The Ninth Amendment has had a remarkably robust history, playing a role in almost every significant constitutional debate in American history, including the controversy over the Alien and Sedition Acts, the struggle over slavery, and the constitutionality of the New Deal. Until very recently, however, this history has been almost completely lost due to a combination of historical accident, mistaken assumptions, and misplaced historical documents. Drawing upon a wide range of primary source...

This exhaustively researched book presents the history behind a revolution in American liberty: the 1868 addition of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It follows the evolution in public understanding of 'the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States', from the early years of the Constitution to the election of 1866. For 92 years nothing in the American Constitution prevented states from abridging freedom of speech, prohibiting the free exerci...

The purpose of this volume is to discuss the concept of citizenship—in terms of its origins, its meanings, and its contemporary place and relevance in American democracy, and within a global context. The authors in this collection wrestle with the connection of citizenship to major tensions between liberty and equality, dynamism and stability, and civic disagreement and social cohesion. The essays also raise fundamental questions about the relationship between citizenship and leadership, a...

Ratified in the years immediately following the American Civil War, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution—together known as the Reconstruction Amendments—abolished slavery, safeguarded a set of basic national liberties, and expanded the right to vote, respectively. This two-volume work presents the key speeches, debates, and public dialogues that surrounded the adoption of the three amendments, allowing us to more fully experience how they r...

Ratified in the years immediately following the American Civil War, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution—together known as the Reconstruction Amendments—abolished slavery, safeguarded a set of basic national liberties, and expanded the right to vote, respectively. This two-volume work presents the key speeches, debates, and public dialogues that surrounded the adoption of the three amendments, allowing us to more fully experience how they reshaped t...