Constitutional Theory

Though the Constitution was ratified in 1788, its impact on our lives is as recent as today's news. Informed by the latest scholarship and exploring the major themes that have shaped American constitutional history: federalism, the balance of powers, property, representation, equality, rights, and security, this book places constitutional history within the context of American political and social history. As our nation's circumstances have changed, so has our Constitution.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation's foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time.

A. C. Grayling makes the case for a clear, consistent, principled, and written constitution, and sets out the reforms necessary - among them addressing the imbalance of power between government and Parliament, imposing fixed terms for MPs, introducing proportional representation, and lowering the voting age to 16 (the age at which you can marry, gamble, join the army, and must pay taxes if you work) - to ensure the intentions of such a constitution could not be subverted or ignored.

In this engaging volume, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson argues that America's most brilliant legal minds have launched a set of cosmic constitutional theories that, for all their value, are undermining self-governance. Judge Wilkinson calls for a plainer, simpler, self-disciplined commitment to judicial restraint and democratic governance, a course that alas may be impossible so long as the cosmic constitutionalists so dominate contemporary legal thought.

From Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian Joseph J. Ellis, the unexpected story of why the thirteen colonies, having just fought off the imposition of a distant centralized governing power, would decide to subordinate themselves anew.

Do you really want the crooked baby-kissers and fake news to tell you what your rights are? Wouldn’t you rather discover them for yourself? The founders fought tirelessly to guarantee these God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But let’s face it - the Bill of Rights is hard to understand. Its text is flowery and puzzling. It’s full of legal and political jargon.

In this groundbreaking portrait of corporate seizure of political power, We the Corporations reveals how American businesses won equal rights and transformed the Constitution to serve the ends of capital. Corporations - like minorities and women - have had a civil rights movement of their own and now possess nearly all the same rights as ordinary people. Uncovering the deep historical roots of Citizens United, Adam Winkler shows how that controversial 2010 Supreme Court decision was the capstone of a 200-year battle....

All Americans, liberal or conservative, religious or not, can agree that religious freedom, anchored in conscience rights, is foundational to the US democratic experiment. But what freedom of conscience means, what its scope and limits are, according to the Constitution - these are matters for heated debate.

For the first time, a collection of dissents from the most famous Supreme Court cases. Lively and accessible, I Dissent offers a radically fresh view of the judiciary in a collection that is essential listening for anyone interested in American history.

Judicial decisions assessing the constitutional rights of students in the nation’s public schools have consistently generated bitter controversy. The Schoolhouse Gate gives a fresh, lucid, and provocative account of the historic legal battles waged over education and illuminates contemporary disputes that continue to fracture the nation.

Challenging familiar understandings of race, rights, and American law, Is Racial Equality Unconstitutional? explores how current equal-protection law renders the pursuit of racial equality constitutionally suspect.

The Federalist Papers is a series of 85 articles arguing in favor of ratification of the United States Constitution by the 13 original colonies. Federalist No. 74 discusses the powers of the president as commander-in-chief and to grant pardons and reprieves. Hamilton asserts that the role of commander-in-chief is inherent in the office itself and requires the speed and resolve of a single decision-maker.

This book explores the powers, activities, and accountability of MI5 from the end of the Second World War to 1964. It argues that MI5 acted with neither statutory authority nor statutory powers, and with no obvious forms of statutory accountability. It was established as a counter-espionage agency, yet was beset by espionage scandals on a frequency that suggested if not high levels of incompetence, then high levels of distraction and the squandering of resources.

A harsh and revealing political exposé of two beloved presidents. Judge Andrew P. Napolitano reveals how Teddy Roosevelt, a bully, and Woodrow Wilson, a constitutional scholar, each pushed aside the Constitution’s restrictions on the federal government and used it as an instrument to redistribute wealth, regulate personal behavior, and enrich the government. Theodore and Woodrow exposes two of our nation’s most beloved presidents and how they helped speed the Progressive cause on its merry way.

On December 4, 1865, members of the 39th United States Congress walked into the Capitol Building to begin their first session after the end of the Civil War. They understood their responsibility to put the nation back on the path established by the American Founding Fathers. Author Forrest A. Nabors shows that the ultimate goal of the Republican Party, the war, and Reconstruction was the same. This goal was to preserve and advance republicanism as the American founders understood it, against its natural, existential enemy: oligarchy.