The Founding Fathers Guide to the Constitution

The Founding Fathers Guide to the Constitution PDF Author: Brion McClanahan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 162157072X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Are liberals right when they cite the “elastic” clauses of the Constitution to justify big government? Or are conservatives right when they cite the Constitution’s explicit limits on federal power? The answer lies in a more basic question: How did the founding generation intend for us to interpret and apply the Constitution? Professor Brion McClanahan, popular author of The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Founding Fathers, finds the answers by going directly to the source—to the Founding Fathers themselves, who debated all the relevant issues in their state constitutional conventions. In The Founding Fathers’ Guide to the Constitution, you’ll discover: How the Constitution was designed to protect rather than undermine the rights of States Why Congress, not the executive branch, was meant to be the dominant branch of government—and why the Founders would have argued for impeaching many modern presidents for violating the Constitution Why an expansive central government was the Founders’ biggest fear, and how the Constitution—and the Bill of Rights—was designed to guard against it Why the founding generation would regard most of the current federal budget—including “stimulus packages”—as unconstitutional Why the Founding Fathers would oppose attempts to “reform” the Electoral College Why the Founding Fathers would be horrified at the enormous authority of the Supreme Court, and why the Founders intended Congress, not the Court, to interpret federal law Authoritative, fascinating, and timely, The Founding Fathers’ Guide to the Constitution is the definitive layman’s guide to America’s most important—and often willfully misunderstood—historical document

The Founding Fathers Guide to the Constitution

The Founding Fathers Guide to the Constitution PDF Author: Brion McClanahan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 162157072X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description
Are liberals right when they cite the “elastic” clauses of the Constitution to justify big government? Or are conservatives right when they cite the Constitution’s explicit limits on federal power? The answer lies in a more basic question: How did the founding generation intend for us to interpret and apply the Constitution? Professor Brion McClanahan, popular author of The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to the Founding Fathers, finds the answers by going directly to the source—to the Founding Fathers themselves, who debated all the relevant issues in their state constitutional conventions. In The Founding Fathers’ Guide to the Constitution, you’ll discover: How the Constitution was designed to protect rather than undermine the rights of States Why Congress, not the executive branch, was meant to be the dominant branch of government—and why the Founders would have argued for impeaching many modern presidents for violating the Constitution Why an expansive central government was the Founders’ biggest fear, and how the Constitution—and the Bill of Rights—was designed to guard against it Why the founding generation would regard most of the current federal budget—including “stimulus packages”—as unconstitutional Why the Founding Fathers would oppose attempts to “reform” the Electoral College Why the Founding Fathers would be horrified at the enormous authority of the Supreme Court, and why the Founders intended Congress, not the Court, to interpret federal law Authoritative, fascinating, and timely, The Founding Fathers’ Guide to the Constitution is the definitive layman’s guide to America’s most important—and often willfully misunderstood—historical document

Founding Fathers

Founding Fathers PDF Author: Melvin Eustace Bradford
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Originally published : A worthy company. Marlborough, N.H. : Plymouth Rock Foundation, 1982.

The Founding Fathers

The Founding Fathers PDF Author: Richard B. Bernstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190273518
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
This concise and elegant contribution to the Very Short Introduction series reintroduces the history that shaped the founding fathers, the history that they made, and what history has made of them. The book provides a context within which to explore the world of Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, and Hamilton, as well as their complex and still-controversial achievements and legacies.

The Fathers of the Constitution

The Fathers of the Constitution PDF Author: Max Farrand
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Constitutional history
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description


The Failure of the Founding Fathers

The Failure of the Founding Fathers PDF Author: Bruce Ackerman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674018662
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
Based on seven years of archival research, the book describes previously unknown aspects of the electoral college crisis of 1800, presenting a revised understanding of the early days of two great institutions that continue to have a major impact on American history: the plebiscitarian presidency and a Supreme Court that struggles to put the presidency's claims of a popular mandate into constitutional perspective. Through close studies of two Supreme Court cases, Ackerman shows how the court integrated Federalist and Republican themes into the living Constitution of the early republic.

The Federalist Papers

The Federalist Papers PDF Author: Alexander Hamilton
Publisher: Read Books Ltd
ISBN: 1528785878
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
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.

Christianity and the Constitution

Christianity and the Constitution PDF Author: John Eidsmoe
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 9780801052316
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Using the writings of the founders and records of their conversations and activities, John Eidsmoe demonstrates the influence of Christianity on the political convictions of the founding fathers.

Founding Fathers

Founding Fathers PDF Author: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470117923
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 12

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Book Description
Contains alphabetically arranged entries that provide information on the Founding Fathers, their actions, and their intentions in writing the U.S. Constitution.

Fears of a Setting Sun

Fears of a Setting Sun PDF Author: Dennis C. Rasmussen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069121106X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The surprising story of how George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson came to despair for the future of the nation they had created Americans seldom deify their Founding Fathers any longer, but they do still tend to venerate the Constitution and the republican government that the founders created. Strikingly, the founders themselves were far less confident in what they had wrought, particularly by the end of their lives. In fact, most of them—including George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson—came to deem America’s constitutional experiment an utter failure that was unlikely to last beyond their own generation. Fears of a Setting Sun is the first book to tell the fascinating and too-little-known story of the founders’ disillusionment. As Dennis Rasmussen shows, the founders’ pessimism had a variety of sources: Washington lost his faith in America’s political system above all because of the rise of partisanship, Hamilton because he felt that the federal government was too weak, Adams because he believed that the people lacked civic virtue, and Jefferson because of sectional divisions laid bare by the spread of slavery. The one major founder who retained his faith in America’s constitutional order to the end was James Madison, and the book also explores why he remained relatively optimistic when so many of his compatriots did not. As much as Americans today may worry about their country’s future, Rasmussen reveals, the founders faced even graver problems and harbored even deeper misgivings. A vividly written account of a chapter of American history that has received too little attention, Fears of a Setting Sun will change the way that you look at the American founding, the Constitution, and indeed the United States itself.

The World of the Founding Fathers

The World of the Founding Fathers PDF Author: Saul Kussiel Padover
Publisher: New York : T. Yoseloff
ISBN:
Category : Founding Fathers of the United States
Languages : en
Pages : 670

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Book Description
"One of the outstanding authorities on the early days of the Republic, Saul K. Padover offers in this volume a generous sampling of the letters, essays, speeches, discourses, and personal documents--many of them previously unpublished--of the men who made America. Included are extensive selections from the papers and speeches of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington. There are also copious extracts from the private and public utterances of secondary, but important, figures of the founding days--Samuel Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Patrick Henry, John Dickinson, Oliver Ellsworth, William Paterson, Benjamin Rush, George Wythe, and many others. A number of the speeches made at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 are given in full, and several of the important debates are reproduced. John Dickinson's Letters from an American Farmer in Pennsylvania appear in these pages as well as many of Alexander Hamilton's famous and brief opinions. Also included are John Hancock's speech on the Boston Massacre; Thomas Jefferson's Notes on Virginia; James Madison's Memorial against Religious Assessments; two of the most important of John Marshall's Supreme Court decisions (Marbury vs. Madison and McCulloch vs. Maryland); Robert Morris' Letters on Finance; John Taylor's paper On Aristocracy, and William Paterson's Plan for a Constitution. Taken together, these writings offer in one volume a complete picture of the thinking, the debate, the legal maneuvers, the compromises, the manners, and the morals of the American nation's earliest days. The book provides a sound basic appreciation of the atmosphere in which the Founding Fathers worked and planned and debated with one another. All the many counter-currents that contributed to the building of the Constitution, the stresses to which the young nation was subjected, the rebellion that continued to seethe, the moral climate of the days--these are all recreated in the speeches and writings of America's first patriots. Dr. Padover has bound the selections together with enlightening commentary that enables the reader to understand the exact circumstances of each utterance and brings the particular work into historical perspective."--Jacket.