Research Catalog
The Bill of Rights : government proscribed / edited by Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert.
- Title
- The Bill of Rights : government proscribed / edited by Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert.
- Publication
- Charlottesville : Published for the United States Capitol Historical Society by the University Press of Virginia, 1997.
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text | Request in advance | KF4749 .B515 1997 | Off-site |
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Details
- Additional Authors
- Description
- x, 463 p.; 24 cm.
- Summary
- As Scholars Have Long Recognized, the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution - the Bill of Rights - resulted from the political negotiations that transpired in the various state ratifying conventions called to approve or reject the draft produced by the 1787 Constitutional Convention. The tenacious opposition that had marked many of the convention's deliberations quickly carried over into the states where Antifederalists, convinced that the proposed new form of government posed insidious dangers to the people and the states, insisted that its powers be sharply proscribed. The Bill of Rights that ultimately emerged from this process of accommodation and compromise has frequently been invoked as the republic's essential foundation of individual liberty. The opening essays in this collection by Lois G. Schwoerer, Donald S. Lutz, and Kenneth R. Bowling set the Bill of Rights in context by tracing its historical lineages and establishing the political context for its adoption by the states. Paul Finkelman sees the differences between Federalist fears of anarchy and Antifederalist fears of tyranny as eventually reconcilable, while Saul Cornell and Whitman H. Ridgway examine how particular functional dimensions of the various rights were popularly conceived. Michael Lienesch finds a major significance of the Bill of Rights to have been the enhanced credibility it afforded the new governing authority. Akhil Reed Amar goes beyond that conclusion and argues for the amendments' having important organizational and governing consequences, a position that Forrest McDonald rejects as not borne out by the subsequent history of the United States. Bernard Schwartz concludes the volume with a comparative examination of the American and French experiences with bills of rights that supports those scholars who argue for the critical role played by the Constitution's first amendments in matters of constitutional jurisprudence.
- Series Statement
- Perspectives on the American Revolution
- Uniform Title
- Perspectives on the American Revolution.
- Subject
- Genre/Form
- History
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Processing Action (note)
- committed to retain
- Contents
- British lineages and American choices / Lois G. Schwoerer -- The pedigree of the Bill of Rights / Donald S. Lutz -- Overshadowed by states' rights : ratification of the federal Bill of Rights / Kenneth R. Bowling -- Between Scylla and Charybdis : anarchy, tyranny, and the debate over a Bill of Rights / Paul Finkelman -- Mere parchment barriers? : antifederalists, the Bill of Rights, and the question of rights consciousness / Saul Cornell -- Popular sentiment and the Bill of Rights controversy / Whitman H. Ridgway -- Reinterpreting rights : antifederalists and the Bill of Rights / Michael Lienesch -- The Bill of Rights as a constitution / Akhil Reed Amar -- The Bill of Rights : unnecessary and pernicious / Forrest McDonald -- Experience versus reason : "beautiful books and great revolutions" / Bernard Schwartz.
- ISBN
- 081391759X (cloth : alk. paper)
- 081391714X
- LCCN
- ^^^97002343^
- OCLC
- 36307886
- SCSB-10037047
- Owning Institutions
- Harvard Library