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The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) attempts to shield Americans from the sort of choice Antigone had to make between the state's command and her faith's calling. In general, the RFRA statutes ensure that government cannot compel an individual to act against her faith unless a compelling government interest demands it, and the measure is narrowly tailored to serve those interests. But when Indiana Governor Mike Pence became the 20th governor to sign a state-level RFRA into law in March, legal tragedy degenerated into political farce as the statute became the latest staging ground in the ongoing national debate on gay rights. Gay-rights activists charged that the Indiana law amounted to a license to discriminate on religious pretexts. The American Civil Liberties Union, originally one of the key supporters of the federal RFRA, denounced the statute as a terrible and dangerous mistake, and Hillary Clinton, whose husband signed the original act into law in 1993, lamented on Twitter: Sad this new Indiana law can happen in America today. Adapted from the source document.

When it comes to getting his way on domestic policy, President Obama seems to have found a model in Herman Melville's Bartleby, the Scrivener: What he cannot accomplish through the legislative process, he is achieving through deliberate inaction. When asked to do his job, Bartleby replies, 'I prefer not to. Not-withstanding President Obama's constitutional duty to enforce the laws of the United States, he prefers not to. Article II of the Constitution requires that the President take Care that the Laws (of the US) be faithfully executed. And yet, despite this plain language, the president does have limited discretion not to enforce a federal law he believes is unconstitutional. After all, the president, like all public officials, swears an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. The executive branch, which the president runs, is co-equal with the legislative branch, which Congress runs. Thus the president's opinion on constitutional questions is not subordinate to the opinion of the legislature. Adapted from the source document.

In 2009, Edith Windsor found herself saddled with an estate tax bill of almost $400,000. She sold some assets, paid the bill, and then sued the US government for a refund. Windsor's late spouse was not a man but a woman -- her partner of 40 years. The New York couple had married in Canada and then returned to their home state, which recognized their union under New York's Marriage Equality Act. The federal government, however, did not recognize the union due to the terms of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which had been passed by Congress and signed into law by Pres Clinton in 1996. If the oral arguments heard by the court on March 27 are any indication, Windsor is likely to win not because a majority of justices find the denial of gay marriage to be a violation of the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law, but rather on principles of federalism -- sound federalism. Adapted from the source document.

volume 1. English and colonial origins -- Independence and nationhood -- A more perfect union -- Launching the new government -- Jeffersonian republicanism -- John Marshall and judicial nationalism -- Majority rule and sectional rights -- More power to the states -- Slavery and the constitution -- The crisis of the union -- Reconstructing the nation -- Promises betrayed -- Property rights and judicial activism -- volume 2. Progressivism and the new nationalism -- World War I and the Constitution -- Normalcy and reaction -- The New Deal revolution -- The new constitutionalism -- World War II and the Constitution -- The era of the Cold War -- Earl Warren takes the helm -- A decade of change and progress -- The new judicial activism -- Nationalizing criminal due process -- And era of discord and crisis -- Progress on First Amendment rights -- Civil rights and affirmative action -- Protecting individual liberty -- Criminal due process after Warren -- Civilizing the death penalty -- Politics and the Constitution -- The new millennium -- The Roberts court.

First Published in 2012. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.