Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life Roger Daniels

MICHAEL KAMMEN, a prolific and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, seeks to trace the course of \"popular constitutionalism\" from 1787 to recent times. Instead of reinterpreting familiar legalistic themes, he attempts to describe the place of constitutionahsm \"in the public consciousness and symbolic life of the American people\" and to sketch what ordinary people have felt, believed, understood, and misunderstood about the broad framework of their government. Ironically, nonspecialists may become lost in what, of necessity, becomes a rapid journey through two centuries of ideas, attitudes, and imagery; but Kammen offers numerous points at which anyone can stop and savor his storytelling. How many already know that \"the sacred charter\" of 1787 remained invisible to the public throughout most of its own early history? (In 1882 a curious historian found it \"folded up in a little tin box in the lower part of a closet\" in the State Department.) And how many non-Trekkies are aware that the cult-classic TV series. Star Trek, once aired a sci-fi parable (entitled \"Omega Glory\") on American constitutionalism? Brief gems such as these, drawn from a wide range of sources, continually brighten the sprawling, analytical narrative. Kammen, for example, uses popular histories, themes submitted for student-essay contests, and ceremonial addresses to bolster his argument that the \"cult\" of Constitution worship emerged slowly, gaining momentum in the late 19th century and becoming a widely popular civil religion only after World War I. The author of People of Paradox (1972), Kammen finds popular constitutionalism awash in anomalies. For instance, he argues that \"Americans have taken too much pride and proportionately too little interest in their frame of government\"; that even specialists wrongly tend to conflate the narrower \"history of the Constitution itself\" with the broader story of \"constitutionalism in American culture\"; and— Warren Burger, take heed!—that orchestrated celebrations, such as the Centennial of 1887, have always produced less interest and constitutional edification than have spontaneous social-political conflicts.

A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture

The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership From John Adams to George Bush

Popular Justice: Presidential Prestige and Executive Success in the Supreme Court

The Final Days

The Power Behind the Constitution: The Supreme Court by Sallie Raye Trudden The framers of the Constitution designed a document to be the “Supreme Law of the Land” and within its pages a branch of government, a federal judiciary, never before envisioned. The Constitution, along with the Federal Judiciary Act of 1789, set the framework for building the strongest branch of government, the Supreme Court. Historical events and court decisions with few exceptions strengthened the power of the judiciary contributing to its authority. The Supreme Court Justices, by interpreting the Constitution and judging the legality of laws instituted by both state and federal legislatures, solidified its superior position in the government hierarchy. An examination of documents, case decisions, and the results of these decisions for the nation add credence to the assertion that of the three branches of government the strongest and most powerful was and is the Supreme Court.

/pdf/the-power-behind-the-constitution-the-supreme-court-1dcumx6zf1.pdf

Sallie Raye Trudden

Papers

The Power Behind the Constitution: The Supreme Court.