Departments

;

constitutional history

  • SOURCE: New York Review of Books
    4/7/2022

    How Rights Went Right

    by David Cole

    Is an all-or-nothing view of constitutional rights at the root of growing cultural clashes pitting civil rights against the free exercise of religion? A new book suggests alternatives. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    9/13/2021

    Teaching the 26th Amendment With The New York Times

    by Jennifer Frost

    A historian of the 26th Amendment offers a lesson plan for using newspapers as primary sources to teach how young Americans succeeded in lowering the voting age to 18. 

  • 1/13/2021

    The Problem with a Self-Pardon

    by Robert J. Spitzer

    It is likely that the issue of a president's ability to pardon himself will be contested in short order. A constitutional scholar of the presidency explains why such an action cannot be countenanced in a society of law. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    1/12/2021

    Review: Was the Constitution a Pro-Slavery Document?

    by Gordon S. Wood

    Gordon Wood says James Oakes's new book examines the dialectical relationship between 19th century interpretations of the Constitution as a pro-slavery and anti-slavery document and argues that that debate steered Lincoln toward a commitment to racial equality as inextricable from abolition.

  • SOURCE: Madman of Chu
    12/5/19

    The Turley Dilemma

    by Andrew Meyer

    If we look at Jonathan Turley's argument against impeachment, we can see the outlines of a dilemma that faces the president, the Republican Party, and by extension the entire country.