Read Books Online and Download eBooks, EPub, PDF, Mobi, Kindle, Text Full Free.
Interpreting State Constitutions
Download Interpreting State Constitutions full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online Interpreting State Constitutions ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!
Book Synopsis Interpreting State Constitutions by : James A. Gardner
Download or read book Interpreting State Constitutions written by James A. Gardner and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interpreting State Constitutions examines and proposes a solution to a problem central to contemporary debates over the enforcement of civil liberties: how courts, government officials, and lawyers should go about interpreting the constitutions of the American states. With the Supreme Court's retreat from the aggressive protection of individual rights, state courts have begun to interpret state constitutions to provide broader protection of liberties. This development has reversed the polarity of constitutional politics, as liberals advocate unimpeded state power while conservatives lobby for state subordination to a constitutional law controlled centrally by the Supreme Court. James A. Gardner here lays out the first fully developed theory of subnational constitutional interpretation. He argues that states are integral components of a national system of overlapping and mutually checking authority and that the purpose of this system is to protect liberty and defend against federal domination. The resulting account provides valuable prescriptive advice to state courts, showing them how to fulfill their responsibilities to the federal system in a way that strengthens American constitutional discourse.
Book Synopsis Understanding State Constitutions by : G. Alan Tarr
Download or read book Understanding State Constitutions written by G. Alan Tarr and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2000-09-25 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The distinctiveness of state constitutionalism -- Explaining state constitutional development -- Eighteenth-century state constitutionalism -- Nineteenth-century state constitutionalism -- Twentieth-century state constitutionalism -- State constitutional interpretation.
Book Synopsis 51 Imperfect Solutions by : Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton
Download or read book 51 Imperfect Solutions written by Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-07 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When we think of constitutional law, we invariably think of the United States Supreme Court and the federal court system. Yet much of our constitutional law is not made at the federal level. In 51 Imperfect Solutions, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton argues that American Constitutional Law should account for the role of the state courts and state constitutions, together with the federal courts and the federal constitution, in protecting individual liberties. The book tells four stories that arise in four different areas of constitutional law: equal protection; criminal procedure; privacy; and free speech and free exercise of religion. Traditional accounts of these bedrock debates about the relationship of the individual to the state focus on decisions of the United States Supreme Court. But these explanations tell just part of the story. The book corrects this omission by looking at each issue-and some others as well-through the lens of many constitutions, not one constitution; of many courts, not one court; and of all American judges, not federal or state judges. Taken together, the stories reveal a remarkably complex, nuanced, ever-changing federalist system, one that ought to make lawyers and litigants pause before reflexively assuming that the United States Supreme Court alone has all of the answers to the most vexing constitutional questions. If there is a central conviction of the book, it's that an underappreciation of state constitutional law has hurt state and federal law and has undermined the appropriate balance between state and federal courts in protecting individual liberty. In trying to correct this imbalance, the book also offers several ideas for reform.
Book Synopsis Interpreting Constitutions by : Jeffrey Denys Goldsworthy
Download or read book Interpreting Constitutions written by Jeffrey Denys Goldsworthy and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-02-09 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes the constitutions of six major federations and how they have been interpreted by their highest courts, compares the interpretive methods and underlying principles that have guided the courts, and explores the reasons for major differences between these methods and principles. Among the interpretive methods discussed are textualism, purposivism, structuralism and originalism. Each of the six federations is the subject of a separate chapter written by a leading authority in the field: Jeffrey Goldsworthy (Australia), Peter Hogg (Canada), Donald Kommers (Germany), S.P. Sathe (India), Heinz Klug (South Africa), and Mark Tushnet (United States). Each chapter describes not only the interpretive methodology currently used by the courts, but the evolution of that methodology since the constitution was first enacted. The book also includes a concluding chapter which compares these methodologies, and attempts to explain variations by reference to different social, historical, institutional and political circumstances.
Book Synopsis The Federalist Papers by : Alexander Hamilton
Download or read book The Federalist Papers written by Alexander Hamilton and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2018-08-20 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Classic Books Library presents this brand new edition of “The Federalist Papers”, a collection of separate essays and articles compiled in 1788 by Alexander Hamilton. Following the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776, the governing doctrines and policies of the States lacked cohesion. “The Federalist”, as it was previously known, was constructed by American statesman Alexander Hamilton, and was intended to catalyse the ratification of the United States Constitution. Hamilton recruited fellow statesmen James Madison Jr., and John Jay to write papers for the compendium, and the three are known as some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804) was an American lawyer, journalist and highly influential government official. He also served as a Senior Officer in the Army between 1799-1800 and founded the Federalist Party, the system that governed the nation’s finances. His contributions to the Constitution and leadership made a significant and lasting impact on the early development of the nation of the United States.
Book Synopsis Keeping Faith with the Constitution by : Goodwin Liu
Download or read book Keeping Faith with the Constitution written by Goodwin Liu and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-08-05 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chief Justice John Marshall argued that a constitution "requires that only its great outlines should be marked [and] its important objects designated." Ours is "intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs." In recent years, Marshall's great truths have been challenged by proponents of originalism and strict construction. Such legal thinkers as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia argue that the Constitution must be construed and applied as it was when the Framers wrote it. In Keeping Faith with the Constitution, three legal authorities make the case for Marshall's vision. They describe their approach as "constitutional fidelity"--not to how the Framers would have applied the Constitution, but to the text and principles of the Constitution itself. The original understanding of the text is one source of interpretation, but not the only one; to preserve the meaning and authority of the document, to keep it vital, applications of the Constitution must be shaped by precedent, historical experience, practical consequence, and societal change. The authors range across the history of constitutional interpretation to show how this approach has been the source of our greatest advances, from Brown v. Board of Education to the New Deal, from the Miranda decision to the expansion of women's rights. They delve into the complexities of voting rights, the malapportionment of legislative districts, speech freedoms, civil liberties and the War on Terror, and the evolution of checks and balances. The Constitution's framers could never have imagined DNA, global warming, or even women's equality. Yet these and many more realities shape our lives and outlook. Our Constitution will remain vital into our changing future, the authors write, if judges remain true to this rich tradition of adaptation and fidelity.
Book Synopsis An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States by : Charles A. Beard
Download or read book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States written by Charles A. Beard and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-03-08 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This classic study — one of the most influential in the area of American economic history — questioned the founding fathers' motivations and prompted new perceptions of the supreme law of the land.
Book Synopsis State Constitutional Law by : Randy James Holland
Download or read book State Constitutional Law written by Randy James Holland and published by Ingram. This book was released on 2015-12-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this, the second edition of State Constitutional Law: The Modern Experience, the authors present cases, scholarly writings, and other materials about our ever-evolving, ever-more-relevant state charters of government. The casebook starts by placing state constitutions in context--in the context of a federal system that leaves some powers exclusively with the States, delegates some powers exclusively to the Federal Government, and permits overlapping authority by both sovereigns in many areas. The resulting combination of state and federal charters--what might be called American Constitutional Law--presents fruitful opportunities for give and take, for exporting and importing constitutional tools and insights between and among the different sovereigns. The casebook often addresses the point by explaining how the U.S. Constitution deals with an issue before discussing how the state constitutions handle an identical or similar issue. At other times, the casebook explains and illustrates how the state constitutions contain provisions that have no parallel in the U.S. Constitution. A central theme of the book, explored in the context of a variety of constitutional guarantees, is that state constitutions provide a rich source of rights independent of the federal constitution. Considerable space is devoted to the reasons why a state court might construe the liberty and property rights found in their constitutions, to use two prominent examples, more broadly than comparable rights found in the U.S. Constitution. Among the reasons considered are: differences in the text between the state and federal constitutional provisions, the smaller scope of the state courts'' jurisdiction, state constitutional history, unique state traditions and customs, and disagreement with the U.S. Supreme Court''s interpretation of similar language. State constitutional law, like its federal counterpart, is not confined to individual rights. The casebook also explores the organization and structure of state and local governments, the method of choosing state judges, the many executive-branch powers found in state constitutions but not in their federal counterpart, the ease with which most state constitutions can be amended, and other topics, such as taxation, public finance and school funding. The casebook is not parochial. It looks at these issues through the lens of important state court decisions from nearly every one of our 50 States. In that sense, it is designed for a survey course, one that does not purport to cover any one State''s constitution in detail but that considers the kinds of provisions found in many state charters. Like a traditional contracts, real property or torts textbook, the casebook uses the most interesting state court decisions from around the country to illustrate the astonishing array of state constitutional issues at play in American Constitutional Law. It is difficult to overstate the growing significance of state constitutional law. Many of the ground-breaking constitutional debates of the day are being aired in the state courts under their own constitutions--often as a prelude to debates about whether to nationalize this or that right under the National Constitution. To use the most salient example, it is doubtful that there would have been a national right to marriage equality in 2015, see Obergefell v. Hodges, without the establishment of a Massachusetts right to marry in 2003, see Goodridge v. Department of Public Health. In other areas of constitutional litigation--gun rights, capital punishment, property rights, school funding, free exercise claims, to name but a few--state courts often are the key innovators as well, relying on their own constitutions to address individual rights and structural debates of the twenty-first century. The mission of the casebook is to introduce students to this increasingly significant body of American law and to prepare them to practice effectively in it.
Book Synopsis The Law of American State Constitutions by : Robert Williams
Download or read book The Law of American State Constitutions written by Robert Williams and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-10-22 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Law of American State Constitutions provides complete coverage of the legal doctrines surrounding, applying to, and arising from American state constitutions and their judicial interpretation. Using specific examples, Professor Williams provides legal analysis of the nature and function of state constitutions by contrast to the federal Constitution, including rights, separation of powers, policy-based provisions, the judicial interpretation issues that arise under state constitutions and the processes for their amendment and revision. Reference is made to history and political theory, but legal analysis is the primary focus. The Law of American State Constitutions provides an important analytical tool that explains the unique character and the range of judicial interpretation of these constitutions, together with the specialized techniques of argument and interpretation surrounding state constitutions. This is the first book to present a complete picture of the current body of state constitutional law and its judicial interpretation.
Book Synopsis On Reading the Constitution by : Laurence H. TRIBE
Download or read book On Reading the Constitution written by Laurence H. TRIBE and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our Constitution speaks in general terms of liberty and property, of the privileges and immunities of citizens, and of the equal protection of the laws--open-ended phrases that seem to invite readers to reflect in them their own visions and agendas. Yet, recognizing that the Constitution cannot be merely what its interpreters wish it to be, this volume's authors draw on literary and mathematical analogies to explore how the fundamental charter of American government should be construed today.
Book Synopsis Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places by : Emily Zackin
Download or read book Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places written by Emily Zackin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-21 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike many national constitutions, which contain explicit positive rights to such things as education, a living wage, and a healthful environment, the U.S. Bill of Rights appears to contain only a long list of prohibitions on government. American constitutional rights, we are often told, protect people only from an overbearing government, but give no explicit guarantees of governmental help. Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places argues that we have fundamentally misunderstood the American rights tradition. The United States actually has a long history of enshrining positive rights in its constitutional law, but these rights have been overlooked simply because they are not in the federal Constitution. Emily Zackin shows how they instead have been included in America's state constitutions, in large part because state governments, not the federal government, have long been primarily responsible for crafting American social policy. Although state constitutions, seemingly mired in trivial detail, can look like pale imitations of their federal counterpart, they have been sites of serious debate, reflect national concerns, and enshrine choices about fundamental values. Zackin looks in depth at the history of education, labor, and environmental reform, explaining why America's activists targeted state constitutions in their struggles for government protection from the hazards of life under capitalism. Shedding much-needed light on the variety of reasons that activists pursued the creation of new state-level rights, Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places challenges us to rethink our most basic assumptions about the American constitutional tradition.
Download or read book Who Decides? written by Jeffrey S. Sutton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-29 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "51 Imperfect Solutions told stories about specific state and federal individual constitutional rights, and explained two benefits of American federalism: how two sources of constitutional protection for liberty and property rights could be valuable to individual freedom and how the state courts could be useful laboratories of innovation when it comes to the development of national constitutional rights. This book tells the other half of the story. Instead of focusing on state constitutional individual rights, this book takes on state constitutional structure. Everything in law and politics, including individual rights, comes back to divisions of power and the evergreen question: Who decides? The goal of this book is to tell the structure side of the story and to identify the shifting balances of power revealed when one accounts for American constitutional law as opposed to just federal constitutional law. The book contains three main parts-on the judicial, executive, and legislative branches-as well as stand-alone chapters on home-rule issues raised by local governments and the benefits and burdens raised by the ease of amending state constitutions. A theme in the book is the increasingly stark divide between the ever-more democratic nature of state governments and the ever-less democratic nature of the federal government over time"--
Book Synopsis The Broken Constitution by : Noah Feldman
Download or read book The Broken Constitution written by Noah Feldman and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice An innovative account of Abraham Lincoln, constitutional thinker and doer Abraham Lincoln is justly revered for his brilliance, compassion, humor, and rededication of the United States to achieving liberty and justice for all. He led the nation into a bloody civil war to uphold the system of government established by the US Constitution—a system he regarded as the “last best hope of mankind.” But how did Lincoln understand the Constitution? In this groundbreaking study, Noah Feldman argues that Lincoln deliberately and recurrently violated the United States’ founding arrangements. When he came to power, it was widely believed that the federal government could not use armed force to prevent a state from seceding. It was also assumed that basic civil liberties could be suspended in a rebellion by Congress but not by the president, and that the federal government had no authority over slavery in states where it existed. As president, Lincoln broke decisively with all these precedents, and effectively rewrote the Constitution’s place in the American system. Before the Civil War, the Constitution was best understood as a compromise pact—a rough and ready deal between states that allowed the Union to form and function. After Lincoln, the Constitution came to be seen as a sacred text—a transcendent statement of the nation’s highest ideals. The Broken Constitution is the first book to tell the story of how Lincoln broke the Constitution in order to remake it. To do so, it offers a riveting narrative of his constitutional choices and how he made them—and places Lincoln in the rich context of thinking of the time, from African American abolitionists to Lincoln’s Republican rivals and Secessionist ideologues. Includes 8 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations
Download or read book Active Liberty written by Stephen Breyer and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brilliant new approach to the Constitution and courts of the United States by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.For Justice Breyer, the Constitution’s primary role is to preserve and encourage what he calls “active liberty”: citizen participation in shaping government and its laws. As this book argues, promoting active liberty requires judicial modesty and deference to Congress; it also means recognizing the changing needs and demands of the populace. Indeed, the Constitution’s lasting brilliance is that its principles may be adapted to cope with unanticipated situations, and Breyer makes a powerful case against treating it as a static guide intended for a world that is dead and gone. Using contemporary examples from federalism to privacy to affirmative action, this is a vital contribution to the ongoing debate over the role and power of our courts.
Book Synopsis Interpreting the Constitution by : Harry H. Wellington
Download or read book Interpreting the Constitution written by Harry H. Wellington and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1992-07-29 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does the Supreme Court work? Is there something undemocratic about having unelected judges overturn laws passed by elected legislators? How can a brief, two-hundred-year old constitution continue to provide the fundamental law for governing the United States? In this book a prominent legal scholar explores these questions with unusual clarity. Harry H. Wellington discusses judicial review (the process by which the court decides whether laws are valid) and the interpretive role the court plays in constitutional regulation and the resolution of individual disputes. Written in an engaging and accessible manner, the book offers fascinating examples of the court at work, in particular showing how it has addressed one of the most controversial political and judicial issues of our time--abortion. Harry H. Wellington takes a frank and provocative look at the process of adjudication, showing how it incorporates and shapes public values and mores as they change from one generation to the next. He explains why democracies can tolerate judicial review by nonelected officials and he refutes the politically popular doctrine of "original intent" and explains why those who interpret the Constitution must be responsive to precedent and process. Wellington also shows how the American political system allows the public to respond to the Court's decisions on such strongly debated issues as abortion. Although he argues for the retention of Roe v. Wade, Wellington points out that the Court makes mistakes, and he asserts that institutions, groups, and individuals sometimes have an obligation to contest the court's readings and its authority. This often noisy dialogue, says Wellington, is necessary to make judicial regulation compatible with the democratic ideology on which the United States is based.
Book Synopsis State Constitutions for the Twenty-first Century, Volume 1 by : G. Alan Tarr
Download or read book State Constitutions for the Twenty-first Century, Volume 1 written by G. Alan Tarr and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2006-06-01 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first systematic analysis of the obstacles to state constitutional reform.
Book Synopsis A Treatise On The Constitutional Limitations by : Thomas McIntyre Cooley
Download or read book A Treatise On The Constitutional Limitations written by Thomas McIntyre Cooley and published by Sagwan Press. This book was released on 2018-02-08 with total page 778 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
