Richards Conscience and the Constitution

History, Theory, and Law of the Reconstruction Amendments
Course Book
ISBN: 978-1-4008-6356-3
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 308 Seiten

Reihe: Princeton Legacy Library

At stage center of the American drama, maintains David A. J. Richards, is the attempt to understand the implications of the Reconstruction Amendments--Amendments Thirteen, Fourteen, and Fifteen to the United States Constitution. Richards evaluates previous efforts to interpret the amendments and then proposes his own view: together the amendments embodied a self-conscious rebirth of America's revolutionary, rights-based constitutionalism. Building on an approach to constitutional law developed in his Toleration and the Constitution and Foundations of American Constitutionalism, Richards links history, law, and political theory. In Conscience and the Constitution, this method leads from an analysis of the Reconstruction Amendments to a broad discussion of the American constitutional system as a whole.

Richards's interpretation focuses on the abolitionists and their radical commitment to the "dissenting conscience." In his view, the Reconstruction Amendments expressed not only the constitutional arguments of a particular historical period but also a general political theory developed by the abolitionists, who restructured the American political community in terms of respect for universal human rights. He argues further that the amendments make a claim on our generation to keep faith with the vision of the "founders of 1865." In specific terms he points out what such allegiance would mean in the context of present-day constitutional issues.

Originally published in 1993.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Richards, David A.J.

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Öffentliches Recht Staats- und Verfassungsrecht

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments

1 Aims and methodologies 3

The Reconstruction Amendments as History 6

The Reconstruction Amendments as Political Theory 9

An Alternative Approach 16

2 Proslavery Constitutionalism versus the Theory of Union 21

Antebellum Constitutional Crisis: Slavery and the Founding 21

Proslavery Constitutionalism 28

The Constitutionalism of Union 42

Adams, Webster, and Story: Foundations of Theory of Union 43

Francis Lieber 46

Abraham Lincoln 50

3 The Argument for Toleration in Abolitionist Moral, Political, and Constitutional Thought 58

Abolitionist Ethical Criticism of Slavery: The Analogy of Anti-Semitism 59

The Argument for Toleration 63

Slavery as a Political Evil 73

The Political Evil of Racism 80

Abolitionist Constitutional Theory 89

Radical Disunionism 92

Moderate Constitutional Antislavery 95

Radical Constitutional Antislavery 97

Legitimacy of Revolution 104

4 The Second American Revolution and the Reconstruction Amendments 108

Revolutionary Principles 115

Constitutional Principles of American Constitution 119

Analysis of Political Psychology 123

Comparative Political Science 130

American Political Experience 133

Constitutional Justification and Community 134

5 A Theory of Equal Protection 149

Racism as a Constitutional Evil 150

Anti-Semitism as Racism 156

Racial Segregation as a Violation of Equal Protection 160

A Theory of Suspect Classification Analysis 170

Gender as a Suspect Classification 178

Sexual Preference as a Suspect Classification 191

6 The Nationalization of Human Rights 199

Slaughter-House Cases 204

A Theory of Privileges and Immunities 217

Enumerated Rights 221

Unenumerated Rights 224

7 Economic Justice and the Constitution 233

8 Conscience and Constitutional Interpretation 252

Appendix I: Constitution, Statutes, and Legislative History 259

Appendix II: Case Law 261

Bibliography 263

Index 285