Earlier and later editions available. Online 2021 7th edition available to Pritzker Legal Research Center affiliates only. Coverage of major Supreme Court decisions, this book remains a key source for students, professors, and citizens seeking balanced, up-to-date information on the Constitution, its amendments, and how they have been interpreted. A document that is well past two centuries old, the U.S. Constitution remains as relevant and important today as during the time of our country's founding.

While the United States was founded on abstract principles of certain "unalienable rights," its legal traditions are based in British common law, a fact long decried by progressive reformers. Common law, the complaint goes, ignores abstract rights principles in favor of tradition, effectively denying equality to large segments of the population. The nineteenth-century women's rights movement embraced this argument, claiming that common law rules of property and married women's status were at odds with the nation's commitment to equality. Conventional wisdom suggests that this tactic helped pave the way for voting rights and better jobs. In Constitutional Context, Kathleen S. Sullivan presents a fresh perspective. In revisiting the era’s congressional debates, state legislation, judicial opinions, news accounts, and work of political activists, Sullivan finds that the argument for universal, abstract rights was not the only, or best, path available for social change. Rather than erecting a new paradigm of absolute rights, she argues, women’s rights activists unwittingly undermined common law’s ability to redress grievances, contributing heavily to the social, cultural, and political stagnation that characterizes the place of women and the movement today. A challenging and thoughtful study of what is commonly thought of as an era of progress, Constitutional Context provides the groundwork for a more comprehensive understanding and interpretation of constitutional law.

Trace the roots of the concept of equal protection from the American Revolution and the formation of the Constitution through its application today using this collection of 177 primary documents from a variety of sources. Students can use this unique reference resource to examine the tension between the concept of equal protection and recognition of slavery in the constitutional order, to explore the devitalization and revitalization of the 14th and 15th Constitutional amendments from the era of Jim Crow through the Civil Rights movement, and to study current court rulings on equal protection of the law. Petitions, laws, court decisions, personal accounts, and a variety of other documents bring to life the experiences of African Americans in the American constitutional order. Five historical periods are explored with particular emphasis on the concept of equal protection of the law and its particular embodiment in the 14th Amendment. These include: the roots of the concept of equal protection in the Anglo-American experience, the lives of African Americans under a Constitution that incorporated equal protection yet recognized slavery, the 14th and 15th Amendments and the development of Jim Crow, 20th-century developments in the application of equal protection to race, and the accomplishments of the Civil Rights movement and developments since that time. The introductory and explanatory text helps readers understand the nature of the conflicts, the issues being litigated, and the social and cultural pressures that shaped each debate. This welcome resource will provide students with the opportunity to understand the various arguments put forth in different debates, encouraging readers to consider all sides when drawing their own conclusions.

"Hoffer offers a sweeping, dramatic narration of a crucial moment in Early American history. Over the course of five days in September 1787, five men serving on an ad hoc "Committee of Style and Arrangement" edited the draft of the federal Constitution at the Constitutional Convention, profoundly recasting the wording of the Preamble. In so doing, the committee changed a federation into a Union ..." publisher summary

In The Living Constitution, leading constitutional scholar David Strauss forcefully argues against the claims of Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, and other "originalists," explaining in clear, jargon-free English how the Constitution can sensibly evolve, without falling into the anything-goes flexibility caricatured by opponents. The living Constitution is not an out-of-touch liberal theory, Strauss further shows, but a mainstream tradition of American jurisprudence--a common-law approach to the Constitution, rooted in the written document but also based on precedent. Each generation has contributed precedents that guide and confine judicial rulings, yet allow us to meet the demands of today, not force us to follow the commands of the long-dead Founders. Strauss explores how judicial decisions adapted the Constitution's text (and contradicted original intent) to produce some of our most profound accomplishments: the end of racial segregation, the expansion of women's rights, and the freedom of speech.

From one of the nation's preeminent constitutional scholars, a sweeping rethinking of the uses of history in constitutional interpretation   Fights over history are at the heart of most important constitutional disputes in America. The Supreme Court's current embrace of originalism is only the most recent example of how lawyers and judges try to use history to establish authority for their positions. Jack M. Balkin argues that fights over constitutional interpretation are often fights over collective memory. Lawyers and judges construct--and erase--memory to lend authority to their present-day views; they make the past speak their values so they can then claim to follow it. The seemingly opposed camps of originalism and living constitutionalism are actually mirror images of a single phenomenon: how lawyers use history to adapt an ancient constitution to a constantly changing world.   Balkin shows how lawyers and judges channel history through standard forms of legal argument that shape how they use history and even what they see in history. He explains how lawyers and judges invoke history selectively to construct authority for their claims and undermine the authority of opposing views. And he elucidates the perpetual quarrel between historians and lawyers, showing how the two can best join issue in legal disputes. This book is a sweeping rethinking of the uses of history in constitutional interpretation.

"Schulhofer spells out why the Fourth Amendment's protections from unwarranted government surveillance are as important as freedom of speech when it comes to liberties essential to sustain a democratic society." --Yale Kamisar, Professor Emeritus of Law, University of Michigan

Also avialable at the Pritzker Legal Research Center
"Many have argued in recent years that the U.S. constitutional system exalts individual rights over responsibilities, virtues, and the common good. Answering the charges against liberal theories of rights, James Fleming and Linda McClain develop and defend a civic liberalism that takes responsibilities and virtues as well as rights seriously."

Copies also available at Pritzker Legal Research Center and Oak Grove Library Center.
This vivid chronicle is the first in-depth, comprehensive history of the relationship between American Indians and the Bill of Rights, tracing developments and issues from earliest times to 1991. The book begins with a thorough examination of rights and legal status as perceived by Native Americans, addressing such topics as conduct and collective rights. Then "Retained by The People" recounts the various brutal forms of colonialism forced upon indigenous nations by Europeans and Americans through 1900. The book next gives a balanced and detailed analysis of twentieth-century events that have shaped Native American rights under the United States Constitution. The author, in devoting approximately three-fourths of the book to the history of twentieth-century legal developments, explores attacks on Indian culture in the 1920s, the empowerment of tribal governments during the thirties, and federal attempts at cultural and political liquidation through the forties, fifties, and sixties. Also included are the first detailed assessment of the 1968 Indian Bill of Rights and a complete narrative of Native American efforts toward achieving limited sovereignty and unlimited rights over the past three decades. "Retained by The People" will be vital to anyone interested in Native American history, U.S. legal history, or U.S. constitutional law.

Another copy available at the Pritzker Legal Research Center
"In this provocative new account of the framing of the Constitution,David Brian Robertson observes that the Federalist Papers represented only one side in a fierce argument that was settled by compromise - in fact, multiple compromises. Drawing on numerous primary sources, Robertson unravels the highly political dynamics that shaped the document. Robertson examines each contentious debate, including arguments over the balance between the federal government and the states, slavery, war and peace, and much more."

2008, 2nd edition available Pritzker Legal Research Center.
The U.S. Constitution A to Z is an important addition to the CQ's Encyclopedia of American Government A to Z series. Maddex presents this guide to constitutional concepts and ideas in an A to Z format.

'With Liberty and Justice for All?' is designed to help teachers and students generate analysis and debate in our nation's classrooms about an aspect of US history that has produced intense disagreements about rights and wrongs: constitutional history. For more than two centuries, Americans have argued about what the US Constitution permits or requires (or not), and what values and ideals it enshrines (or not) - indeed, who is to be included (or not) in the very definition of 'We the People.' This book provides abundant resources to explore key moments of debate about the Constitution and its meaning, focusing on fundamental questions of citizenship and rights.

Women and the U.S. Constitution is about much more than the nineteenth amendment. This provocative volume incorporates law, history, political theory, and philosophy to analyze the U.S. Constitution as a whole in relation to the rights and fate of women. Divided into three parts--History, Interpretation, and Practice--this book views the Constitution as a living document, struggling to free itself from the weight of a two-hundred-year-old past and capable of evolving to include women and their concerns. Feminism lacks both a constitutional theory as well as a clearly defined theory of political legitimacy within the framework of democracy. The scholars included here take significant and crucial steps toward these theories. In addition to constitutional issues such as federalism, gender discrimination, basic rights, privacy, and abortion, Women and the U.S. Constitution explores other issues of central concern to contemporary women--areas that, strictly speaking, are not yet considered a part of constitutional law. Women's traditional labor and its unique character, and women and the welfare state, are two examples of topics treated here from the perspective of their potentially transformative role in the future development of constitutional law.

This documentary begins by introducing the Constitution and why it was created. It then examines key Constitutional concepts -- separation of powers and individual rights -- by focusing on two landmark cases: Youngstown v. Sawyer, a challenge to President Truman's decision to put the steel mills under government control, and Gideon v. Wainwright, in which the Supreme Court establishes the right to be represented by an attorney.

Tells the personal story behind one of the most important and landmark first amendment cases in U.S. history, the case that established the separation of church and state in public schools. The film recounts what plaintiff Vashti McCollum later described as 'three years of headlines, headaches, and hatred', but which eventually led to a decision that still resonates in the church-state conflicts of today-- more than 60 years after the original decision in McCollum vs. Board of Education

United States Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Stephen Breyer talk about the Constitution with high school students and discuss why we have and need a constitution, what federalism is, how implicit and explicit rights are defined and how separation of powers ensures that no one branch of government obtains too much power.

Presents the role of Charles Hamilton Houston in the cases which led to the landmark Supreme Court case of Brown vs. Board of Education. Gives a history of segregation, Jim Crow Laws, the NAACP and biographical information on persons influential in the desegregation movement.

v. 1. One nation under law: Examines the creation of the court and follows it through the brink of the Civil War, paying particular attention to the fourth chief justice of the Supreme Court - John Marshall - and to his successor, Roger Taney
v. 2. A new kind of justice: Explores the issues before the court from the aftermath of the Civil War through the 1930s. This was a period of unprecedented economic growth as the nation industrialized but was also a time of unregulated work conditions - the court found itself squarely in the middle of what was almost class warfare.
v. 3. A nation of liberties: Focuses on the court's reaction to state and federal legislation on Bill of Rights freedoms, with special attention to the explosion of civil rights cases from the early 1940s to the present.
v. 4. The Rehnquist revolution: Details the court from the election of President Richard Nixon - who appointed 4 new justices in less than two years - through to the more recent Court of today. During this period one man put his stamp on the institution and solidified and enhanced the power of the Court in the modern area.