Compromise and the American Founding

Compromise and the American Founding PDF Author: Alin Fumurescu
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108415873
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
An original interpretation of 'the people's two bodies' that illuminates the opposite attitudes toward compromise throughout the American founding.

Compromise and the American Founding

Compromise and the American Founding PDF Author: Alin Fumurescu
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108415873
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
An original interpretation of 'the people's two bodies' that illuminates the opposite attitudes toward compromise throughout the American founding.

Founding Factions

Founding Factions PDF Author: Jeremy C Pope
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472132229
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
The fundamental importance of the 1787 Constitutional Convention continues to affect contemporary politics. The Constitution defines the structure and limits of the American system of government, and it organizes contemporary debates about policy and legal issues—debates that explicitly invoke the intentions and actions of those delegates to the Convention. Virtually all scholarship emphasizes the importance of compromise between key actors or factions at the Convention. In truth, the deep structure of voting at the Convention remains somewhat murky because the traditional stories are incomplete. There were three key factions at the Convention, not two. The alliance of the core reformers with the slave interests helped change representation and make a stronger national government. When it came time to create a strong executive, a group of small state delegates provided the crucial votes. Traditional accounts gloss over the complicated coalition politics that produced these important compromises, while this book shows the specific voting alignments. It is true that the delegates came with common purposes, but they were divided by both interests and ideas into three crosscutting factions. There was no persistent dominant coalition of reformers or nationalists; rather, there was a series of minority factions allying with one another on the major issues to fashion the compromise. Founding Factions helps us understand the nature of shifting majorities and how they created the American government.

Lincoln and the American Founding

Lincoln and the American Founding PDF Author: Lucas E. Morel
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
ISBN: 0809337851
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
In this persuasive work of intellectual history, Lucas E. Morel argues that the most important influence on Abraham Lincoln’s political thought and practice was what he learned from the leading figures of and documents from the birth of the United States. In this systematic account of those principles, Morel compellingly demonstrates that to know Lincoln well is to understand thoroughly the founding of America. With each chapter describing a particular influence, Morel leads readers from the Founding Father, George Washington; to the founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and Constitution; to the founding compromise over slavery; and finally to a consideration of how the original intentions of the Founding Fathers should be respected in light of experience, progress, and improvements over time. Within these key discussions, Morel shows that without the ideals of the American Revolution, Lincoln’s most famous speeches would be unrecognizable, and the character of the nation would have lost its foundation on the universal principles of human equality, individual liberty, and government by the consent of the governed. Lincoln thought that the principles of human equality and individual rights could provide common ground for a diverse people to live as one nation and that some old things, such as the political ideals of the American founding, were worth preserving. He urged Americans to be vigilant in maintaining the institutions of self-government and to exercise and safeguard the benefits of freedom for future generations. Morel posits that adopting the way of thinking and speaking Lincoln advocated, based on the country’s founding, could help mend our current polarized discourse and direct the American people to employ their common government on behalf of a truly common good.

That's Not what They Meant!

That's Not what They Meant! PDF Author: Michael Austin
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1616146702
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Essential reading for anyone seeking the accurate historical background to many of the hot-button political debates of today. A true historical picture of men who often disagreed with one another on such crucial issues as federal power, judicial review, and the separation of church and state.

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.

The American Founding

The American Founding PDF Author: Gordon Lloyd
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781878802330
Category : United States
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This volume presents the documents necessary to understand the essential ideas and debates that shaped the founding of the American civic order. It beings with documents that display both the problems that led to the calling of the Constitutional Convention and the ideas that shaped the debates in Philadelphia. It concludes with two documents - Washington's Inaugural Address and Madison's speech on the amendments to the Constitution (the Bill of Rights) - that show the new government beginning to function. The heart of the book is the documents presenting the debates at the Constitutional Convention and the debates over ratification. With its document introductions, annotations, and helpful appendices, this collection is an indispensable resources for understanding the American Founding.

American Dialogue

American Dialogue PDF Author: Joseph J. Ellis
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 038535343X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
The award-winning author of Founding Brothers and The Quartet now gives us a deeply insightful examination of the relevance of the views of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams to some of the most divisive issues in America today. The story of history is a ceaseless conversation between past and present, and in American Dialogue Joseph J. Ellis focuses the conversation on the often-asked question "What would the Founding Fathers think?" He examines four of our most seminal historical figures through the prism of particular topics, using the perspective of the present to shed light on their views and, in turn, to make clear how their now centuries-old ideas illuminate the disturbing impasse of today's political conflicts. He discusses Jefferson and the issue of racism, Adams and the specter of economic inequality, Washington and American imperialism, Madison and the doctrine of original intent. Through these juxtapositions--and in his hallmark dramatic and compelling narrative voice--Ellis illuminates the obstacles and pitfalls paralyzing contemporary discussions of these fundamentally important issues.

Founding the American Presidency

Founding the American Presidency PDF Author: Richard J. Ellis
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780847694990
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
At a time when the institution of the presidency seems in a state of almost permanant crisis, it is particularly important to understand what sort of an institution the framers of the Constitution thought they were creating. Founding the American Presidency offers a first-hand view of the minds of the founders by bringing together extensive selections from the constitutional convention in Philadelphia as well as representative selections from the subsequent debates over ratification. Pointed discussion questions provoke students to consider new perspectives on the presidency. Ideal for all courses on the presidency, the book is also important for all citizens who want to understand not only the past but the future of the American presidency. Visit our website for sample chapters!

The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution

The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution PDF Author: Eric Foner
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393652580
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
“Gripping and essential.”—Jesse Wegman, New York Times An authoritative history by the preeminent scholar of the Civil War era, The Second Founding traces the arc of the three foundational Reconstruction amendments from their origins in antebellum activism and adoption amidst intense postwar politics to their virtual nullification by narrow Supreme Court decisions and Jim Crow state laws. Today these amendments remain strong tools for achieving the American ideal of equality, if only we will take them up.

Understanding the Founding

Understanding the Founding PDF Author: Alan Gibson
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700617523
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
The first edition of Alan Gibson's Understanding the Founding is widely regarded as an invaluable guide to the last century's key debates surrounding America's founding. This new edition retains all of the strengths of the original while adding a substantial new section addressing a major but previously unaddressed issue and also significantly revising Gibson's invaluable conclusion and bibliography. In the original edition, which was built upon his previous work in Interpreting the Founding, Gibson addressed four key questions: Were the Framers motivated by their economic interests? How democratic was the Framers' Constitution? Should we interpret the Founding using philosophical or strictly historical approaches? What traditions of political thought were most important to the Framers? He focused especially on the preconceptions that scholars brought to these questions, explored the deepest sources of scholars' disagreements over them, and suggested new and thoughtful lines of interpretation and inquiry. His incisive analysis brought clarity to the complex and sprawling debates and shed new light on the institutional and intellectual foundations of the American political system. Gibson has now added a path-breaking new chapter entitled "How Could They Have Done That? Founding Scholarship and the Question of Moral Responsibility," which reprises and critiques on of the most important and vexing contemporary debates on the American founding. The new chapter focuses on how the men who fought a revolution in the name of liberty and declared to the world that "all men are created equal" could have supported the institution of slavery and even owned slaves themselves, accepted the legal and social subordination of women, and been responsible for Indian removal and genocide against Native Americans. Efforts to criticize or defend the Founders on these issues now constitute a daunting body of scholarship addressing what David Brion Davis has called the "dilemmas of slaveholding revolutionaries." Gibson's astute and fair-minded analysis of this scholarship offers keen insights into how we might move toward more mature and responsible evaluations of the Founders.