Author: Phillip I. Blumberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139490028
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
This volume seeks to explain how American society, which had been capable of noble aspirations such as those in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, was capable of adopting one of the most widely deplored statutes of our history, the Sedition Act of 1798. It examines how the political ideals of the American Revolution were undermined by the adoption of repressive doctrines of the English monarchial system - the criminalization of criticism against the king, the Parliament, the judiciary, and Christianity. Freedom of speech was dramatically confined, and this law remained unchallenged until well into the twentieth century. This book will be of keen interest to all concerned with the early Republic, freedom of speech, and evolution of American constitutional jurisprudence. Because it addresses the much-criticized Sedition Act of 1798, one of the most dramatic illustrations of this repressive jurisprudence, the book will also be of interest to Americans concerned about preserving free speech in wartime.
Author: R. B. Bernstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197502717
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
The Education of John Adams is the first biography of John Adams by a biographer with legal training. It examines his origins in colonial Massachusetts, his education, and his struggle to choose a career and define a place for himself in colonial society. It explores the flowering of his legal career and the impact that law had on him and his understanding of himself; his growing involvement with the American Revolution as polemicist, as lawyer, as congressional delegate, and as diplomat; and his commitment to defining and expounding ideas about constitutionalism and how it should work as the body of ideas shaping the new United States. The book traces his part in launching the government of the United States under the U.S. Constitution; his service as the nation's first vice president and second president; and his retirement years, during which he was first a vexed and rejected ex-president and then became the revered Sage of Braintree. It describes the relationships that sustained him - with his wife, the brilliant and eloquent Abigail Adams; with his children; with such allies and supporters as Benjamin Rush and John Marshall; with such sometime friends and sometime adversaries as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson; and with such foes as Alexander Hamilton and Timothy Pickering. Bernstein establishes Adams as a key figure in the evolution of American constitutional theory and practice. This is the first biography to examine Adams's conflicted and hesitant ideas about slavery and race in the American context, raising serious questions about his mythic status as a friend of human equality and a foe of slavery. This book's foundation is the record left by Adams himself-- in diaries, letters, essays, pamphlets, and books. The Education of John Adams concludes by re-examining the often-debated question of the relevance of Adams's thought to our own time.
Author: Stephen D. Solomon
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1466879394
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
When members of the founding generation protested against British authority, debated separation, and then ratified the Constitution, they formed the American political character we know today-raucous, intemperate, and often mean-spirited. Revolutionary Dissent brings alive a world of colorful and stormy protests that included effigies, pamphlets, songs, sermons, cartoons, letters and liberty trees. Solomon explores through a series of chronological narratives how Americans of the Revolutionary period employed robust speech against the British and against each other. Uninhibited dissent provided a distinctly American meaning to the First Amendment's guarantees of freedom of speech and press at a time when the legal doctrine inherited from England allowed prosecutions of those who criticized government. Solomon discovers the wellspring in our revolutionary past for today's satirists like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann, and protests like flag burning and street demonstrations. From the inflammatory engravings of Paul Revere, the political theater of Alexander McDougall, the liberty tree protests of Ebenezer McIntosh and the oratory of Patrick Henry, Solomon shares the stories of the dissenters who created the American idea of the liberty of thought. This is truly a revelatory work on the history of free expression in America.
Author: Wendell Bird
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190461624
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 565
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Book Description
Based on author's thesis (doctoral - Oxford University, 2012) issued under title: Freedoms of press and speech in the first decade of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Author: Leigh Eric Schmidt
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691183112
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 360
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Book Description
A compelling history of atheism in American public life A much-maligned minority throughout American history, atheists have been cast as a threat to the nation’s moral fabric, barred from holding public office, and branded as irreligious misfits in a nation chosen by God. Yet village atheists—as these godless freethinkers came to be known by the close of the nineteenth century—were also hailed for their gutsy dissent from stultifying pieties and for posing a necessary secularist challenge to the entanglements of church and state. In Village Atheists, Leigh Eric Schmidt explores the complex cultural terrain that unbelievers have long had to navigate in their fight to secure equal rights and liberties in American public life. He rebuilds the history of American secularism from the ground up, giving flesh and blood to these outspoken infidels. Village Atheists demonstrates that the secularist vision for the United States proved to be anything but triumphant in a country where faith and citizenship were—and still are—closely interwoven.
Author: Peter Rushton
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350005304
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
This book examines internal political conflicts in the British Empire within the legal framework of treason and sedition. The threat of treason and rebellion pervaded the British Atlantic in the 17th and 18th centuries; Britain's control of its territories was continually threatened by rebellion and war, both at home and in North America. Even after American independence, Britain and its former colony continued to be fearful that opposition and revolution might follow the French example, and both took legal measures to control both speech and political action. This study places these conflicts within a political and legal framework of the laws of treason and sedition as they developed in the British Atlantic. The treason laws originated in the reign of Edward III, and were adapted and modified in the 16th and 17th centuries. They were exported to the colonies, where they underwent both adaptation and elaboration in application in the slave societies as well as those dominated by free settlers. Relationships with natives and European rivals in the Americas affected the definitions of treason in practice, and the divided loyalties of the American revolutionary war added further problems of defining loyalty and treachery. Treason and Rebellion in the British Atlantic, 1685-1800 offers a new study of treason and sedition in the period by placing them in a truly transatlantic perspective, making it a valuable study for those interested in the legal and political of Britain's empire and 18th-century revolutions.
Author: Nancy Isenberg
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525557520
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 578
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Book Description
"Told with authority and style. . . Crisply summarizing the Adamses' legacy, the authors stress principle over partisanship."--The Wall Street Journal How the father and son presidents foresaw the rise of the cult of personality and fought those who sought to abuse the weaknesses inherent in our democracy. Until now, no one has properly dissected the intertwined lives of the second and sixth (father and son) presidents. John and John Quincy Adams were brilliant, prickly politicians and arguably the most independently minded among leaders of the founding generation. Distrustful of blind allegiance to a political party, they brought a healthy skepticism of a brand-new system of government to the country's first 50 years. They were unpopular for their fears of the potential for demagoguery lurking in democracy, and--in a twist that predicted the turn of twenty-first century politics--they warned against, but were unable to stop, the seductive appeal of political celebrities Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. In a bold recasting of the Adamses' historical roles, The Problem of Democracy is a major critique of the ways in which their prophetic warnings have been systematically ignored over the centuries. It's also an intimate family drama that brings out the torment and personal hurt caused by the gritty conduct of early American politics. Burstein and Isenberg make sense of the presidents' somewhat iconoclastic, highly creative engagement with America's political and social realities. By taking the temperature of American democracy, from its heated origins through multiple upheavals, the authors reveal the dangers and weaknesses that have been present since the beginning. They provide a clear-eyed look at a decoy democracy that masks the reality of elite rule while remaining open, since the days of George Washington, to a very undemocratic result in the formation of a cult surrounding the person of an elected leader.
Author: James. A. Morone
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 1541674537
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 371
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Book Description
A prize-winning political scientist untangles the deep roots of tribalism in America. American politics seems to be in an unprecedented uproar. But in this revelatory work of political history, James A. Morone shows that today's rancor isn't what's new -- the clarity of the battle lines is. Past eras were full of discord, but the most contentious question in American society -- Who are we? -- never split along party lines. Instead, each party reached out to different groups on the margins of power: immigrants, African Americans, and women. But, as the United States underwent profound societal transformations from the Civil War to the populist explosion to the Great Migration to civil rights to the latest era of immigration, the party alignment shifted. African Americans conquered the old segregationist party and Democrats slowly evolved into the party of civil rights, immigration, and gender rights. Republicans turned whiter and more nativist. The unprecedented party lineup now injects tribal intensity into every policy difference. Republic of Wrath tells the story of America as we've never heard it before, explaining the origins of our fractious times and suggesting how we might build a more robust republic.
Author: Paul S Davies
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1509930515
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 488
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Book Description
Freedom of contract is a great strength of English law: indeed it is a key reason why English law is often the law of choice. But the terms of commercial contracts often restrict freedom of action. This book considers such terms. Leading commentators take stock of recent developments such as increased reliance on good faith/discretion and the rise of smart contracts. Insodoing, they make original contributions to ongoing debates concerning the limits to parties' freedom of contract. This important subject will interest drafters of commercial contracts keen to ensure that contracts are clear and enforceable; litigators disputing the meaning, scope and validity of terms; and academics interested in the purpose and nature of the exercises involved.
Author: Michael Les Benedict
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442259930
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 575
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Book Description
This concise, accessible text provides students with a history of American constitutional development in the context of political, economic, and social change. Constitutional historian Michael Benedict stresses the role that the American people have played over time in defining the powers of government and the rights of individuals and minorities. He covers important trends and events in U.S. constitutional history, encompassing key Supreme Court and lower-court cases. The volume begins by discussing the English and colonial origins of American constitutionalism. Following an analysis of the American Revolution's meaning to constitutional history, the text traces the Constitution's evolution from the Early Republic to the present day. This third edition is updated to include the election of 2000, the Tea Party and the rise of popular constitutionalism, and the rise of judicial supremacy as seen in cases such as Citizens United, the Affordable Care Act, and gay marriage.
