American Sovereigns: The People and America's Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil WarCambridge University Press, 29. 10. 2007. American Sovereigns: The People and America's Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War challenges traditional American constitutional history, theory and jurisprudence that sees today's constitutionalism as linked by an unbroken chain to the 1787 Federal constitutional convention. American Sovereigns examines the idea that after the American Revolution, a collectivity - the people - would rule as the sovereign. Heated political controversies within the states and at the national level over what it meant that the people were the sovereign and how that collective sovereign could express its will were not resolved in 1776, in 1787, or prior to the Civil War. The idea of the people as the sovereign both unified and divided Americans in thinking about government and the basis of the Union. Today's constitutionalism is not a natural inheritance, but the product of choices Americans made between shifting understandings about themselves as a collective sovereign. |
Садржај
| ix | |
| 1 | |
| 9 | |
PART TWO The Sovereign Behind the Federal Constitution | 117 |
PART THREE The Struggle over a Constitutional Middle Ground | 235 |
Key to Abbreviations | 303 |
Notes | 307 |
Selected Short Titles | 403 |
Credits | 411 |
Index | 415 |
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American Sovereigns: The People and America's Constitutional Tradition ... Christian G. Fritz Приказ није доступан - 2007 |
American Sovereigns: The People and America's Constitutional Tradition ... Christian G. Fritz Приказ није доступан - 2009 |
Чести термини и фразе
1776 Constitution Alexander Hamilton alter or abolish amendment American constitutionalism American constitutions American Revolution asserting authority Bill of Rights Boston Burke’s Report Calhoun citizens collective sovereign colonial Congress consti constitution-making constitutional convention County court closings created debate Declaration delegates Democracy Democratic describing determinist movements Dorr Dorr’s draft elected excise tax federal Constitution Federalists George Washington government’s Governor Henry History idea Independence interposition James Madison John Adams judicial Law and Order leaders legislative legislature legitimacy liberty Maryland Massachusetts ment national government North Carolina nullification Papers Pennsylvania People’s Constitution people’s sovereignty petition political popular principles Providence ratification Regulators Report of 1800 repr representatives Republican revolutionary Rhode Island right of revolution role ruler Sept settlers Shays Shays’s Rebellion societies state’s stitution Supreme Theodore Sedgwick Thomas Jefferson tion tution unconstitutional Vermont Virginia vols vote Webster western Whiskey William written constitutions
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Страница 386 - At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.
Страница 403 - The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.
Страница 386 - It is as much the duty of the House of Representatives, of the Senate, and of the President to decide upon the constitutionality of any bill or resolution which may be presented to them for passage or approval as it is of the supreme judges when it may be brought before them for judicial decision.
Страница 114 - The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the Atmosphere.
Страница 354 - All power residing originally in the people, and being derived from them, the several magistrates and officers of government, vested with authority, whether legislative, executive, or judicial, are their substitutes and agents, and are at all times accountable to them.
Страница 18 - There is no position which depends on clearer principles than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this would be to affirm that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only...
Страница 130 - God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.
Страница 96 - Government is instituted for the common good ; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people ; and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men : Therefore the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government ; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.
Страница 130 - And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?