The processes of constitutional change in America are particularly difficult to understand because of the constant interaction between the constitutional document of 1787 and the wider set of understandings and practices surrounding that document. This work is the first to examine systematically the relationship between changes initiated by constitutional amendment and changes initiated by judicial interpretations or actions of the two elected branches of government. By examining and comparing all three mechanisms of constitutional revision, Vile offers a more complex and dynamic analysis...

For nearly 20 years, William Hubbs Rehnquist served as the 16th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. During these two decades, the Court issued major decisions involving federalism, abortion, affirmative action, civil rights, privacy, and the 2000 presidential election. Throughout his tenure, Justice Rehnquist was conventionally perceived as a conservative, partly for the anti-civil rights memos he had written earlier in his career. He became a lightning rod for controversy during his confirmation hearings in 1972 for Associate Justice and again in 1986 when he became Chief...

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s Communism and the Cold War pervaded almost every aspect of American policy and concern. Eisenhower's Highway Act sought to strengthen America with the sort of roads system and military advantage Germany's Autobahn provided in World War II; Kennedy looked to space, the Peace Corps, and the schools to improve America's actual and perceived status in the eyes of the world; LBJ continually found concerns about Southeast Asia pressing in upon him notwithstanding his desire to found a new Great Society in the United States. However, despite the Cold War and demands...

Vile has collected more than 500 speeches and other documents, from George Washington to George W. Bush, that relate to the outcome of elections. Many are actual candidate statements or speeches, while others are private letters, diary entries, interviews, and newspaper and journal articles. Vile...

Since the Reconstruction period, there have been over forty proposals to rewrite the U.S. Constitution. John Vile's unique historical study analyzes all of these proposals within the framework of the constitutional amending process. In each case Vile examines the substance of the proposal, its goals and methods, the response to the proposal, and its overall influence--concluding that the Constitution in its current form faces no immediate threats. He finds no convincing cases for a new Constitution and believes that most perceived defects can be remedied with less drastic measures.

The...

This book is the first full-length work to present debates over the constitutional amending process as a perennial theme in American political thought. Beginning with a discussion of the views of political philosophers, publicists, and legal commentators who may have influenced the views of legal change held by the American Founding Fathers, the work proceeds to look at the historical influences on and discussions surrounding the amending process that was incorporated into Article V of the U.S. Constitution. The reader will gain a new respect for the way the amending process has served and...