Author: Ken Gormley
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479823236
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 411
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Book Description
Shines a light on the constitutional issues that confronted and shaped each presidency from George Washington to the Progressive Era Drawing from the monumental The Presidents and the Constitution: A Living History, published in 2016, the nation’s foremost experts in the American presidency and the US Constitution join together to tell the intertwined stories of how the first twenty-seven distinctive American presidents have confronted and shaped the Constitution and thus defined the most powerful office in human history. From George Washington to William Howard Taft, The Presidents and the Constitution, Volume 1 illuminates the evolving American presidency in a unique way—through the lens of the Constitution itself. Arranged chronologically by president, the book examines the constitutional issues confronting each president in the context of the personalities driving historical events.The contributors illustrate the extensive powers of the American presidency in domestic and foreign affairs, showing how they have been used by the men who were granted them, and brings to light the overarching constitutional themes that span this country’s history and tie each presidency to the other branches of government.
Author: Ken Gormley
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479839906
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 711
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Book Description
Shines new light on America's brilliant constitutional and presidential history, from George Washington to Barack Obama. In this sweepingly ambitious volume, the nation’s foremost experts on the American presidency and the U.S. Constitution join together to tell the intertwined stories of how each American president has confronted and shaped the Constitution. Each occupant of the office—the first president to the forty-fourth—has contributed to the story of the Constitution through the decisions he made and the actions he took as the nation’s chief executive. By examining presidential history through the lens of constitutional conflicts and challenges, The Presidents and the Constitution offers a fresh perspective on how the Constitution has evolved in the hands of individual presidents. It delves into key moments in American history, from Washington’s early battles with Congress to the advent of the national security presidency under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, to reveal the dramatic historical forces that drove these presidents to action. Historians and legal experts, including Richard Ellis, Gary Hart, Stanley Kutler and Kenneth Starr, bring the Constitution to life, and show how the awesome powers of the American presidency have been shapes by the men who were granted them. The book brings to the fore the overarching constitutional themes that span this country’s history and ties together presidencies in a way never before accomplished.
Author: Ken Gormley
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479819980
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 364
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Book Description
A revealing look at the constitutional issues that confronted and shaped each presidency from Woodrow Wilson through Donald J. Trump Drawing from the monumental publication The Presidents and the Constitution: A Living History in 2016, the nation’s foremost experts in the American presidency and the US Constitution tell the intertwined stories of how the last eighteen American presidents have interfaced with the Constitution and thus defined the most powerful office in human history. This volume leads off with Woodrow Wilson, the president who led the nation through World War I, and ends with Donald J. Trump, who ushered the US into uncharted political and legal territory. In between, the country was confronted with international wars, the civil rights movement, 9/11, and the advent of the internet, all of which presented unique and pressing constitutional issues. The last one hundred years reveals the awesome powers of the American presidency in domestic and foreign affairs, illustrating how they have stood up to modern and novel legal challenges. The Presidents and the Constitution is for anyone interested in a captivating and illuminating account of one of the most compelling subjects in our American democracy.
Author: David Orentlicher
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814789498
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
“Can Orentlicher be serious in calling for a plural executive? The answer is yes, and he presents thoughtful and challenging arguments responding to likely criticisms. Any readers who are other than completely complacent about the current state of American politics will have to admire Orentlicher’s distinctive audacity and to respond themselves to his well-argued points.” —Sanford Levinson, author of Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance “In this refreshingly provocative book, David Orentlicher explains why it is due time for us to reconsider dominant ideas about the presidency, now arguably our most powerful political institution.” —William E. Scheuerman, Indiana University When talking heads and political pundits make their “What’s Wrong with America” lists, two concerns invariably rise to the top: the growing presidential abuse of power and the toxic political atmosphere in Washington. In Two Presidents Are Better Than One, David Orentlicher shows how the “imperial presidency” and partisan conflict are largely the result of a deeper problem—the Constitution’s placement of a single president atop the executive branch. Accordingly, writes Orentlicher, we can fix our broken political system by replacing the one person, one-party presidency with a two-person, two-party executive branch. Orentlicher contends that our founding fathers did not anticipate the extent to which their checks and balances would fail to contain executive power and partisan discord. As the stakes in presidential elections have grown ever higher since the New Deal, battles to capture the White House have greatly exacerbated partisan differences. Had the framers been able to predict the future, Orentlicher argues, they would have been far less enamored with the idea of a single leader at the head of the executive branch and far more receptive to the alternative proposals for a plural executive that they rejected. Analyzing the histories of other countries with a plural executive branch and past examples of bipartisan cooperation within Congress, Orentlicher shows us why and how to implement a two-person, two-party presidency. Ultimately, Two Presidents Are Better Than One demonstrates why we need constitutional reform to rebalance power between the executive and legislative branches and contain partisan conflict in Washington. David Orentlicher is Samuel R. Rosen Professor at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. A scholar of constitutional law and a former state representative, David also has taught at Princeton University and the University of Chicago Law School. He earned degrees in law and medicine at Harvard and specializes as well in health care law and ethics.
Author: Brian C. Kalt
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300178018
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 321
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Book Description
The United States Constitution's provisions for selecting, replacing, and punishing presidents contain serious weaknesses that could lead to constitutional controversies. In this compelling and fascinating book, Brian Kalt envisions six such controversies, such as the criminal prosecution of a sitting president, a two-term president's attempt to stay in power, the ousting of an allegedly disabled president, and more. None of these things has ever occurred, but in recent years many of them almost have. Besides being individually dramatic, these controversies provide an opportunity to think about how constitutional procedures can best be designed, interpreted, and repaired. Also, because the events Kalt describes would all carry enormous political consequences, they shed light on the delicate and complicated balance between law and politics in American government.
Author: Michael J. Gerhardt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199967792
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
In The Constitutional Legacy of Forgotten Presidents, eminent constitutional scholar Michael Gerhardt tells the stories of thirteen presidents whom most Americans do not remember and scholars think had no constitutional impact, among them Chester Arthur, Martin Van Buren, and William Howard Taft. As Gerhardt shows, our forgotten presidents played crucial roles in laying some of the groundwork followed by Lincoln and other modern presidents, as well as providing examples for future lawmakers of constitutional choices to avoid.
Author: Corey Brettschneider
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393652130
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 215
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Book Description
"A cleareyed, accessible, and informative primer: vital reading for all Americans." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review Can the president launch a nuclear attack without congressional approval? Is it ever a crime to criticize the president? Can states legally resist a president’s executive order? In today’s fraught political climate, it often seems as if we must become constitutional law scholars just to understand the news from Washington, let alone make a responsible decision at the polls. The Oath and the Office is the book we need, right now and into the future, whether we are voting for or running to become president of the United States. Constitutional law scholar and political science professor Corey Brettschneider guides us through the Constitution and explains the powers—and limits—that it places on the presidency. From the document itself and from American history’s most famous court cases, we learn why certain powers were granted to the presidency, how the Bill of Rights limits those powers, and what “we the people” can do to influence the nation’s highest public office—including, if need be, removing the person in it. In these brief yet deeply researched chapters, we meet founding fathers such as James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, as well as key figures from historic cases such as Brown v. Board of Education and Korematsu v. United States. Brettschneider breathes new life into the articles and amendments that we once read about in high school civics class, but that have real impact on our lives today. The Oath and the Office offers a compact, comprehensive tour of the Constitution, and empowers all readers, voters, and future presidents with the knowledge and confidence to read and understand one of our nation’s most important founding documents.
Author: Kevin Bleyer
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 067960412X
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 354
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Book Description
The United States Constitution promised a More Perfect Union. It’s a shame no one bothered to write a more perfect Constitution—one that didn’t trigger more than two centuries of arguments about what the darn thing actually says. Until now. Perfection is at hand. A new, improved Constitution is here. And you are holding it. But first, some historical context: In the eighteenth century, a lawyer named James Madison gathered his friends in Philadelphia and, over four long months, wrote four short pages: the Constitution of the United States of America. Not bad. In the nineteenth century, a president named Abraham Lincoln freed an entire people from the flaws in that Constitution by signing the Emancipation Proclamation. Pretty impressive. And in the twentieth century, a doctor at the Bethesda Naval Hospital delivered a baby—but not just any baby. Because in the twenty-first century, that baby would become a man, that man would become a patriot, and that patriot would rescue a country . . . by single-handedly rewriting that Constitution. Why? We think of our Constitution as the painstakingly designed blueprint drawn up by, in Thomas Jefferson’s words, an “assembly of demigods” who laid the foundation for the sturdiest republic ever created. The truth is, it was no blueprint at all but an Etch A Sketch, a haphazard series of blunders, shaken clean and redrawn countless times during a summer of petty debates, drunken ramblings, and desperate compromise—as much the product of an “assembly of demigods” as a confederacy of dunces. No wonder George Washington wished it “had been made more perfect.” No wonder Benjamin Franklin stomached it only “with all its faults.” The Constitution they wrote is a hot mess. For starters, it doesn’t mention slavery, or democracy, or even Facebook; it plays favorites among the states; it has typos, smudges, and misspellings; and its Preamble, its most famous passage, was written by a man with a peg leg. Which, if you think about it, gives our Constitution hardly a leg to stand on. [Pause for laughter.] Now stop laughing. Because you hold in your hands no mere book, but the most important document of our time. Its creator, Daily Show writer Kevin Bleyer, paid every price, bore every burden, and saved every receipt in his quest to assure the salvation of our nation’s founding charter. He flew to Greece, the birthplace of democracy. He bused to Philly, the home of independence. He went toe-to-toe (face-to-face) with Scalia. He added nightly confabs with James Madison to his daily consultations with Jon Stewart. He tracked down not one but two John Hancocks—to make his version twice as official. He even read the Constitution of the United States. So prepare yourselves, fellow patriots, for the most significant literary event of the twenty-first, twentieth, nineteenth, and latter part of the eighteenth centuries. Me the People won’t just form a More Perfect Union. It will save America. Praise for Me the People “I would rather read a constitution written by Kevin Bleyer than by the sharpest minds in the country.”—Jon Stewart “Bleyer takes a red pencil to democracy’s most hallowed laundry list. . . . Uproarious and fascinating.”—Reader’s Digest “I knew James Madison. James Madison was a friend of mine. Mr. Bleyer, you are no James Madison. But you sure are a heck of a lot more fun.”—Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Team of Rivals
Author: Lori Cox Han
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780190611460
Category : Political leadership
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
"Presidents and the American Presidency engages students in the study of the presidency through an exploration of both the political institution and the men who have held the office. Considering both the strengths and the weaknesses of the office, authors Lori Cox Han and Diane J. Heith move beyond purely theoretical analysis to examine the real-life, day-to-day responsibilities and challenges that go with the job. Memos, oral histories, detail analyses, etc. pulled from Presidential Libraries will bring to life the study of the Presidency. Contemporary Presidencies will be emphasized to allow the students to see the concepts presented in the text at work in an administration with which they are familiar. The text will cover all of the standard concepts presented in the course, and will do so by integrating the latest qualitative and quantitative research in the field"--
Author: Steven F. Hayward
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1621576639
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
A book to challenge the status quo, spark a debate, and get people talking about the issues and questions we face as a country!
