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Constitutional History and Law: Constitutional Law

Explore the events, history, signers, and amendments of the US Constitution.

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American Constitutional Law Vol 2

American Constitutional Law: Essays, Cases, and Comparative Notes is a unique casebook that encourages citizens and students of the Constitution to think critically about the fundamental principles and policies of the American constitutional order. In addition to its distinguished authorship, the book has two prominent features that set it apart from other books in the field: an emphasis on the social, political, and moral theory that provides meaning to constitutional law and interpretation, and a comparative perspective that situates the American experience within a world context that serves as an invaluable prism through which to illuminate the special features of our own constitutional order. While the focus of the book is entirely on American constitutional law, the book asks students to consider what, if anything, is unique in American constitutional life and what we share with other constitutional democracies. Each chapter is preceded by an introductory essay that highlights these major themes and also situates the cases in their proper historical and political contexts. This new edition offers updated and expanded treatment of a number of important and timely topics including, the death penalty, privacy, affirmative action, and school segregation. Volume 2 of this text focuses on civil rights and basic freedoms and includes separate chapters on race and gender.

American Constitutional Law: The Structure of Government

American Constitutional Law provides a comprehensive account of the nations defining document. Based on the premise that the study of the Constitution and constitutional law is of fundamental importance to understanding the principles, prospects, and problems of America, this text puts current events in terms of what those who initially drafted and ratified the Constitution sought to accomplish.

Constitutional Interpretation

Constitutional scholarship has deteriorated into a set of armed camps, with defenders of different theories of judicial review too often talking to their own supporters but not engaging their opponents. This book breaks out of those neat compartments and reinvigorates the debate over how the judiciary should interpret the Constitution. Keith Whittington reconsiders the implications of fundamental legal commitment to faithfully interpret our written Constitution. Making use of arguments drawn from American history, political philosophy, and literary theory, he examines what it means to interpret a written constitution and how the courts should go about that task. He concludes that when interpreting the Constitution, the judiciary should adhere to the discoverable intentions of the Founders. Other "originalists" have also asserted that their approach is required by the Constitution but have neither defended that claim nor effectively responded to critics of their assumptions or their method.This book sympathetically examines the most sophisticated critiques of originalism based on postmodern, hermeneutic, and literary theory, as wel

Constitutional Rights Sourcebook

The Constitutional Rights Sourcebook examines fundamental ideas of constitutionalism and American constitutional law through case summaries. The U.S. Supreme Court as an institution is featured and its rulings and rationale are represented throughout the work, beginning with a thorough treatment of the current court and including all the significant rulings since the mid-1980s. A thorough introduction explains how constitutional law and the courts work and reviews the history of the Constitution and the Supreme Court Provides definitions of more than 120 terms

The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions

The Supreme Court has been the site of some of the great debates of American history, from child labor and prayer in the schools, to busing and abortion. The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions offers lively and insightful accounts of the most important cases ever arguedbefore the Court, from Marbury v. Madison and Scott v. Sandford (the Dred Scott decision) to Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade.This new edition of the Guide contains more than 450 entries on major Supreme Court cases, including 53 new entries on the latest landmark rulings. Among the new entries are Bush v. Gore, Nixon v. United States, Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academicand Institutional Rights. Four decisionsHamdi v. Bush, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Rasu v. Bush, and Rumsfeld v. Padillaare considered in a single essay entitled Enemy Combatant Cases. Arranged alphabetically and written by eminent legal scholars, each entry provides the United States Reports citation, thedate the case was argued and decided, the vote of the Justices, who wrote the opinion for the Court, who concurred, and who dissented. More important, the entries feature an informative account of the particulars of the case, the legal and social background, the reasoning behind the Courts decision,and the cases impact on American society. For this edition, Ely has added an extensive Further Reading section and revised the Case Index and Topical Index.For anyone interested in the great controversies of our time, this invaluable book is a must reada primer on the epic constitutional battles that have informed American life.

Essential Supreme Court Decisions

First published in 1954, this indispensable reference quickly became the gold standard for concise summaries of important U.S. Supreme Court cases. The only reference guide to Supreme Court cases organized both topically and chronologically within chapters so that readers understand how cases fit into a historical context, the 15th edition has been extensively revised to ensure that it remains the most up-to-date resource available. An essential resource for law students, lawyers, and everyone interested in our nation's Constitution and the Supreme Court decisions that explicate it.

The Invisible Constitution

As everyone knows, the United States Constitution is a tangible, visible document. Many see it in fact as a sacred text, holding no meaning other than that which is clearly visible on the page. Yet as renowned legal scholar Laurence Tribe shows, what is not written in the Constitution plays akey role in its interpretation. Indeed some of the most contentious Constitutional debates of our time hinge on the extent to which it can admit of divergent readings.In The Invisible Constitution, Tribe argues that there is an unseen constitution--impalpable but powerful--that accompanies the parchment version. It is the visible document's shadow, its dark matter: always there and possessing some of its key meanings and values despite its absence on thepage. As Tribe illustrates, some of our most cherished and widely held beliefs about constitutional rights are not part of the written document, but can only be deduced by piecing together hints and clues from it. Moreover, some passages of the Constitution do not even hold today despite theircontinuing existence. Amendments may have fundamentally altered what the Constitution originally said about slavery and voting rights, yet the old provisos about each are still in the text, unrevised. Through a variety of historical episodes and key constitutional cases, Tribe brings to life thisinvisible constitution, showing how it has evolved and how it works. Detailing its invisible structures and principles, Tribe compellingly demonstrates the invisible constitution's existence and operative power.Remarkably original, keenly perceptive, and written with Tribe's trademark analytical flair, this latest volume in Oxford's Inalienable Rights series offers a new way of understanding many of the central constitutional debates of our time.

Liberty's Blueprint

Aside from the Constitution itself, there is no more important document in American politics and law than The Federalist-the series of essays written by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison to explain the proposed Constitution to the American people and persuade them to ratify it. Today, amid angry debate over what the Constitution means and what the framers’ “original intent” was, The Federalist is more important than ever, offering the best insight into how the framers thought about the most troubling issues of American government and how the various clauses of the Constitution were meant to be understood. Michael Meyerson’s Liberty’s Blueprint provides a fascinating window into the fleeting, and ultimately doomed, friendship between Hamilton and Madison, as well as a much-needed introduction to understanding how the lessons of The Federalist are relevant for resolving contemporary constitutional issues from medical marijuana to the war on terrorism. This book shows that, when properly read, The Federalist is not a “conservative” manifesto but a document that rightfully belongs to all Americans across the political spectrum.