Author: Robert L. Tsai
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674369432
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 367
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Book Description
The U.S. Constitution opens by proclaiming the sovereignty of all citizens: “We the People.” Robert Tsai’s gripping history of alternative constitutions invites readers into the circle of those who have rejected this ringing assertion—the defiant groups that refused to accept the Constitution’s definition of who “the people” are and how their authority should be exercised. America’s Forgotten Constitutions is the story of America as told by dissenters: squatters, Native Americans, abolitionists, socialists, internationalists, and racial nationalists. Beginning in the nineteenth century, Tsai chronicles eight episodes in which discontented citizens took the extraordinary step of drafting a new constitution. He examines the alternative Americas envisioned by John Brown (who dreamed of a republic purged of slavery), Robert Barnwell Rhett (the Confederate “father of secession”), and Etienne Cabet (a French socialist who founded a utopian society in Illinois). Other dreamers include the University of Chicago academics who created a world constitution for the nuclear age; the Republic of New Afrika, which demanded a separate country carved from the Deep South; and the contemporary Aryan movement, which plans to liberate America from multiculturalism and feminism. Countering those who treat constitutional law as a single tradition, Tsai argues that the ratification of the Constitution did not quell debate but kindled further conflicts over basic questions of power and community. He explains how the tradition mutated over time, inspiring generations and disrupting the best-laid plans for simplicity and order. Idealists on both the left and right will benefit from reading these cautionary tales.
Author: Mark David Ledbetter
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1411628934
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 379
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Book Description
Is it America's destiny to be both a nanny state and garrison state? America's Forgotten History questions standard history from a constitutionalist point of view. This, the first of five volumes, covers English roots, the colonial period, the Revolution, the Constitution, and the first four presidential administrations, those of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison. CONTACT
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Author: Robert L. Tsai
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674059956
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 367
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Book Description
Robert Tsai’s history invites readers into the circle of defiant groups who refused to accept the Constitution’s definition of who “We the People” are and how their authority should be exercised. It is the story of America as told by dissenters: squatters, Native Americans, abolitionists, socialists, internationalists, and racial nationalists.
Author: Mike Lee
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0143108409
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The still-unfolding story of America’s Constitution is a history of heroes and villains—the flawed visionaries who inspired and crafted liberty’s safeguards, and the shortsighted opportunists who defied them. Those stories are known by few today. In Our Lost Constitution, Senator Mike Lee tells the dramatic, little-known stories behind six of the Constitution’s most indispensible provisions. He shows their rise. He shows their fall. And he makes vividly clear how nearly every abuse of federal power today is rooted in neglect of this Lost Constitution. For example: • The Origination Clause says that all bills to raise taxes must originate in the House of Representatives, but contempt for the clause ensured the passage of Obamacare. • The Fourth Amendment protects us against unreasonable searches and seizures, but the NSA now collects our private data without a warrant. • The Legislative Powers Clause means that only Congress can pass laws, but unelected agencies now produce ninety-nine out of every one hundred pages of legal rules imposed on the American people. Lee’s cast of characters includes a former Ku Klux Klansman, who hijacked the Establishment Clause to strangle Catholic schools; the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who called the Second Amendment a fraud; and the revered president who began his first of four terms by threating to shatter the balance of power between Congress and the president, and who began his second term by vowing to do the same to the Supreme Court. Fortunately, the Constitution has always had its defenders. Senator Lee tells the story of how Andrew Jackson, noted for his courage in duels and politics, stood firm against the unconstitutional expansion of federal powers. He brings to life Ben Franklin’s genius for compromise at a deeply divided constitutional convention. And he tells how in 2008, a couple of unlikely challengers persuaded the Supreme Court to rediscover the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms. Sections of the Constitution may have been forgotten, but it’s not too late to bring them back—if only we remember why we once demanded them and how we later lost them. Drawing on his experience working in all three branches of government, Senator Lee makes a bold case for resurrecting the Lost Constitution to restore and defend our fundamental liberties.
Author: William Rawle, Jr.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781331664239
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 360
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Book Description
Excerpt from A View of the Constitution of the United States of America About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Author: Roger M. Barrus
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739153986
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 173
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Book Description
In The Deconstitutionalization of America: The Forgotten Frailties of Democratic Rule, Roger M. Barrus and his coauthors embark on a discussion of American democracy from the nineteenth century to the present day. The present paradox democracy finds itself in can be summed up as 'the best of times and the worst of times.' Democracy, at its best, has triumphed throughout the world. It is the authors contention that this same success represents the potential for its undoing: with all governments claiming to be democratic, modern democrats-and this includes just about everyone-find it difficult if not impossible to understand the nature and problems of democracy. Since most everyone lives within a democratic horizon, they have nothing to compare democracy to and no one to point out its faults. In this way, they are hampered in dealing with their social and political problems, some of which may be the result of contradictions inherent in the democratic principle itself. The solution to democracy's ills might not be, after all, more democracy.
Author: Thorpe Francis Newton
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780259628897
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Author: Akhil Reed Amar
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN: 0465029574
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 644
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Book Description
Reading between the lines: America's implicit Constitution -- Heeding the deed: America's enacted Constitution -- Hearing the people: America's lived Constitution -- Confronting modern case law: America's "warrented" Constitution -- Putting precedent in its place: America's doctrinal Constitution -- Honoring the icons: America's symbolic Constitution -- "Remembering the ladies" : America's feminist Constitution -- Following Washington's lead: America's "Georgian" Constitution -- Interpreting government practices: America's institutional Constitution -- Joining the party: America's partisan Constitution -- Doing the right thing: America's conscientious Constitution -- Envisioning the future: America's unfinished Constitution -- Afterward -- Appendix: America's written Constitution.
Author: William Macdonald
Publisher: Forgotten Books
ISBN: 9781330213483
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270
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Book Description
Excerpt from A New Constitution for a New America About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Author: Randy E. Barnett
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691159734
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 448
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Book Description
The U.S. Constitution found in school textbooks and under glass in Washington is not the one enforced today by the Supreme Court. In Restoring the Lost Constitution, Randy Barnett argues that since the nation's founding, but especially since the 1930s, the courts have been cutting holes in the original Constitution and its amendments to eliminate the parts that protect liberty from the power of government. From the Commerce Clause, to the Necessary and Proper Clause, to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, to the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court has rendered each of these provisions toothless. In the process, the written Constitution has been lost. Barnett establishes the original meaning of these lost clauses and offers a practical way to restore them to their central role in constraining government: adopting a "presumption of liberty" to give the benefit of the doubt to citizens when laws restrict their rightful exercises of liberty. He also provides a new, realistic and philosophically rigorous theory of constitutional legitimacy that justifies both interpreting the Constitution according to its original meaning and, where that meaning is vague or open-ended, construing it so as to better protect the rights retained by the people. As clearly argued as it is insightful and provocative, Restoring the Lost Constitution forcefully disputes the conventional wisdom, posing a powerful challenge to which others must now respond. This updated edition features an afterword with further reflections on individual popular sovereignty, originalist interpretation, judicial engagement, and the gravitational force that original meaning has exerted on the Supreme Court in several recent cases.
