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We the People:

Transformations. 2
Front Cover
3 Reviews
Harvard University Press, Sep 15, 2000 - History - 532 pages

Constitutional change, seemingly so orderly, formal, and refined, has in fact been a revolutionary process from the first, as Bruce Ackerman makes clear in We the People: Transformations. The Founding Fathers, hardly the genteel conservatives of myth, set America on a remarkable course of revolutionary disruption and constitutional creativity that endures to this day. After the bloody sacrifices of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party revolutionized the traditional system of constitutional amendment as they put principles of liberty and equality into higher law. Another wrenching transformation occurred during the Great Depression, when Franklin Roosevelt and his New Dealers vindicated a new vision of activist government against an assault by the Supreme Court.

These are the crucial episodes in American constitutional history that Ackerman takes up in this second volume of a trilogy hailed as "one of the most important contributions to American constitutional thought in the last half-century" (Cass Sunstein, New Republic). In each case he shows how the American people--whether led by the Founding Federalists or the Lincoln Republicans or the Roosevelt Democrats--have confronted the Constitution in its moments of great crisis with dramatic acts of upheaval, always in the name of popular sovereignty. A thoroughly new way of understanding constitutional development, We the People: Transformations reveals how America's "dualist democracy" provides for these populist upheavals that amend the Constitution, often without formalities.

The book also sets contemporary events, such as the Reagan Revolution and Roe v. Wade, in deeper constitutional perspective. In this context Ackerman exposes basic constitutional problems inherited from the New Deal Revolution and exacerbated by the Reagan Revolution, then considers the fundamental reforms that might resolve them. A bold challenge to formalist and fundamentalist views, this volume demonstrates that ongoing struggle over America's national identity, rather than consensus, marks its constitutional history.

  

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Review: We the People, Volume 2, Transformations

User Review  - Rick - Goodreads

Anyone who paid attention to all of that "Transformative President" talk that went around during the campaign of 2008 ought to read this to put the idea of Constitutional transformation into perspective. Read full review

Review: We the People, Volume 2, Transformations

User Review  - Zahreen - Goodreads

Look at my review of the first book. Read full review

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Contents

II Reconstruction
97
III Modernity
253
Frequently Cited Works
423
Notes
425
Index
495
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

activist afªrmative American ªnal ªnally ªnd Andrew Johnson Anti-Federalists ªrst Article Five Articles of Confederation authority ªve bandwagon Bruce Ackerman campaign Carolina challenge Civil claim conªrmed confront Congress Congressional conservative consolidation constitutional amendment Continental Congress convention Convention/Congress court-packing crisis Deal Dealers deªned debate decision delegates Democrats difªculty effort election electoral federal Federalists formal Fourteenth Amendment fundamental gain higher lawmaking House hypertextualist impeachment initiative institutional judicial Justices lawyers legalistic legislation legislatures Lincoln Madison majority mandate ment North Carolina ofªce ofªcial opinion party Philadelphia Philadelphia Convention political popular sovereignty precedent President Presidential leadership principles problem proclamation proposal question radical ratiªcation ratifying recognized Reconstruction Act Reconstruction amendments rejected Republic Republicans revolution revolutionary reform role Roosevelt Senate Seward signiªcance South Southern statute struggle supra Supreme Court switch Thirteenth Amendment tion tional traditional triggering unconventional Union United veto victory vote voters Wheeler

References to this book

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References from web pages

bibliovault - We the People: Volume 2, Transformations
A thoroughly new way of understanding constitutional development, We the People: Transformations reveals how America's "dualist democracy" provides for ...
www.bibliovault.org/ BV.book.epl?BookId=6586

Who are “We The People”? Bruce Ackerman, Thomas Jefferson, and the ...
It’sa relief to know that “We the People” don’t have to be constantly engaged in ... If We The People and other like-minded tracts were never written would ...
www.springerlink.com/ index/ U4515118773T831J.pdf

Volume 2, No. 4 (March, 1992) pp. 54-56 WE THE PEOPLE, Vol. I ...
To do that he has to define just what was created in 1787, or more precisely what the "We The People" of the title did by adopting the Constitution. ...
www.bsos.umd.edu/ gvpt/ lpbr/ subpages/ reviews/ ackerman.htm

JSTOR: We the People. Vol. 1: Foundations.
But at other moments of "higher lawmaking'-- the 1780s, 1860s, and 1930s--'we the people" speak in full sovereign voice with a force and persistence that ...
links.jstor.org/ sici?sici=0021-8723(199206)79%3A1%3C226%3AWTPV1F%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2

We the Unconventional American People
We the People: Transformations Bruce Ackerman. James E. Fleming ... Ackerman began Discovering the Constitution-which launched the We the People project in ...
lawreview.uchicago.edu/ issues/ archive/ v65/ fall/ fleming.html

Harvard University Press: We the People, Volume 1, Foundations by ...
We the People, Volume 1, Foundations: by Bruce Ackerman, published by Harvard University Press.
www.hup.harvard.edu/ catalog/ ACKWE1.html?show=reviews

We the People by Bruce a. Ackerman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Jump to: navigation, search. Look for We the People by Bruce a. Ackerman on one of Wikipedia's sister projects: ...
en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ We_the_People_by_Bruce_a._Ackerman

Page 1 Center for Civic Education • 5145 Douglas Fir Road ...
We the People: Transformations. Cambridge, Mass: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998, p. 90. 3. Evaluate the Anti-Federalist argument that a ...
www.lawanddemocracy.org/ pdffiles/ wtp.nat.07.pdf

We the People, by Bruce Ackerman
Ackerman's ambitious project--which he has begun in Foundations and plans to carry forward in two future volumes--rests on the notion that the Constitution ...
www.commentarymagazine.com/ viewarticle.cfm/ We-the-People-by-Bruce-Ackerman-8004

Legal Theory Lexicon
Perhaps the most controversial conclusion that Ackerman reaches is that the New Deal involved another such constitutional moment, in which "We the People" ...
legaltheorylexicon.blogspot.com/ 2004/ 01/ legal-theory-lexicon-019.html

About the author (2000)

Bruce Ackerman is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University, and the author or coauthor of more than fifteen books on political philosophy, constitutional law, and public policy, including "Social Justice in the Liberal State, The Stakeholder Society, "and" Deliberation Day," all published by Yale University Press.

Bibliographic information

QR code for We the People
TitleWe the People: Transformations. 2
Volume 2 of We the People, Bruce A Ackerman
Volume 2 of We the People: Transformations, Bruce A. Ackerman
AuthorBruce Ackerman
Editionillustrated
PublisherHarvard University Press, 2000
ISBN0674003977, 9780674003972
Length532 pages
Subjects ›  › 

History / United States / General
Law / Constitutional
Political Science / Constitutions
  
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