Sex and the Constitution by Geoffrey R. Stone

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Robert P Holley
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Behavior ◽  
First Century ◽  
Reproductive Freedom ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Traditional Morality ◽  
Religion And Law ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
The University

The title, Sex and the Constitution, minimizes both the scope and importance of this book. Even the subtitle, Sex, Religion, and Law from America’s Origins to the Twenty-First Century, does not completely correct the misimpression about its content. More than a legal treatise, this book examines sexual behavior from the beginning of Western civilization as well as how various cultures have informally and legally regulated sexual behavior. As the title indicates, the emphasis is on the US Constitution and its interpretation. In part 1, “Ancestors,” Geoffrey R. Stone, Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, summarizes sex and the law from the ancient world to the Christian era, concluding with the Enlightenment in England. Part 2, “Founders,” crosses the Atlantic to recount the diverse, surprisingly unfettered sexual proclivities of the American colonists and how the founding fathers dealt with individual freedoms in the Constitution. Traditional morality returns in part 3, “Moralists,” as religious beliefs, starting in the 1790s, dominate the culture and its laws; but cracks begin to appear in the 1950s at the conclusion of this section. The final three parts of the book focus explicitly on how judges have interpreted the Constitution in the areas of sexual expression, reproductive freedom, and sexual orientation from around 1960 to the present.

Legal basis of «democracy»

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergey Polischuk
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Capitol Hill ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
Election Results

The article examines the main political events that took place in the United States from the controversial election results to the tragic events on Capitol Hill for Trump supporters, which led to human casualties, finally untied the hands of the Democrats and allowed them to bury all the democratic values that America has taught the whole world since the adoption of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights by the founding fathers of the state.

The US Constitution and monetary powers: an analysis of the 1787 constitutional convention and the constitutional transformation of the US monetary system

2006 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
FARLEY GRUBB
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Convention ◽  
Watershed Transformation ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Legal Tender ◽  
Paper Money ◽  
Monetary System ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution

The monetary powers embedded in the US Constitution were revolutionary and led to a watershed transformation in the nation's monetary structure. They included determining what monies could be legal tender, who could emit fiat paper money, and who could incorporate banks. How the debate at the 1787 constitutional convention over these powers evolved and led the founding fathers to the specific powers adopted is presented and deconstructed. Why they took this path rather than replicate the successful colonial system and why they codified such powers into supreme law rather than leaving them to legislative debate and enactment are addressed.

Loosing soft power in hard places

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Munslow ◽  
Tim O'Dempsey
Keyword(s):  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
First Century ◽  
Humanitarian Emergencies ◽  
Hard Power ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Us ◽  
International Attention ◽  
Invasion Of Iraq

The US choice of a misdirected target of priority concern, a ‘War on Terror’, combined with the use of hard power to the absolute detriment of soft power has undermined the enlightenment values that had begun to flourish in the form of humanitarian policies, values and laws which could have informed international cooperation and development in the twenty-first century. The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 has had serious implications for humanitarianism worldwide, has provided a huge propaganda victory to Islamic extremists, and has diverted international attention and resources from major humanitarian emergencies elsewhere and from today's most significant threat to human survival, global climate change.

scholarly journals The Adaptability Paradox: Constitutional Resilience and Principles of Good Government in Twenty-First-Century America

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 354-369
Author(s):  
Stephen Skowronek ◽  
Karen Orren
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Structural Approach ◽  
First Century ◽  
Institutional Adaptation ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Good Government ◽  
History Of ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
Twenty First Century

Faith in the resilience of the US Constitution prompts many observers to discount evidence of a deepening crisis of governance in our day. A long history of success in navigating tough times and adapting to new circumstances instills confidence that the fundamentals of the system are sound and the institutions self-correcting. The aim of this article is to push assessments of this sort beyond the usual nod to great crises surmounted in the past and to identify institutional adaptation as a developmental problem worthy of study in its own right. To that end, we call attention to dynamics of adjustment that have played out over the long haul. Our historical-structural approach points to the “bounded resilience” of previous adaptations and to dynamics of reordering conditioned on the operation of other governance outside the Constitution’s formal written arrangements. We look to the successive overthrow of these other incongruous elements and to the serial incorporation of previously excluded groups to posit increasing stress on constitutional forms and greater reliance on principles for support of new institutional arrangements. Following these developments into the present, we find principles losing traction, now seemingly unable to foster new rules in support of agreeable governing arrangements. Our analysis generates a set of propositions about why the difficulties of our day might be different from those of the past in ways that bear directly on resilience and adaptability going forward.

scholarly journals We the People: A Progressive Reading of the Constitution for the Twenty-First Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Ross Allan Sempek
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
The Core ◽  
The People ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
We The People

With government machinations, scandals, and conflict bombarding our American consciousness, it’s easy to overlook the core of our country’s identity: the US Constitution. The first three words of this dearly regarded text remind us that we are the constituents who fulfill the ideals of this document. We the People are the progressive catalyst this country needs to realize the lofty ideals of our Constitution.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 185-196
Author(s):  
Elliott Young
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Us ◽  
Indefinite Detention ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
Immigrant Detention ◽  
Constitutional Protections

Although the Supreme Court limited detention for non-citizens in the first decade of the twenty-first century (Zadvydas [2000] and Martinez [2005]), its most recent decisions indicate that under certain circumstances non-citizens can be held indefinitely behind bars with no possibility of even a bond hearing. In practice, non-citizens deemed excludable from the United States are like the forever prisoners of Guantanamo, exposed to massive state power with few constitutional protections. Khalid Qassim is one of the forty Guantanamo detainees held for more than eighteen years to date with no charges and no trial. Although Guantanamo prisoners are not voluntary immigrants, they share with immigrants a lack of protection by the US Constitution and a vulnerability to indefinite detention. Immigrant detention today is part of a carceral landscape in the United States that includes more than 2 million citizens behind bars.

Critical perception by the leaders of the populist party of the US Constitution (turn of the 19th–20th centuries)

2021 ◽  
pp. 341-352
Author(s):  
Ivan V. Smirnov
Keyword(s):  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Domestic Literature ◽  
Corporate Capital ◽  
Basic Law ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Right ◽  
Populist Party

The subject of this research is the criticism by the populist party, which went down in history as one of the most radical farmers’ organizations in North America, of the text of the US Constitution, which for many generations of Americans has been considered the “holy book” of freedom as the standard of building a democratic state. The views of a number of party ideologists on the process of adoption and on the essence of the Basic Law of the American state are considered. This study is the first study in the domestic literature in which, on the basis of archival and published sources, it is shown the reasons for the negative perception by populists of the foundations of a federal structure, which, in their opinion, serves exclusively the interests of corporate capital, from which it is concluded that the US Constitution is not intended to protect human rights, but to reduce them to a minimum through a number of means designed by the “founding fathers” (creation of a strong federal government, indirect elections of senators and the president of the country, irreplaceability of Supreme Court judges, as well as the right to judicial review of laws for compliance with the Constitution, etc.). In the conclusion, the methods proposed by populist ideologues to correct the shortcomings and democratization of the US constitutional order are described in detail.

The US Constitution in American Economic History

2018 ◽  
pp. 148-168
Author(s):  
Robert McGuire
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
National Government ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Economic Interpretation ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
American Economy

This chapter examines how the Founding Fathers designed and ratified the US Constitution, greatly strengthening the national government at the expense of existing state governments. It discusses Charles Beard’s economic interpretation of the Constitution and the views of his critics, critically focusing on statistical findings that explain the making of the Constitution and assess the Constitution’s impact on the American economy. The chapter examines statistical findings on the economic and ideological factors influencing the choice of provisions included in the Constitution and the votes for its ratification. These findings indicate that the personal economic interests, and ideologies and beliefs, of the Founding Fathers played an important role in drafting the Constitution in 1787 and at the state ratifying conventions that followed. The statistical findings suggest that constituents’ interests, while less impactful, likely affected the Constitution’s drafting and ratification as well, and that the Constitution positively impacted the American economy.

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