Latest / New Books in American Studies
Max Edling, "Perfecting the Union: National and State Authority in the US Constitution" (Oxford UP, 2020)
On the face of things, the Constitution is concerned with individual and collective rights - to free speech, assembly, religion and that part about guns. Supreme Court cases serve as public tests of its core precepts, and lightning rods for current political argument. The focus tends to be on the Bill of Rights. Between ‘We the People’ and the end of the 7th Article is everything else, of which the text of the Presidential Oath of Office is the most recognisable. The document’s concern with the architecture of government, combined with disputes between originalists and loose constructionists…
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