Further Reading
Creating the Constitution
Benton, Wilbourn E. 1787: Drafting the Constitution. College
Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1986. A collection, in two
volumes, of the delegates’ notes and draft texts.
Bowen, Catherine Drinker. Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story
of the Constitutional Convention, May to September, 1787. Boston: Little, Brown, 1966. A classic study of the delegates to the
Constitutional Convention.
Bradford, M. E. Original Intentions: On the Making and Ratification of the United States Constitution. Athens: University of
Georgia Press, 1993. A skeptical analysis of the framers’ “idealism.”
Butzner, Jane, ed. Constitutional Chaff: Rejected Suggestions of
the Constitutional Convention of 1787, with Explanatory Argument. 1941. Reprint, Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat, 1970.
Proposals that did not make it into the Constitution.
Collier, Christopher, and James Lincoln Collier. Decision in
Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787. New
York: Random House, 1986. A study of the Constitutional Convention with an emphasis on the Connecticut Compromise.
Faber, Doris and Harold Faber. We the People: The Story of the
United States Constitution (New York: Scribner’s, 1987). A basic history of the Constitution.
Kurland, Philip B., and Ralph Lerner, eds. The Founders’ Constitution. 4 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. A
collection of the thoughts, opinions, and arguments of the framers of the Constitution. Also accessible online at http://presspubs.uchicago.edu/founders/
National Archives. Our Documents: 100 Milestone Documents
from the National Archives. New York: Oxford University Press,
2003. The Constitution and other basic documents of American
democracy.
Rakove, Jack. James Madison and the Creation of the American
Republic. New York: Longman, 2002. A biography of the principal author of the Constitution.
Rakove, Jack. Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the
Making of the Constitution. New York: Knopf, 1996. A rebuttal
of the doctrine of “original intent.”
Rodell, Fred. 55 Men: The Story of the Constitution, Based on
the Day-by-Day Notes of James Madison. 1936. Reprint, Harris-
220 Our Constitution
burg, Pa.: Stackpole, 1986. The story of the delegates and their
debates at the Constitutional Convention.
Rossiter, Clinton. 1787: The Grand Convention. 1966. Reprint,
New York: W.W. Norton, 1987. A perceptive retelling of the
Constitutional Convention.
Ratifying the Constitution
Alexander, John. The Selling of the Constitutional Convention:
A History of News Coverage. Madison, Wis.: Madison House,
1990. How the press covered the Constitution.
Cornell, Samuel. The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and
the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788–1828. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1999. The loyal opposition’s
viewpoint.
Cooke, Jacob E., ed. The Federalist. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1961. An authoritative text of the essays
that helped win ratification of the Constitution. The Federalist
is also accessible online at: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/
fedpapers.html
Jensen, Merrill. The New Nation: A History of the United States
during the Confederation, 1781–1789. 1950. Reprint, Boston:
Northeastern University Press, 1981. The tumultuous years leading to the Constitutional Convention.
Kaminski, John P., and Richard Leffler, eds. Federalists and Antifederalists: The Debate over the Ratification of the Constitution. Madison, Wis.: Madison House, 1989. The arguments on
both sides of the ratification fight.
Ketchum, Ralph, ed. The Anti-Federalist Papers; and, The Constitutional Convention Debates. New York: New American Library, 1986. Arguments of the opponents of the Constitution.
Morris, Richard B. Witnesses at the Creation: Hamilton, Madison, Jay, and the Constitution. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and
Winston, 1985. The story of the authors of The Federalist.
Sheehan, Colleen A., and Gary L. McDowell, eds. Friends of the
Constitution: Writings of the “Other” Federalists, 1787–1788.
Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998. Other defenders of the Constitution beyond the authors of The Federalist.
Wills, Gary. Explaining America: The Federalist. Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981. An analysis of the writings of Madison,
Hamilton, and Jay.
Amending the Constitution
American Political Science Association and American Historical Association. This Constitution: From Ratification
to the Bill of Rights. Washington: Congressional Quarterly,
1998. Historical essays on the writing, ratification, and early
amending of the Constitution.
Berger, Raoul. The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of
Rights. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. How
one amendment changed the others.
Bernstein, Richard B., with Jerome Agel. Amending America: If We Love the Constitution So Much, Why Do We Keep
Trying to Change It? New York: Times Books, 1993. A survey and analysis of the many proposed amendments to the
Constitution.
Cortner, Richard C. The Iron Horse and the Constitution: The
Railroads and the Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1993. How the railroads
changed a Reconstruction Era amendment.
Flexner, Eleanor, and Ellen Fitzpatrick. Century of Struggle:
The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States. Enlarged
ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996. A history of the long protest movement leading to the Nineteenth
Amendment.
Kyvig, David E. Explicit and Authentic Act: Amending the
U.S. Constitution. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas,
1996. An authoritative study of the substance and process of
amending the Constitution.
Meyer, Howard N. The Amendment that Refused to Die:
Equality and Justice Deferred: The History of the Fourteenth
Amendment. Updated ed. Lanham, Md.: Madison Books,
2000. The tortuous history of defining the Fourteenth Amendment.
Monk, Linda R. The Words We Live By: Your Annotated
Guide to the Constitution. New York: Hyperion, 2004. A
guided tour of the Constitution’s various parts and their historical impact.
Patrick, John J. The Bill of Rights: A History in Documents.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Key documents
relating to the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
Veit, Helen E., Kenneth R. Bowling, and Charlene Bangs
Bickford, eds. Creating the Bill of Rights: The Documentary
Record of the First Federal Congress. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. Documents how Congress enacted the Bill of Rights.
Zacharias, Gary, and Jared Zacharias, eds. The Bill of Rights.
San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven, 2003. Aspects of civil rights
and civil liberties under the Bill of Rights.
Implementing the Constitution
Abraham, Henry J. Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court. 3rd ed. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1992. Two centuries of struggle between the executive and the legislature over the judiciary.
Amar, Akhil Reed. America’s Constitution: A Biography.
New York: Random House, 2005. Reviews the long life and
changing times of the Constitution as a legal and political
document.
Beth, Loren P. The Development of the American Constitution, 1877–1917. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Constitutional law in the Gilded Age.
Crabb, Cecil W., Jr., and Pat M. Holt. Invitation to Struggle:
Congress, the President, and Foreign Policy. Washington,
D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1992. How the Constitution inspires constant struggle between the White House
and Capitol Hill over foreign policy.
Cunliffe, Marcus. The Nation Takes Shape: 1789–1837. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959. A compact history
of the early years of constitutional government.
Currie, David P. The Constitution in Congress: The Federalist Period, 1789–1801. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1997. How Congress initially implemented the Constitution.
Dahl, Robert A. How Democratic Is the American Constitution? New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. An
essay on the lapses of democracy in the Constitution.
Fisher, Louis. The Politics of Shared Power: Congress and
the Executive. College Station: Texas A&M University Press,
1998. The overlapping areas of responsibility resulting from
the separation of powers.
Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877. New York; Harper & Row, 1988. Includes
the history of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth
Amendments and related laws and court cases, as well as the
struggle between the President and Congress over Reconstruction policy.
Foner, Eric. The Story of American Freedom. New York: W.
W. Norton, 1998. An analysis of how well the Constitution
secured the “blessings of liberty.”
Further Reading 221
Garraty, John A. Quarrels that Have Shaped the Constitution. Rev. ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1987. Historical
case studies of landmark Supreme Court decisions.
Pious, Richard M. The Presidency. Boston: Allyn and Bacon,
1996. The evolution of the office of President of the United
States.
Greenberg, Jack. Crusaders in the Courts: How a Dedicated
Band of Lawyers Fought for the Civil Rights Revolution.
New York: Basic Books, 1994. The story of the lawyers for
the NAACP and their efforts to convince the courts to reinterpret the Constitution.
Pious, Richard M. The Presidency of the United States: A
Student Companion. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2001. Entries on the operations of the American Presidency.
Hall, Kermit L., ed. The Oxford Companion to the Supreme
Court of the United States. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Entries on the functioning and decisions
of the Supreme Court.
Hobson, Charles F. The Great Chief Justice: John Marshall
and the Rule of Law. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas,
1996. The long-lasting impact of Chief Justice Marshall.
Hyman, Harold M., and William M. Wiecek. Equal Justice
under Law: Constitutional Development, 1835–1875. New
York: Harper & Row, 1982. The Constitution from slavery to
freedom, through the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Kammen, Michael G. A Machine that Would Go of Itself: The
Constitution in American Culture. New York: St. Martin’s,
1994. A social and cultural history of the Constitution.
Klarman, Michael J. From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The
Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2004. The evolution of judicial thinking on civil rights.
Levy, Leonard W., Kenneth L. Karst, and Dennis J. Mahoney,
eds. Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. 6 vols. New
York: Macmillan, 2000. Interpretive essays on every aspect
of the Constitution.
Morris, Richard B. The Forging of the Union, 1781–1789.
New York: Harper & Row, 1987. The United States under the
Articles of Confederation.
Murphy, Paul L. The Constitution in Crisis Times, 1918–1969.
New York: Harper & Row, 1972. A history of the Constitution in the critical years of the twentieth century.
Patrick, John J. The Supreme Court of the United States: A
Student Companion. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2001. Entries on how the Supreme Court operates, including constitutional case law.
Patrick, John J., and Gerald P. Long, eds. Constitutional
Debates on Freedom of Religion: A Documentary History.
Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1999. Understanding the First
Amendment.
222 Our Constitution
Rehnquist, William H. All the Laws but One: Civil Liberties
in Wartime. New York: Knopf, 1998. A chief justice reviews
the history of civil liberties in wartime.
Rehnquist, William H. The Supreme Court. New York:
Knopf, 2001. A chief justice examines the evolution of the
Supreme Court.
Ritchie, Donald A. The Congress of the United States: A
Student Companion. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2001. Entries on aspects of how Congress operates.
Ritchie, Donald A. The U.S. Constitution. New York: Chelsea
House, 1988. A bicentennial summary of constitutional history.
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Imperial Presidency. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1973. The growth of Presidential power
from the founders to Watergate.
Simon, James F. What Kind of a Nation? Thomas Jefferson,
John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create the United
States. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002. Two polar oppo
sites in the interpretation and implementation of the U.S.
Constitution.
Stone, Geoffrey R. Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime
from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terror. New York:
Norton, 2004. Wartime tests to the First Amendment.
Warren, Earl. The Memoirs of Earl Warren. Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977. A major twentieth-century chief justice explains how the Court changed under his leadership.
White, G. Edward. The Marshall Court and Cultural Change,
1815–1835. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. How
the Supreme Court applied the Constitution to an evolving
nation.