The Federalist Papers by
'A nation without a national government is an awful spectacle.'In the winter of 1787-8 a series of eighty-five essays appeared in the New York press; the purpose of the essays was to persuade the citizens of New York State to ratify the Constitution of the United States. The three authors - Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay - were respectivelythe first Secretary of the Treasury, the fourth President, and the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in American history. Each had played a crucial role in the events of the American Revolution; together they were convinced of the need to weld thirteen disparate and newly-independent statesinto a union. Their essays make the case for a new and united nation, governed under a written Constitution that endures to this day.The Federalist Papers are an indispensable guide to the intentions of the founding fathers who created the United States, and a canonical text in the development of western political thought. This new edition pays full attention to the classical learning of their authors and the historical examplesthey deploy.
The Bill of Rights by
The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution in part to ensure that the powers of the federal government would not trample upon individual liberty. The first eight amendments to the United States Constitution are designed to protect individuals from abuse by federal government officials. The ninth and tenth amendments set out the division of powers between the federal government and various state governments.
The Bill of Rights by
The Bill of Rights is a comprehensive survey of all aspects of the U.S. Bill of Rights; from its origins to its role in modern American history. Special attention is given to the organic relationship of the Bill of Rights to the original Constitution and its ongoing interpretation and incorporation by the U.S. Supreme Court.
A Balancing Act by
After Americans won their freedom in the Revolutionary War, they faced the challenge of forming their own government. Many people didn't trust governments. They wanted to protect their freedoms so they formed three branches--the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial--that would watch each other, ensuring that no one person or branch would become too powerful. Discover how all three branches of government work, and how they check and balance each other to guard Amercans' freedoms.
The Founding Fathers Reconsidered by
Here is a concise, scholarly, yet accessible overview of the brilliant, flawed, and quarrelsome group of lawyers, politicians, merchants, military men, and clergy known as "the Founding Fathers" - who got as close to the ideal of the Platonic "philosopher-kings" as American or world historyhas ever seen.In The Founding Fathers Reconsidered, R. B. Bernstein reveals Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, and the other founders not as shining demigods but as imperfect human beings - people much like us - who nevertheless achieved political greatness. They emerge here as men who sought totranscend their intellectual world even as they were bound by its limits, men who strove to lead the new nation even as they had to defer to the great body of the people and learn with them the possibilities and limitations of politics. Bernstein deftly traces the dynamic forces that molded thesemen and their contemporaries as British colonists in North America and as intellectual citizens of the Atlantic civilization's Age of Enlightenment. He analyzes the American Revolution, the framing and adoption of state and federal constitutions, and the key concepts and problems--among themindependence, federalism, equality, slavery, and the separation of church and state--that both shaped and circumscribed the founders' achievements as the United States sought its place in the world. Finally, he charts the shifting reputations of the founders, both as a group and as individuals, andexamining the specific uses to which interpreters of the Constitution have put the Founding Fathers, along with the problems besetting this "jurisprudence of original intent."A masterly blend of old and new scholarship, brimming with apt description and insightful analysis, this book offers a persuasive account of how the Founding Fathers were formed, what they did, and how generations of Americans have viewed them.
Founding Fathers by
This is a book about our founding fathers and breif history of each individual.