The Bill of Rights: Creation and ReconstructionAre the deep insights of Hugo Black, William Brennan, and Felix Frankfurter that have defined our cherished Bill of Rights fatally flawed? With meticulous historical scholarship and elegant legal interpretation a leading scholar of Constitutional law boldly answers yes as he explodes conventional wisdom about the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution in this incisive new account of our most basic charter of liberty. Akhil Reed Amar brilliantly illuminates in rich detail not simply the text, structure, and history of individual clauses of the 1789 Bill, but their intended relationships to each other and to other constitutional provisions. Amar's corrective does not end there, however, for as his powerful narrative proves, a later generation of antislavery activists profoundly changed the meaning of the Bill in the Reconstruction era. With the Fourteenth Amendment, Americans underwent a new birth of freedom that transformed the old Bill of Rights. We have as a result a complex historical document originally designed to protect the people against self-interested government and revised by the Fourteenth Amendment to guard minority against majority. In our continuing battles over freedom of religion and expression, arms bearing, privacy, states' rights, and popular sovereignty, Amar concludes, we must hearken to both the Founding Fathers who created the Bill and their sons and daughters who reconstructed it. Amar's landmark work invites citizens to a deeper understanding of their Bill of Rights and will set the basic terms of debate about it for modern lawyers, jurists, and historians for years to come. |
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Page xii
... language of rights ; states ' rights and majority rights alongside individual and minor- ity rights ; and protection of various intermediate associations - church , militia , and jury —- designed to create an educated and virtuous elec ...
... language of rights ; states ' rights and majority rights alongside individual and minor- ity rights ; and protection of various intermediate associations - church , militia , and jury —- designed to create an educated and virtuous elec ...
Page xiv
... language and history of the privileges - or- immunities clause . ) Certain alloyed provisions of the original Bill — part citizen right , part state right - may need to undergo refinement and fil- tration before their citizen - right ...
... language and history of the privileges - or- immunities clause . ) Certain alloyed provisions of the original Bill — part citizen right , part state right - may need to undergo refinement and fil- tration before their citizen - right ...
Page 12
... language that I can conceive . . . . " The number shall not exceed one for every thirty thou- sand . ' This may be satisfied by one representative from each state . Let our numbers be ever so great , this immense continent may , by this ...
... language that I can conceive . . . . " The number shall not exceed one for every thirty thou- sand . ' This may be satisfied by one representative from each state . Let our numbers be ever so great , this immense continent may , by this ...
Page 28
... language of " the right of the people to assemble " simply made explicit at the end of the Consti- tution what Pendleton and others already saw as implicit in its opening . ( Many other provisions of the Bill of Rights were also ...
... language of " the right of the people to assemble " simply made explicit at the end of the Consti- tution what Pendleton and others already saw as implicit in its opening . ( Many other provisions of the Bill of Rights were also ...
Page 30
... language — a right of “ every freeman , ” “ every person , ” or " every man . " 54 Under these formulations , petition appeared less a polit- ical than a civil right , akin to the right to sue in court and receive due process . 55 The ...
... language — a right of “ every freeman , ” “ every person , ” or " every man . " 54 Under these formulations , petition appeared less a polit- ical than a civil right , akin to the right to sue in court and receive due process . 55 The ...
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Common terms and phrases
1st Sess 39th Cong Akhil Reed Amar Amendment's American antebellum argument Article Barron bear arms Bill of Rights Black Blackstone civil juries Civil Rights common law congressional CONST criminal Declaration of Rights declaratory dissenting Dred Scott due process DUMBAULD ELLIOT'S DEBATES emphasis added establishment clause explicitly Fairman federal Bill Federalist Fifth Amendment Fourteenth Amendment Fourth Amendment freedom of speech fundamental GLOBE grand jury Harlan immunities of citizens incorporation issue Jacob Howard James Madison Jefferson John Bingham judges judicial jurors jury trial Justice keep and bear language legislative legislature liberty ment militia note 9 original Bill original Constitution persons petition phrase privileges and immunities protect provisions ratifying convention reading Reconstruction religion religious remarks of Rep reprinted Republican Second Amendment Seventh Amendment structural supra Chapter supra note Supreme Court Tenth Amendment textual tion United Virginia William words YALE L. J.