The Bill of Rights and the States

The Bill of Rights and the States
Author: Patrick T. Conley
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 572
Release: 1992
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780945612292

Fourteen individual state essays elucidate the complexitites of local and regional interests that shaped the debate over individual rights and the eventual adoption of the Bill of Rights.

No State Shall Abridge

No State Shall Abridge
Author: Michael Kent Curtis
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2013-07-22
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0822397404

“The book is carefully organized and well written, and it deals with a question that is still of great importance—what is the relationship of the Bill of Rights to the states.”—Journal of American History “Curtis effectively settles a serious legal debate: whether the framers of the 14th Amendment intended to incorporate the Bill of Rights guarantees and thereby inhibit state action. Taking on a formidable array of constitutional scholars, . . . he rebuts their argument with vigor and effectiveness, conclusively demonstrating the legitimacy of the incorporation thesis. . . . A bold, forcefully argued, important study.”—Library Journal

Constitutional History of the American Revolution

Constitutional History of the American Revolution
Author: John Phillip Reid
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
Total Pages: 180
Release: 1995
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 9780299146641

Designed for use in courses, this abridged edition of the four-volume Constitutional History of the American Revolution demonstrates how significant constitutional disputes were in instigating the American Revolution. John Phillip Reid addresses the central constitutional issues that divided the American colonists from their English legislators: the authority to tax, the authority to legislate, the security of rights, the nature of law, the foundation of constitutional government in custom and contractarian theory, and the search for a constitutional settlement. Reid's distinctive analysis discusses the irreconcilable nature of this conflict--irreconcilable not because leaders in politics on both sides did not desire a solution, but because the dynamics of constitutional law impeded a solution that permitted the colonies to remain part of the dominions of George III.

Subjects and Sovereign

Subjects and Sovereign
Author: Hannah Weiss Muller
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2017-06-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190465824

In the aftermath of the Seven Years' War, when a variety of conquered and ceded territories became part of an expanding British Empire, crucial struggles emerged about what it meant to be a "British subject." Individuals in Grenada, Quebec, Minorca, Gibraltar, and Bengal debated the meanings and rights of subjecthood, with many capitalizing on legal ambiguities and local exigencies to secure access to political and economic benefits. Inhabitants and colonial administrators transformed subjecthood into a shared language, practice, and opportunity as individuals proclaimed their allegiance to the crown and laid claim to a corresponding set of protections. Approaching subjecthood as a protean and porous concept, rather than an immutable legal status, Subjects and Sovereign demonstrates that it was precisely subjecthood's fluidity and imprecision that rendered it so useful to a remarkably diverse group of individuals. In this book, Hannah Weiss Muller reexamines the traditional bond between subjects and sovereign and argues that this relationship endured as a powerful site for claims-making throughout the eighteenth century. Muller analyzes both legal understandings of subjecthood, as well as the popular tradition of declaring rights, in order to demonstrate why subjects believed they were entitled to make requests of their sovereign. She reconsiders narratives of upheaval during the Age of Revolution and insists on the relevance and utility of existing structures of state and sovereign. Emphasizing the stories of subjects who successfully leveraged their loyalty and negotiated their status, she also explores how and why subjecthood remained an organizing and contested principle of the eighteenth-century British Empire. By placing the relationship between subjects and sovereign at the heart of her analysis, Muller offers a new perspective on a familiar period and suggests that imperial integration was as much about flexible and expansive conceptions of belonging as it was about shared economic, political, and intellectual networks.