Federalists In Dissent

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Federalists in Dissent

Author : Linda K. Kerber
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501731505
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis Federalists in Dissent by : Linda K. Kerber

Download or read book Federalists in Dissent written by Linda K. Kerber and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-06 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Federalists of Jefferson's time have been described by historians as complainers and obstructionists. A very different picture evolves from this book, which the author calls "a reconsideration of American political conversation in the early national reriod." Mrs. Kerber shows that the rift between Federalists and Jeffersonians was caused by differences in ideology. The Federalists, according to the author, feared that an ordered world was disintegrating and that the sources of stability were being undermined by Jeffersonian concepts of science and education, of law and democracy, and by social arrangements founded on slavery. The book demonstrates how the rolitical differences of the two groups were reflected in all cultural forms and issues. By a skillful use of quotations from varied sources—newspapers, letters, literary works, congressional debates—Mrs. Kerber lets her rrotagonists speak for themselves. The work has current significance because Federalist beliefs emphasized the rrecariousness of popular democracy and the difficulty of maintaining a stable social order-both widesrread concerns of Americans today.

The Other Founders

Author : Saul Cornell
Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 0807839213
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis The Other Founders by : Saul Cornell

Download or read book The Other Founders written by Saul Cornell and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2012-12-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fear of centralized authority is deeply rooted in American history. The struggle over the U.S. Constitution in 1788 pitted the Federalists, supporters of a stronger central government, against the Anti-Federalists, the champions of a more localist vision of politics. But, argues Saul Cornell, while the Federalists may have won the battle over ratification, it is the ideas of the Anti-Federalists that continue to define the soul of American politics. While no Anti-Federalist party emerged after ratification, Anti-Federalism continued to help define the limits of legitimate dissent within the American constitutional tradition for decades. Anti-Federalist ideas also exerted an important influence on Jeffersonianism and Jacksonianism. Exploring the full range of Anti-Federalist thought, Cornell illustrates its continuing relevance in the politics of the early Republic. A new look at the Anti-Federalists is particularly timely given the recent revival of interest in this once neglected group, notes Cornell. Now widely reprinted, Anti-Federalist writings are increasingly quoted by legal scholars and cited in Supreme Court decisions--clear proof that their authors are now counted among the ranks of America's founders.

An Anti-Federalist Constitution

Author : Michael J. Faber
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
ISBN 13 : 0700634177
Total Pages : 504 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis An Anti-Federalist Constitution by : Michael J. Faber

Download or read book An Anti-Federalist Constitution written by Michael J. Faber and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2022-10-04 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What would an Anti-Federalist Constitution look like? Because we view the Constitution through the lens of the Federalists who came to control the narrative, we tend to forget those who opposed its ratification. And yet the Anti-Federalist arguments, so critical to an understanding of the Constitution’s origins and meaning, resonate throughout American history. By reconstructing these arguments and tracing their development through the ratification debates, Michael J. Faber presents an alternative perspective on constitutional history. Telling, in a sense, the other side of the story of the Constitution, his book offers key insights into the ideas that helped to form the nation’s founding document and that continue to inform American politics and public life. Faber identifies three distinct strands of political thought that eventually came together in a clear and coherent Anti-Federalism position: (1) the individual and the potential for governmental tyranny; (2) power, specifically the states as defenders of the people; and (3) democratic principles and popular sovereignty. After clarifying and elaborating these separate strands of thought and analyzing a well-known proponent of each, Faber goes on to tell the story of the resistance to the Constitution, focusing on ideas but also following and explaining events and strategies. Finally, he produces a “counterfactual” Anti-Federalist Constitution, summing up the Anti-Federalist position as it might have emerged had the opposition drafted the document. How would such a constitution have worked in practice? A close consideration reveals the legacy of the Anti-Federalists in early American history, in the US Constitution and its role in the nation’s political life.

Criminal Dissent

Author : Wendell Bird
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674976134
Total Pages : 561 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (749 download)

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Book Synopsis Criminal Dissent by : Wendell Bird

Download or read book Criminal Dissent written by Wendell Bird and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The prosecution of dissent under the Alien and Sedition Acts affected far more people than previously realized. It also provoked the first battle over the Bill of Rights. Wendell Bird provides the definitive account of a dark moment in U.S. history, reminding us that expressive freedom and opposition politics are essential to a stable democracy.

The Anti-federalists and Early American Political Thought

Author : Christopher M. Duncan
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780875801896
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (18 download)

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Book Synopsis The Anti-federalists and Early American Political Thought by : Christopher M. Duncan

Download or read book The Anti-federalists and Early American Political Thought written by Christopher M. Duncan and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book presents the "forgotten" thought of the Anti-Federalists as an important alternative to the Federalist tradition in American political history. In tracing Anti-Federalist concepts from their origins in prerevolutionary Congregationalist theology through to the writing of the U.S. Constitution, Duncan shows that Anti-Federalist theory underscores the religious, localist, and communitarian origins of the American political tradition. He argues that the Anti-Federalists were indeed the true representatives of the American Revolution and the political arrangements that resulted from it - men of a localist, communitarian faith in which political participation is an end in itself rather than a means to other objectives. As such, he concludes, the course bolstered by the Anti-Federalists represents a viable "road not taken" in America's national heritage." "Duncan challenges the dominant view among scholars of the American Anti-Federalists and counters the impression that the Anti-Federalists were liberals whose fear of government and power left them unable to articulate and to construct a lasting political association. Duncan shows that the Anti-Federalists engaged in a rigorous defense of republican political community and its associate ideal of public happiness, in contrast to the liberal ideal of private happiness expressed by their Federalist counterparts." "The Anti-Federalists and Early American Political Thought offers insights into a tradition of American political discourse that is relevant to contemporary arguments within political theory. The book will be of interest to students of political philosophy, American government and politics, and early American history."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Man of the People

Author : Nathaniel C. Green
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
ISBN 13 : 0700629955
Total Pages : 408 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis The Man of the People by : Nathaniel C. Green

Download or read book The Man of the People written by Nathaniel C. Green and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2020-10-23 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Donald Trump’s election has forced the United States to reckon with not only the political power of the presidency, but also how he and his supporters have used the office to advance their shared vision of America: one that is avowedly nationalist, and unrepentantly rooted in nativism and white supremacy. It might be easy to attribute this dark vision, and the presidency’s immense power to reflect and reinforce it, to the singular character of one particular president—but to do so, this book tells us, would be to ignore the critical role the American public played in making the president “the man of the people” in the nation’s earliest decades. Beginning with the public debate over whether to ratify the Constitution in 1787 and concluding with Andrew Jackson’s own contentious presidency, Nathaniel C. Green traces the origins of our conception of the president as the ultimate American: the exemplar of our collective national values, morals, and “character.” The public divisiveness over the presidency in these earliest years, he contends, forged the office into an incomparable symbol of an emerging American nationalism that cast white Americans as dissenters—lovers of liberty who were willing to mobilize against tyranny in all its forms, from foreign governments to black “enemies” and Indian “savages”—even as it fomented partisan division that belied the promise of unity the presidency symbolized. With testimony from private letters, diaries, newspapers, and bills, Green documents the shaping of the disturbingly nationalistic vision that has given the presidency its symbolic power. This argument is about a different time than our own. And yet it shows how this time, so often revered as a mythic “founding era” from which America has precipitously declined, was in fact the birthplace of the president-centered nationalism that still defines the contours of politics to this day. The lessons of The Man of the People contextualize the political turmoil surrounding the presidency today. Never in modern US history have those lessons been more badly needed.

Criminal Dissent

Author : Wendell Bird
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674243889
Total Pages : 561 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

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Book Synopsis Criminal Dissent by : Wendell Bird

Download or read book Criminal Dissent written by Wendell Bird and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first complete account of prosecutions under the Alien and Sedition Acts, dozens of previously unknown cases come to light, revealing the lengths to which the John Adams administration went in order to criminalize dissent. The campaign to prosecute dissenting Americans under the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 ignited the first battle over the Bill of Rights. Fearing destructive criticism and “domestic treachery” by Republicans, the administration of John Adams led a determined effort to safeguard the young republic by suppressing the opposition. The acts gave the president unlimited discretion to deport noncitizens and made it a crime to criticize the president, Congress, or the federal government. In this definitive account, Wendell Bird goes back to the original federal court records and the papers of Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and finds that the administration’s zeal was far greater than historians have recognized. Indeed, there were twice as many prosecutions and planned deportations as previously believed. The government went after local politicians, raisers of liberty poles, and even tavern drunks but most often targeted Republican newspaper editors, including Benjamin Franklin’s grandson. Those found guilty were sent to prison or fined and sometimes forced to sell their property to survive. The Federalists’ support of laws to prosecute political opponents and opposition newspapers ultimately contributed to the collapse of the party and left a large stain on their record. The Alien and Sedition Acts launched a foundational debate on press freedom, freedom of speech, and the legitimacy of opposition politics. The result was widespread revulsion over the government’s attempt to deprive Americans of their hard-won liberties. Criminal Dissent is a potent reminder of just how fundamental those rights are to a stable democracy.

What the Anti-Federalists Were For

Author : Herbert J. Storing
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226775801
Total Pages : 121 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (267 download)

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Book Synopsis What the Anti-Federalists Were For by : Herbert J. Storing

Download or read book What the Anti-Federalists Were For written by Herbert J. Storing and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-12-02 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Anti-Federalists, in Herbert J. Storing's view, are somewhat paradoxically entitled to be counted among the Founding Fathers and to share in the honor and study devoted to the founding. "If the foundations of the American polity was laid by the Federalists," he writes, "the Anti-Federalist reservations echo through American history; and it is in the dialogue, not merely in the Federalist victory, that the country's principles are to be discovered." It was largely through their efforts, he reminds us, that the Constitution was so quickly amended to include a bill of rights. Storing here offers a brilliant introduction to the thought and principles of the Anti-Federalists as they were understood by themselves and by other men and women of their time. His comprehensive exposition restores to our understanding the Anti-Federalist share in the founding its effect on some of the enduring themes and tensions of American political life. The concern with big government and infringement of personal liberty one finds in the writings of these neglected Founders strikes a remarkably timely note.

Friends of the Constitution

Author : Colleen A. Sheehan
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 412 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (48 download)

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Book Synopsis Friends of the Constitution by : Colleen A. Sheehan

Download or read book Friends of the Constitution written by Colleen A. Sheehan and published by . This book was released on 1835 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There were many writers other than John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton who, in 1787 and 1788, argued for the Constitution's ratification. In a collection central to our understanding of the American founding, Friends of the Constitution brings together forty-nine of the most important of these "other" Federalists' writings. Colleen A. Sheehan is Professor of Political Science at Villanova University. Gary L. McDowell is the Tyler Haynes Interdisciplinary Professor of Leadership Studies, Political Science, and Law at the University of Richmond in Virginia. From 1992 to 2003 he was the Director of the Institute of United States Studies in the University of London.

Government by Dissent

Author : Robert W.T. Martin
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 0814745423
Total Pages : 275 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (147 download)

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Book Synopsis Government by Dissent by : Robert W.T. Martin

Download or read book Government by Dissent written by Robert W.T. Martin and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2013-07-01 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The most thorough examination we have of how early Americans wrestled with what types of political dissent should be permitted, even promoted, in the new republic they were forming. Martin shows the modern relevance of their debates in ways that all will find valuable—even those who dissent from his views!"—Rogers M. Smith, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania Democracy is the rule of the people. But what exactly does it mean for a people to rule? Which practices and behaviors are legitimate, and which are democratically suspect? We generally think of democracy as government by consent; a government of, by, and for the people. This has been true from Locke through Lincoln to the present day. Yet in understandably stressing the importance—indeed, the monumental achievement—of popular consent, we commonly downplay or even denigrate the role of dissent in democratic governments. But in Government by Dissent, Robert W.T. Martin explores the idea that the people most important in a flourishing democracy are those who challenge the status quo. The American political radicals of the 1790s understood, articulated, and defended the crucial necessity of dissent to democracy. By returning to their struggles, successes, and setbacks, and analyzing their imaginative arguments, Martin recovers a more robust approach to popular politics, one centered on the ever-present need to challenge the status quo and the powerful institutions that both support it and profit from it. Dissent has rarely been the mainstream of democratic politics. But the figures explored here—forgotten farmers as well as revered framers—understood that dissent is always the essential undercurrent of democracy and is often the critical crosscurrent. Only by returning to their political insights can we hope to reinvigorate our own popular politics.

New England Federalists

Author : Dinah Mayo-Bobee
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781611479874
Total Pages : 254 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (798 download)

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Book Synopsis New England Federalists by : Dinah Mayo-Bobee

Download or read book New England Federalists written by Dinah Mayo-Bobee and published by . This book was released on 2018-09-14 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, which deals with controversies in U.S. politics after 1805, engages readers in the congressional debates, statutes, diplomatic correspondence, and mariner experiences that rejuvenated a dying party, deepened sectional divisions, and precipitated discussions of New England secession.

Our Sister Republics: The United States in an Age of American Revolutions

Author : Caitlin Fitz
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0871407655
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (714 download)

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Book Synopsis Our Sister Republics: The United States in an Age of American Revolutions by : Caitlin Fitz

Download or read book Our Sister Republics: The United States in an Age of American Revolutions written by Caitlin Fitz and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-07-05 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major new interpretation recasts U.S. history between revolution and civil war, exposing a dramatic reversal in sympathy toward Latin American revolutions. In the early nineteenth century, the United States turned its idealistic gaze southward, imagining a legacy of revolution and republicanism it hoped would dominate the American hemisphere. From pulsing port cities to Midwestern farms and southern plantations, an adolescent nation hailed Latin America’s independence movements as glorious tropical reprises of 1776. Even as Latin Americans were gradually ending slavery, U.S. observers remained energized by the belief that their founding ideals were triumphing over European tyranny among their “sister republics.” But as slavery became a violently divisive issue at home, goodwill toward antislavery revolutionaries waned. By the nation’s fiftieth anniversary, republican efforts abroad had become a scaffold upon which many in the United States erected an ideology of white U.S. exceptionalism that would haunt the geopolitical landscape for generations. Marshaling groundbreaking research in four languages, Caitlin Fitz defines this hugely significant, previously unacknowledged turning point in U.S. history.

Press and Speech Under Assault

Author : Wendell Bird
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190461624
Total Pages : 565 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (94 download)

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Book Synopsis Press and Speech Under Assault by : Wendell Bird

Download or read book Press and Speech Under Assault written by Wendell Bird and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on author's thesis (doctoral - Oxford University, 2012) issued under title: Freedoms of press and speech in the first decade of the U.S. Supreme Court.

A Magnificent Catastrophe

Author : Edward J. Larson
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1416568409
Total Pages : 355 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (165 download)

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Book Synopsis A Magnificent Catastrophe by : Edward J. Larson

Download or read book A Magnificent Catastrophe written by Edward J. Larson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-09-18 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title "They could write like angels and scheme like demons." So begins Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward Larson's masterful account of the wild ride that was the 1800 presidential election—an election so convulsive and so momentous to the future of American democracy that Thomas Jefferson would later dub it "America's second revolution." This was America's first true presidential campaign, giving birth to our two-party system and indelibly etching the lines of partisanship that have so profoundly shaped American politics ever since. The contest featured two of our most beloved Founding Fathers, once warm friends, facing off as the heads of their two still-forming parties—the hot-tempered but sharp-minded John Adams, and the eloquent yet enigmatic Thomas Jefferson—flanked by the brilliant tacticians Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, who later settled their own differences in a duel. The country was descending into turmoil, reeling from the terrors of the French Revolution, and on the brink of war with France. Blistering accusations flew as our young nation was torn apart along party lines: Adams and his elitist Federalists would squelch liberty and impose a British-style monarchy; Jefferson and his radically democratizing Republicans would throw the country into chaos and debase the role of religion in American life. The stakes could not have been higher. As the competition heated up, other founders joined the fray—James Madison, John Jay, James Monroe, Gouverneur Morris, George Clinton, John Marshall, Horatio Gates, and even George Washington—some of them emerging from retirement to respond to the political crisis gripping the nation and threatening its future. Drawing on unprecedented, meticulous research of the day-to-day unfolding drama, from diaries and letters of the principal players as well as accounts in the fast-evolving partisan press, Larson vividly re-creates the mounting tension as one state after another voted and the press had the lead passing back and forth. The outcome remained shrouded in doubt long after the voting ended, and as Inauguration Day approached, Congress met in closed session to resolve the crisis. In its first great electoral challenge, our fragile experiment in constitutional democracy hung in the balance. A Magnificent Catastrophe is history writing at its evocative best: the riveting story of the last great contest of the founding period.

I Dissent

Author : Mark Tushnet
Publisher : Beacon Press
ISBN 13 : 9780807000366
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (3 download)

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Book Synopsis I Dissent by : Mark Tushnet

Download or read book I Dissent written by Mark Tushnet and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2008-06-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time, a collection of dissents from the most famous Supreme Court cases If American history can truly be traced through the majority decisions in landmark Supreme Court cases, then what about the dissenting opinions? In issues of race, gender, privacy, workers' rights, and more, would advances have been impeded or failures rectified if the dissenting opinions were in fact the majority opinions? In offering thirteen famous dissents-from Marbury v. Madison and Brown v. Board of Education to Griswold v. Connecticut and Lawrence v. Texas, each edited with the judges' eloquence preserved-renowned Supreme Court scholar Mark Tushnet reminds us that court decisions are not pronouncements issued by the utterly objective, they are in fact political statements from highly intelligent but partisan people. Tushnet introduces readers to the very concept of dissent in the courts and then provides useful context for each case, filling in gaps in the Court's history and providing an overview of the issues at stake. After each case, he considers the impact the dissenting opinion would have had, if it had been the majority decision. Lively and accessible, I Dissent offers a radically fresh view of the judiciary in a collection that is essential reading for anyone interested in American history.

The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798

Author : Terri Diane Halperin
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 142141970X
Total Pages : 227 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (214 download)

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Book Synopsis The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 by : Terri Diane Halperin

Download or read book The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 written by Terri Diane Halperin and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2016-06-15 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happens to democracy when dissent is treated as treason? In May 1798, after Congress released the XYZ Affair dispatches to the public, a raucous crowd took to the streets of Philadelphia. Some gathered to pledge their support for the government of President John Adams, others to express their disdain for his policies. Violence, both physical and political, threatened the safety of the city and the Union itself. To combat the chaos and protect the nation from both external and internal threats, the Federalists swiftly enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts. Oppressive pieces of legislation aimed at separating so-called genuine patriots from objects of suspicion, these acts sought to restrict political speech, whether spoken or written, soberly planned or drunkenly off-the-cuff. Little more than twenty years after Americans declared independence and less than ten since they ratified both a new constitution and a bill of rights, the acts gravely limited some of the very rights those bold documents had promised to protect. In The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, Terri Diane Halperin discusses the passage of these laws and the furor over them, as well as the difficulties of enforcement. She describes in vivid detail the heated debates and tempestuous altercations that erupted between partisan opponents: one man pulled a gun on a supporter of the act in a churchyard; congressmen were threatened with arrest for expressing their opinions; and printers were viciously beaten for distributing suspect material. She also introduces readers to the fraught political divisions of the late 1790s, explores the effect of immigration on the new republic, and reveals the dangers of partisan excess throughout history. Touching on the major sedition trials while expanding the discussion beyond the usual focus on freedom of speech and the press to include the treatment of immigrants, Halperin’s book provides a window through which readers can explore the meaning of freedom of speech, immigration, citizenship, the public sphere, the Constitution, and the Union.

The Essential Debate on the Constitution

Author : Bernard Bailyn
Publisher : Library of America
ISBN 13 : 1598535870
Total Pages : 500 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (985 download)

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Book Synopsis The Essential Debate on the Constitution by : Bernard Bailyn

Download or read book The Essential Debate on the Constitution written by Bernard Bailyn and published by Library of America. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Return to the nation's founding to rediscover the dramatic original debates--on presidential power, religious liberty, foreign corruption, and more--that still shape our world today When the Constitutional Convention adjourned on September 17, 1787, few Americans anticipated the document that emerged from its secret proceedings. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and the other framers had fashioned something radically new, a strong national government with broad powers. A fierce storm of argument soon broke out in advance of the state ratifying conventions that would decide the new plan's fate as Federalist supporters, Antifederalist opponents, and seekers of a middle ground praised, condemned, challenged, and analyzed the new Constitution. Here, in chronological order, are more than sixty newspaper articles, pamphlets, speeches, and private letters written or delivered during this ratification debate. Along with familiar figures such as Madison, Hamilton, and Patrick Henry, are dozens of lesser-known but equally engaged and passionate participants. The most famous writings of the period--especially the key Federalist essays--are placed in context alongside the arguments of insightful Antifederalists such as "Brutus" and the "Federal Farmer." Crucial issues quickly take center stage--the need for a Bill of Rights, the controversial compromises over slavery and the slave trade, whether religious tests should be imposed--and on questions that continue to engage and divide Americans: the relationship between the national government and the states, the dangers of unchecked presidential power and the remedy of impeachment, the proper role of the Supreme Court, fears of foreign and domestic corruption, and the persistent challenge of making representative government work in a large and diverse nation.