Washington, D.C. : National Archives Trust Fund Board, 1978.
Download or read book The Origin and Growth of the American Constitution written by Hannis Taylor and published by . This book was released on 1911 with total page 740 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The History of the American Constitution written by Charles Howard McIlwain and published by e-artnow. This book was released on 2022-01-04 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edition is a Pulitzer Prize awarded history which deals with legal and political aspects of the American Revolution. The American Revolution began and ended with the political act or acts by which British sovereignty over the thirteen English colonies in North America was definitely repudiated. All else was nothing but cause or effect of this act. Of the causes, some were economic, some social, others constitutional. But the Revolution itself was none of these; not social, nor economic, nor even constitutional; it was a political act, and such an act cannot be both constitutional and revolutionary; the terms are mutually exclusive. So long as American opposition to alleged grievances was constitutional it was in no sense revolutionary. The moment it became revolutionary it ceased to be constitutional. When was that moment reached? The Problem The Precedents The Realm and the Dominions The Precedents Natural and Fundamental Law Taxation and Virtual Representation The Charters
Download or read book A History of the American Constitution written by Daniel A. Farber and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Origins of the American Constitution written by Michael Kammen and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1986-11-04 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The complete story of the American Constitution, told in the words of those who created it. Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Michael Kammen has gathered together the fundamental documents needed to understand the genesis and evolution of the United States Constitution—from the exploratory notions concerning the nature of constitutions in 1776, the Articles of Confederation in 1777, and various constitutional plans proposed at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, to the advocacy position of “Publius” in the 21 most important Federalist papers and contrasting views offered by leading Anti-Federalist dissenters. Kammen also includes private correspondence that passed between prominent founders during the crucial years 1787 to 1789 (58 revealing letters), along with the Judiciary Act of 1789 and the Bill of Rights, which completed the basic structure of government and provided essential security for its citizens. Taken together, these are the great state papers that illuminate America’s brilliant and unique contribution to the history of political thought and democratic values.
Download or read book The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution written by Merrill Jensen and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Plain Honest Men written by Richard Beeman and published by Random House. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In May 1787, in an atmosphere of crisis, delegates met in Philadelphia to design a radically new form of government. Distinguished historian Richard Beeman captures as never before the dynamic of the debate and the characters of the men who labored that historic summer. Virtually all of the issues in dispute—the extent of presidential power, the nature of federalism, and, most explosive of all, the role of slavery—have continued to provoke conflict throughout our nation's history. This unprecedented book takes readers behind the scenes to show how the world's most enduring constitution was forged through conflict, compromise, and fragile consensus. As Gouverneur Morris, delegate of Pennsylvania, noted: "While some have boasted it as a work from Heaven, others have given it a less righteous origin. I have many reasons to believe that it is the work of plain, honest men."
Download or read book Readings in American Constitutional History 1776 1876 written by Allen Johnson and published by . This book was released on 1912 with total page 632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The U s Constitution and You written by and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All elementary school students learn about the history of the U.S. Constitution when they begin social studies. This book tells them about the great American document itself--explaining exactly what the Constitution does as well as how it affects and protects people today.
