Designed to encourage critical thinking about history, the Major Problems series introduces students to both primary sources and analytical essays on important topics in US history.This collection, designed to be the primary anthology for the introductory survey course, covers the entire chronological span of Constitutional history.Tracing the historical development of American constitutional thought, the Second Edition of this anthology presents the documents critical to constitutional development, including actual legal texts as well as the reactions of prominent legal minds.
This volume examines constitutional law in a unique, developmental framework that shows how key events through American history have shaped the Supreme Court's understanding of the Constitution. Places unique emphasis on the political, economic, social and developmental aspects of the Supreme Court's constitutional decisions. The book examines the great issues and events of government and politics in the early, middle, and modern constitutions, how they have shaped the Supreme Court's understanding of the Constitution, and how the distributive consequences of that understanding, in turn, affect American political life. For those who are interested in the American constitution.
Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil , first published in 2006, concerns what is entailed by pledging allegiance to a constitutional text and tradition saturated with concessions to evil. The Constitution of the United States was originally understood as an effort to mediate controversies between persons who disputed fundamental values, and did not offer a vision of the good society. In order to form a 'more perfect union' with slaveholders, late-eighteenth-century citizens fashioned a constitution that plainly compelled some injustices and was silent or ambiguous on other questions of fundamental right. This constitutional relationship could survive only as long as a bisectional consensus was required to resolve all constitutional questions not settled in 1787. Dred Scott challenges persons committed to human freedom to determine whether antislavery northerners should have provided more accommodations for slavery than were constitutionally strictly necessary or risked the enormous destruction of life and property that preceded Lincoln's new birth of freedom.
It is no longer controversial that the American political system has become deeply dysfunctional. Today, only slightly more than a quarter of Americans believe the country is heading in the right direction, while sixty-three percent believe we are on a downward slope. The top twenty words used to describe the past year include “chaotic,” “turbulent,” and “disastrous.” Donald Trump’s improbable rise to power and his 2016 Electoral College victory placed America’s political dysfunction in an especially troubling light, but given the extreme polarization of contemporary politics, the outlook would have been grim even if Hillary Clinton had won. The greatest upset in American presidential history is only a symptom of deeper problems of political culture and constitutional design. Democracy and Dysfunction brings together two of the leading constitutional law scholars of our time, Sanford Levinson and Jack M. Balkin, in an urgently needed conversation that seeks to uncover the underlying causes of our current crisis and their meaning for American democracy. In a series of letters exchanged over a period of two years, Levinson and Balkin travel—along with the rest of the country—through the convulsions of the 2016 election and Trump’s first year in office. They disagree about the scope of the crisis and the remedy required. Levinson believes that our Constitution is fundamentally defective and argues for a new constitutional convention, while Balkin, who believes we are suffering from constitutional rot, argues that there are less radical solutions. As it becomes dangerously clear that Americans—and the world—will be living with the consequences of this pivotal period for many years to come, it is imperative that we understand how we got here—and how we might forestall the next demagogue who will seek to beguile the American public.
The little understood yet great power of impeachment lodged in the Congress is dissected in this text through history by Raoul Berger, a leading scholar on the subject. He sheds new light on whether impeachment is limited to indictable crimes, on whether there is jurisdiction to impeach for misconduct outside office, and on whether impeachment must precede indictment. Berger also finds firm footing in contesting the views of one-time Judge Robert Bork and President Nixon's lawyer, James St Clair.
New technologies have always challenged the social, economic, legal, and ideological status quo. Constitutional law is no less impacted by such technologically driven transformations, as the state must formulate a legal response to new technologies and their market applications, as well as the state's own use of new technology. In particular, the development of data collection, data mining, and algorithmic analysis by public and private actors present unique challenges to public law at the doctrinal as well as the theoretical level. This collection, aimed at legal scholars and practitioners, describes the constitutional challenges created by the algorithmic society. It offers an important synthesis of the state of play in law and technology studies, addressing the challenges for fundamental rights and democracy, the role of policy and regulation, and the responsibilities of private actors. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
