States' Rights and the Union

States' Rights and the Union PDF Author: Forrest McDonald
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
McDonald (history, U. of Alabama) explores the balance between general and local authority in government. Tracing the concept of states' rights from the Declaration of Independence to the end of Reconstruction, he illuminates the constitutional, political, and economic contexts in which the issues have evolved. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

States' Rights and the Union

States' Rights and the Union PDF Author: Forrest McDonald
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Get Book Here

Book Description
McDonald (history, U. of Alabama) explores the balance between general and local authority in government. Tracing the concept of states' rights from the Declaration of Independence to the end of Reconstruction, he illuminates the constitutional, political, and economic contexts in which the issues have evolved. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

Lincoln and the Border States

Lincoln and the Border States PDF Author: William C. Harris
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 070062015X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
Adopting a new approach to an American icon, an award-winning scholar reexamines the life of Abraham Lincoln to demonstrate how his remarkable political acumen and leadership skills evolved during the intense partisan conflict in pre-Civil War Illinois. By describing Lincoln's rise from obscurity to the presidency, William Harris shows that Lincoln's road to political success was far from easy-and that his reaction to events wasn't always wise or his racial attitudes free of prejudice. Although most scholars have labeled Lincoln a moderate, Harris reveals that he was by his own admission a conservative who revered the Founders and advocated "adherence to the old and tried." By emphasizing the conservative bent that guided Lincoln's political evolution-his background as a Henry Clay Whig, his rural ties, his cautious nature, and the racial and political realities of central Illinois-Harris provides fresh insight into Lincoln's political ideas and activities and portrays him as morally opposed to slavery but fundamentally conservative in his political strategy against it. Interweaving aspects of Lincoln's life and character that were an integral part of his rise to prominence, Harris provides in-depth coverage of Lincoln's controversial term in Congress, his re-emergence as the leader of the antislavery coalition in Illinois, and his Senate campaign against Stephen A.Douglas. He particularly describes how Lincoln organized the antislavery coalition into the Republican Party while retaining the support of its diverse elements, and sheds new light on Lincoln's ongoing efforts to bring Know Nothing nativists into the coalition without alienating ethnic groups. He also provides new information and analysis regarding Lincoln's nomination and election to the presidency, the selection of his cabinet, and his important role as president-elect during the secession crisis of 1860-1861. Challenging prevailing views, Harris portrays Lincoln as increasingly driven not so much by his own ambitions as by his antislavery sentiments and his fear for the republic in the hands of Douglas Democrats, and he shows how the unique political skills Lincoln developed in Illinois shaped his wartime leadership abilities. By doing so, he opens a window on his political ideas and influences and offers a fresh understanding of this complex figure.

A More Perfect Union

A More Perfect Union PDF Author: Jesse L. Jackson Jr.
Publisher: Archway Publishing
ISBN: 1665704632
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 590

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Book Description
Race, from the beginning and more than any other element, has shaped America's institutions, its economics, politics, laws, social structures, and political attitudes. Congressman Jackson considers race to be the focal point of America through the language of the economy because "the economy is the hearing aid through which Americans hear all political dialogue." In this thought provoking work, Jackson provides ample documentation and insightful analysis of the inextricable link between race and economics. More important Jackson proposes a radical economic strategy and program of new human rights that would build A More Perfect Union for all Americans and put them in a better position to come to grips with this enduring American legacy.

States of Union

States of Union PDF Author: Mark E. Brandon
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700619232
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
In two canonical decisions of the 1920s—Meyer v. Nebraska and Pierce v. Society of Sisters—the Supreme Court announced that family (including certain relations within it) was an institution falling under the Constitution’s protective umbrella. Since then, proponents of “family values” have claimed that a timeless form of family—nuclear and biological—is crucial to the constitutional order. Mark Brandon’s new book, however, challenges these claims. Brandon addresses debates currently roiling America—the regulation of procreation, the roles of women, the education of children, divorce, sexuality, and the meanings of marriage. He also takes on claims of scholars who attribute modern change in family law to mid-twentieth-century Supreme Court decisions upholding privacy. He shows that the “constitutional” law of family has much deeper roots. Offering glimpses into American households across time, Brandon looks at the legal and constitutional norms that have aimed to govern those households and the lives within them. He argues that, well prior to the 1960s, the nature of families in America had been continually changing—especially during western expansion, but also in the founding era. He further contends that the monogamous nuclear family was codified only at the end of the nineteenth century as a response to Mormon polygamy, communal experiments, and Native American households. Brandon discusses the evolution of familial jurisprudence as applied to disputes over property, inheritance, work, reproduction, the status of women and children, the regulation of sex, and the legal limits to and constitutional significance of marriage. He shows how the Supreme Court’s famous decisions in the latter part of the twentieth century were largely responses to societal change, and he cites a wide range of cases that offer fresh insight into the ways the legal system responded to various forms of family life. More than a historical overview, the book also considers the development of same-sex marriage as a political and legal issue in our time. States of Union is a groundbreaking volume that explains how family came to be “in” the Constitution, what it has meant for family to be constitutionally significant, and what the implications of that significance are for the constitutional order and for families.

Congress and Crime

Congress and Crime PDF Author: Joseph F. Zimmerman
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739198076
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
Congress in the latter part of the nineteenth century decided to enact a series of statutes facilitating state enforcement of their respective criminal laws. Subsequently, Congress enacted statutes federalizing what had been solely state crimes, thereby establishing federal court and state court concurrent jurisdiction over these crimes. Federalization of state crimes has been criticized by numerous scholars, U.S. Supreme Court justices, and national organizations. Such federalization has congested the calendars of the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals leading to delays in civil cases because of the Speedy TrialAct that vacates a criminal indictment if a trial is not commenced within a specific number of days, resulted in over-crowded U.S. penitentiaries, and raises the issue of double jeopardy that is prohibited by the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the constitution of each state. This book examines the impact of federalization of state crime and draws conclusions regarding its desirability. It also offers recommendations directed to Congress and the President, one recommendation direct to state legislatures for remedial actions to reduce the undesirable effects of federalized state crimes, and one recommendation that Congress and all states enter into a federal-interstate criminal suppression compact.

What Caused the Civil War?: Reflections on the South and Southern History

What Caused the Civil War?: Reflections on the South and Southern History PDF Author: Edward L. Ayers
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393285154
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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Book Description
“An extremely good writer, [Ayers] is well worth reading . . . on the South and Southern history.”—Stephen Sears, Boston Globe The Southern past has proven to be fertile ground for great works of history. Peculiarities of tragic proportions—a system of slavery flourishing in a land of freedom, secession and Civil War tearing at a federal Union, deep poverty persisting in a nation of fast-paced development—have fed the imaginations of some of our most accomplished historians. Foremost in their ranks today is Edward L. Ayers, author of the award-winning and ongoing study of the Civil War in the heart of America, the Valley of the Shadow Project. In wide-ranging essays on the Civil War, the New South, and the twentieth-century South, Ayers turns over the rich soil of Southern life to explore the sources of the nation's and his own history. The title essay, original here, distills his vast research and offers a fresh perspective on the nation's central historical event.

The Limits of Sovereignty

The Limits of Sovereignty PDF Author: Daniel W. Hamilton
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226314863
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Americans take for granted that government does not have the right to permanently seize private property without just compensation. Yet for much of American history, such a view constituted the weaker side of an ongoing argument about government sovereignty and individual rights. What brought about this drastic shift in legal and political thought? Daniel W. Hamilton locates that change in the crucible of the Civil War. In the early days of the war, Congress passed the First and Second Confiscation Acts, authorizing the Union to seize private property in the rebellious states of the Confederacy, and the Confederate Congress responded with the broader Sequestration Act. The competing acts fueled a fierce, sustained debate among legislators and lawyers about the principles underlying alternative ideas of private property and state power, a debate which by 1870 was increasingly dominated by today’s view of more limited government power. Through its exploration of this little-studied consequence of the debates over confiscation during the Civil War, The Limits of Sovereignty will be essential to an understanding of the place of private property in American law and legal history.

Apostles of Disunion

Apostles of Disunion PDF Author: Charles B. Dew
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813939453
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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Book Description
Charles Dew’s Apostles of Disunion has established itself as a modern classic and an indispensable account of the Southern states’ secession from the Union. Addressing topics still hotly debated among historians and the public at large more than a century and a half after the Civil War, the book offers a compelling and clearly substantiated argument that slavery and race were at the heart of our great national crisis. The fifteen years since the original publication of Apostles of Disunion have seen an intensification of debates surrounding the Confederate flag and Civil War monuments. In a powerful new afterword to this anniversary edition, Dew situates the book in relation to these recent controversies and factors in the role of vast financial interests tied to the internal slave trade in pushing Virginia and other upper South states toward secession and war.

More Like Us

More Like Us PDF Author: James M. Fallows
Publisher: Mariner Books
ISBN: 9780395528105
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
More Like Us is a celebration of American openness to immigration and aspiration and a skeptic's tour of the rigidity of Asian societies. Fallows is the author of the highly acclaimed National Defense.

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.