History comes alive in this illustrated guide to the Constitution and all 27 Amendments. The Constitution has been in the news a lot recently. But most of us could probably use a refresher on this founding document of America--you can probably name the first and second amendments, but what about the 11th, or the 22nd? And what does all of that formal political language actually mean for us today? The U.S. Constitution for Everyone answers these questions and more, like: - How does impeachment work, anyway? - How long is a Senator's term? - What is covered by "freedom of speech"? - What are "emoluments"? - How exactly does a bill become a law? This book makes understanding your rights easy with clear explanations of the complete text of the U.S. Constitution, as well as all 27 Amendments, alongside fascinating historical facts and explanations. A must-read for students, curious citzens, and everyone who'd like to know more about the supreme laws of our nation.

The proper construction of the compensation clause of the Constitution has emerged as the central legal issue of the environmental revolution, as property owners have challenged a steady stream of environmental statutes that have cut deeply into traditional notions of property rights. When may they justly demand that the state compensate them for the sacrifices they are called upon to make for the common good? Ackerman argues that there is more at stake in the present wave of litigation than even the future shape of environmental law in the United States. To frame an adequate response, lawyers must come to terms with an analytic conflict that implicates the nature of modern legal thought itself. Ackerman expresses this conflict in terms of two opposed ideal types---Scientific Policymaking and Ordinary Observing---and sketches the very different way in which these competing approaches understand the compensation question. He also tries to demonstrate that the confusion of current compensation doctrine is a product of the legal profession's failure to choose between these two modes of legal analysis.He concludes by exploring the large implications of such a choice---relating the conflict between Scientific Policymaking and Ordinary Observing to fundamental issues in economic analysis, political theory, metaethics, and the philosophy of language.

Arming Americans to defend the truth from today's war on facts “In what could be the timeliest book of the year, Rauch aims to arm his readers to engage with reason in an age of illiberalism.” —Newsweek A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Disinformation. Trolling. Conspiracies. Social media pile-ons. Campus intolerance. On the surface, these recent additions to our daily vocabulary appear to have little in common. But together, they are driving an epistemic crisis: a multi-front challenge to America's ability to distinguish fact from fiction and elevate truth above falsehood. In 2016 Russian trolls and bots nearly drowned the truth in a flood of fake news and conspiracy theories, and Donald Trump and his troll armies continued to do the same. Social media companies struggled to keep up with a flood of falsehoods, and too often didn't even seem to try. Experts and some public officials began wondering if society was losing its grip on truth itself. Meanwhile, another new phenomenon appeared: “cancel culture.” At the push of a button, those armed with a cellphone could gang up by the thousands on anyone who ran afoul of their sanctimony. In this pathbreaking book, Jonathan Rauch reaches back to the parallel eighteenth-century developments of liberal democracy and science to explain what he calls the “Constitution of Knowledge”—our social system for turning disagreement into truth. By explicating the Constitution of Knowledge and probing the war on reality, Rauch arms defenders of truth with a clearer understanding of what they must protect, why they must do—and how they can do it. His book is a sweeping and readable description of how every American can help defend objective truth and free inquiry from threats as far away as Russia and as close as the cellphone.

"The late Justice Scalia relished pointing to departures from text as departures from the Constitution, but in fact his jurisprudence relied on unwritten ideas. As textualism has become more prominent with the elevation of Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court-jurists in the mold of Scalia-it is crucial to reveal the unwritten ideas that drive textualist readings of the Constitution. Our deepest debates about America's written Constitution are not about constitutional text, but about the unwritten ideas and understandings that guide our reading of text. This fact is obscured by the public understanding of textualism and originalism as put forward by its most prominent judicial advocates. The (Un)Written Constitution makes these ideas visible by turning to the practices of Supreme Court justices and political actors in interpreting the Constitution over more than two centuries. From founding debates about freedom of speech and religion to contemporary arguments about judicial review, the separation of powers, same-sex marriage, and partisan gerrymandering, this work highlights the too often unacknowledged ideas that animate our debates about the written Constitution. Contrary to textual jurists, these recurrent debates are not about whether to follow the text; they are disputes about what fidelity to the text requires. How do we weigh and balance different textual provisions and see them as part of a constitutional whole? The text does not answer such questions. This book illustrates that moving beyond the text is an inescapable feature of interpreting America's written Constitution"--

No concept sparks more controversy in constitutional debate than "original intent." Offering a legal historian's approach to the subject, this book demonstrates that the framers deliberately obscured one of their more important decisions. Joseph M. Lynch argues that the Constitution was a product of political struggles involving regional interests, economic concerns, and ideology. The framers, he maintains, settled on enigmatic wording of the Necessary and Proper Clause and of the General Welfare provision in the Spending Clause as a compromise, leaving the extent of federal power to be determined by the political process. During ratification, however, attempts by dissident framers to undo the compromise were repelled in The Federalist: charges of overly broad congressional powers were met with protestations that in fact these powers were limited. Lynch describes how early lawmakers applied the Constitution to such issues as executive power and privilege, the deportation of aliens, and the prohibition of seditious speech. He follows the disputes over the interpretation of this document--focusing on James Madison's changing views--as the new government took shape and political parties were formed. Lynch points out that the first six Congresses and President George Washington disregarded the framers' intentions when they were deemed impractical to follow. In contrast, he warns that the version of original intent put forth in recent Supreme Court opinions regarding congressional power could hinder Congress in serving the nation.

A landmark work of more than one hundred scholars, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution is a unique line-by-line analysis explaining every clause of America's founding charter and its contemporary meaning. In this fully revised second edition, leading scholars in law, history, and public policy offer more than two hundred updated and incisive essays on every clause of the Constitution. From the stirring words of the Preamble to the Twenty-seventh Amendment, you will gain new insights into the ideas that made America, important debates that continue from our Founding, and the Constitution's true meaning for our nation

This is the second edition of Professor Tushnet's short critical introduction to the history and current meaning of the United States' Constitution. It is organised around wo themes: first, the US Constitution is old, short, and difficult to amend. Second, the Constitution creates a structure of political opportunities that allows political actors, icluding political parties, to pursue the preferred policy goals even to the point of altering the very structure of politics. Deploying these themes to examine the structure f the national government, federalism, judicial review, and individual rights, the book provides basic information about, and deeper insights into, the way he US constitutional system has developed and what it means today.

Dworkin's important book is a collection of essays which discuss almost all of the great constitutional issues of the last two decades, including abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, homosexuality, pornography, and free speech. Dworkin offers a consistently liberal view of the Constitution and argues that fidelity to it and to law demands that judges make moral judgments. He proposes that we all interpret the abstract language of the Constitution by reference to moral principles about political decency and justice. His 'moral reading' therefore brings political morality into the heart of constitutional law. The various chapters of this book were first published separately; now drawn together they provide the reader with a rich, full-length treatment of Dworkin's general theory of law.

The seven formidable essays that make up this new analysis explore the Constitution and its central place in the development of the first nation to be built on the foundation of the rights of man. Of particular interest is Berns's view of minorities under the Constitution. Overall, the book will be well received by serious students of the American political experience, but others might find it difficult going.