We the people
Volume 1, Publisher description: Bruce Ackerman offers a sweeping reinterpretation of our nation's constitutional experience and its promise for the future. Integrating themes from American history, political science, and philosophy, We the People confronts the past, present, and future of popular sovereignty in America. Only this distinguished scholar could present such an insightful view of the role of the Supreme Court. Rejecting arguments of judicial activists, proceduralists, and neoconservatives, Ackerman proposes a new model of judicial interpretation that would synthesize the constitutional contributions of many generations into a coherent whole. The author ranges from examining the origins of the dualist tradition in the Federalist Papers to reflecting upon recent, historic constitutional decisions. The latest revolutions in civil rights, and the right to privacy, are integrated into the fabric of constitutionalism. Today's Constitution can best be seen as the product of three great exercises in popular sovereignty, led by the Founding Federalists in the 1780s, the Reconstruction Republicans in the 1860s, and the New Deal Democrats in the 1930s. Ackerman examines the roles played during each of these periods by the Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court. He shows that Americans have built a distinctive type of constitutional democracy, unlike any prevailing in Europe. It is a dualist democracy, characterized by its continuing effort to distinguish between two kinds of politics: normal politics, in which organized interest groups try to influence democratically elected representatives; and constitutional politics, in which the mass of citizens mobilize to debate matters of fundamental principle. Although American history is dominated by normal politics, our tradition places a higher value on mobilized efforts to gain the consent of the people to new governing principles. In a dualist democracy, the rare triumphs of constitutional politics determine the course of normal politics. More than a decade in the making, and the first of three volumes, this compelling book speaks to all who seek to renew and redefine our civic commitments in the decades ahead
Print Book, English, 1991-<2014>
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1991-<2014>
constitutions
volumes <1-3> ; 24 cm
9780674948402, 9780674948471, 9780674050297, 9780674948419, 9780674003972, 9780674983946, 0674948408, 0674948475, 0674050290, 0674948416, 0674003977, 0674983947
23253521
1. Foundations
2. Transformations
3. The civil rights revolution. V.1. I. Discovering the Constitution : Dualist Democracy
The Bicentennial Myth
One Constitution, Three Regimes
The Middle Republic
The Modern Republic
The Possibility of Interpretation
II. Neo-Federalism : Publius
The Lost Revolution
Normal Politics
Higher Lawmaking
Why Dualism? V.2. I. In the Beginning : Higher Lawmaking
Reframing the Founding
The Founding Precedent
II. Reconstruction : Formalist Dilemmas
Presidential Leadership
The Convention / Congress
Interpreting the Mandate
The Great Transformation
III. Modernity : From Reconstruction to New Deal
Rethinking the New Deal
The Missing Amendments
Rediscovery or Creation?
Reclaiming the Constitution. V.3. Introduction : Confronting the Twentieth Century
I. Defining the Canon : Are We a Nation?
The Living Constitution
The Assassin's Bullet
The New Deal Transformed
The Turning Point
Erasure by Judiciary?
II. Landmarks of Reconstruction : Spheres of Humiliation
Spheres of Calculation
Technocracy in the Workplace
The Breakthrough of 1968
III. Dilemmas of Judicial Leadership : Brown's Fate
The Switch in Time
Spheres of Intimacy
Betrayal?
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