What would you think if you could be thrown in jail for speaking against the government or printing material to which officials objected? If you could be kept in prison until you told your jailers everything that they wanted to know? If people could come into your home at any time and ransack it to their heart's content? If at your trial you weren't allowed to have a lawyer or subpoena witnesses in your defense? Not so long ago, that's the way that it was, and it could be that way again.

"We the People" is about our rights, what they are, and how they got that way. Succinct and in...