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This book presents an original historical-legal analysis of the adoption of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Drawing upon James Madison's own minutes of the 1787 Convention, it focuses on Madison's crucial role in shaping a bill of rights that would both reserve the states' powers and confirm the implied powers doctrine for the federal government. This comprehensive work is indispensable for understanding the origins of the federal system of government and its impact on later developments in the United States.
List of contents
1. America's First Constitution: State Over Nation.- 2. The Road to Philadelphia: Nationalists in Search of Energy and Supremacy.- 3. The Constitutional Convention: Nation over State within a Federal Framework.- 4. Delimiting the Scope of National Authority.- 5. Three Dissenting Fathers: The First Salvo in the Antifederalist Campaign.- 6. The Antifederalist Drive to Reinstitute State over Nation.- 7. Three Ratification Contests: The Fate of the Union in the Balance.- 8. Madison and the Threat of a Second Constitutional Convention.- 9. The Bill of Rights in Congress: Madison's Race against Time.- 10. The Tenth Amendment: Nation over State Preserved.- 11. Postscript: Federalism Tested: Madison v. Marshall and the Antifederalist Revival.
About the author
Shlomo Slonim (LLB Melbourne, PhD Columbia) is the James G. McDonald Professor of American History, Emeritus, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Summary
This book presents an original historical-legal analysis of the adoption of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Drawing upon James Madison’s own minutes of the 1787 Convention, it focuses on Madison’s crucial role in shaping a bill of rights that would both reserve the states’ powers and confirm the implied powers doctrine for the federal government. This comprehensive work is indispensable for understanding the origins of the federal system of government and its impact on later developments in the United States.
