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Are the deep insights of Hugo Black, William Brennan, and Felix Frankfurter that have defined our cherished Bill of Rights fatally flawed? With meticulous historical scholarship and elegant legal interpretation a leading scholar of Constitutional law boldly answers yes as he explodes conventional wisdom about the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution in this incisive new account of our most basic charter of liberty. Akhil Reed Amar brilliantly illuminates in rich detail not simply the text, structure, and history of individual clauses of the 1789 Bill, but their intended relationships to each other and to other constitutional provisions. Amar's corrective does not end there, however, for as his powerful narrative proves, a later generation of antislavery activists profoundly changed the meaning of the Bill in the Reconstruction era. With the Fourteenth Amendment, Americans underwent a new birth of freedom that transformed the old Bill of Rights.We have as a result a complex historical document originally designed to protect the people against self-interested government and revised by the Fourteenth Amendment to guard minority against majority. In our continuing battles over freedom of religion and expression, arms bearing, privacy, states' rights, and popular sovereignty, Amar concludes, we must hearken to both the Founding Fathers who created the Bill and their sons and daughters who reconstructed it.Amar's landmark work invites citizens to a deeper understanding of their Bill of Rights and will set the basic terms of debate about it for modern lawyers, jurists, and historians for years to come

Akhil Amar examines the role of search warrants, the status of the exclusionary rule, self-incrimination theory and practice, and a host of Sixth Amendment trial-related rights. Through a close and original analysis of constitutional text, history, structure, and precedent - leavened with a healthy measure of common sense - he challenges conventional wisdom on a broad range of topics. He argues that the exclusion of reliable evidence in criminal trials is wrong in principle and in practice and that unlawfully seized evidence and fruits of immunized testimony should be constitutionally admissible in criminal trials. Deterrence of government misconduct should in general occur through civil damage suits and administrative sanctions rather than through criminal exclusion. Although addressed to lawyers, judges, and law students, this bold book ultimately targets a much broader audience of policymakers and citizens who seek to understand the principles of this controversial area of constitutional law.

Many Americans reference the Bill of Rights, a document that represents many of the freedoms that define the United States. Who doesn't know about the First Amendment's freedom of religion or Second Amendment's right to bear arms? In this pocket-sized volume, Akhil Reed Amar and Les Adams offer a wealth of knowledge about the Bill of Rights that goes beyond a basic understanding. The Bill of Rights Primer is an authoritative guide to all American freedoms. Uncluttered and well-organized, this text is perfect for those who want to study up on the Bill of Rights without needing a law degree to do so. This elementary guidebook presents a short historical survey of the people, events, decrees, legislation, writings, and cultural milestones, in England and the American colonies, that influenced the Founding Fathers as they drafted the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. With helpful comments and fun facts in the margins, the book will provide a deeper understanding of the Bill of Rights, exhibiting that it is not a stagnant document but one with an evolving meaning shaped by historical events, such as the American Civil War and Reconstruction

Proposes various reforms to the jury system, including elimination of peremptory challenges, higher jury pay, fewer exemptions, and yearly service; US.

The Bank of the United Ctates : a case study -- The constitution in the early republic -- Are we a nation? : the Jacksonian era to the Civil War, 1835-1865 -- From reconstruction to the new deal : 1866-1934 -- The new deal and the civil rights era -- Federalism, separation of powers, and national security in the modern era -- Race and the equal protection clause -- Sex equality -- Liberty, equality, and fundamental rights : the constitution, the family, and the body -- The constitution in the modern welfare state

The Bank of the United States : a case study -- The constitution in the early republic -- Are we a nation? : the Jacksonian era to the Civil War, 1835-1865 -- From reconstruction to the new deal : 1866-1934 -- The new deal and the civil rights era -- Federalism, separation of powers, and national security in the modern era -- Race and the Equal Protection Clause -- Sex equality -- Liberty, equality, and fundamental rights : the constitution, the family, and the body -- The constitution in the modern welfare state.