Constitution Day: Home

Now, as many Americans engage in self-reflection following a bitter election campaign that has left the country divided, McCullough has collected some of his most important speeches in a brief volume that articulates important principles and characteristics that are particularly American...

Breathing new life into the traditional civics lesson, Peter Sagal travels across the country on a Harley Davidson to find out where the U.S. Constitution lives, how it works and how it doesn't-how it unites us as a nation and how it has nearly torn us apart.

Real power lies in the Deep State, Washington's shadowy power elite, which is in the pockets of corporate interests and dependent on Silicon Valley, whose data-collecting systems enable the U.S. government to spy on our every click. Drawing on insider knowledge gleaned in his three decades on the Hill, Lofgren offers a wake-up call and urges Americans to fight to demand that the politicians they elect start respecting the basic premises of the Constitution.--Adapted from book jacket.

In Drain the Swamp, you'll learn: what really goes on behind congressional closed doors--and Buck names names; how committee chairmanships are bought; why one-third of the discretionary spending in the federal budget is actually illegal--and could be cut immediately; the constitutional remedy just waiting to be used that could drain the swamp of Washington corruption faster than anything else; [and] bonus: why you're not powerless--what you, the American voter, can do to make your voice heard. Shocking in its revelations, but practical in its plans for reform, Ken Buck's book

In 1733, struggling printer John Peter Zenger scandalized colonial New York by launching the New-York Weekly Journal, which assailed the British governor as corrupt and arrogant -- a direct challenge to the prevailing law against "seditious libel", which criminalized any criticism of the government. Fronting for a group of powerful antiroyalist politicians, Zenger was jailed for nine months before his landmark trial in August 1735, when he was brilliantly defended by Philadelphia lawyer Alexander Hamilton. In this book, Richard Kluger recreates this dramatic clash that marked the birth of press freedom in America and its role in vanquishing colonial tyranny. Here is an enduring lesson that redounds to this day on the vital importance of free public expression as the underpinning of democracy.

A unique and ambitious study of "the long Civil War Era"--encompassing the antebellum debates over slavery and sovereignty, the deadly Civil War they spawned, and the transformative postwar outcomes. Integrating political, military, and social history, it focuses on that era's evolving and conflicting views of the Founders' ideals and captures the chameleon-like character of a constitution that inspired contradictory interpretations due to its ambiguous position regarding slavery and the balance of power between federal and state governments

Rakove's book might better be titled "Everything You Always Wanted to Know about the Framing and Ratification of the U.S. Constitution." Although similar in focus to numerous other works--e.g., Interpreting the Constitution, ed. by Rakove (1990); The Debate on the Constitution, selected by Bernard Bailyn (1993- ); Forrest McDonald's Novus Ordo Seclorum (CH, May'86); Michael Kammen's A Machine That Would Go of Itself (CH, Feb'87); and Gordon Wood's The Creation of the American Republic (CH, Oct'69)--this book still provides fresh ideas and new insights on the framing and adoption of the federal Constitution.

Demonstrates how the American Constitution was forged through conflict, compromise, and eventually fragile consensus as James Madison and his cohorts devised a plan to radically alter the balance of governmental power.

This book explains the U.S. Constitution by focusing on its origins in Western political thought and its organization and subsequent amendments. It describes the document as a series of choices among alternative governmental institutions that are designed to provide national security and secure ordered liberty"-- Provided by publisher.
LC SUBJECT Unite

Life in the United States today is vastly different from anything the original Founders could have imagined in the late 1700s. The notion of an African-American president of the United States, or a woman as Secretary of State would have been unimaginable to the men who wrote and ratified the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Williams examines the lives of the men and women in the 20th century who have extended the Founding Fathers' original vision of the country and reshaped what America is.

The U.S. Constitution gets a comprehensive overview in this engaging blend of history and commentary. Monk, author of The Bill of Rights: A User's Guide, traces the history and consequences of each part of this vital document in a line-by-line analysis of the original seven articles and the 27 amendments. Drawing on the writings of constitutional scholars, Supreme Court Justices and concerned citizens like Charlton Heston, playwright Arthur Miller and rock star Ted Nugent, she also gives even-handed but lively accounts of the debates over such Constitutional controversies as the right to bear arms, the right to privacy, church-state separation and capital punishment. The portrait of the Constitution that emerges is a mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous.