This volume contains forty-six essays on various subjects and of varying lengths by Rhode Island{u2019}s first Historian Laureate, Patrick T. Conley.

"This book deals with important issues of constitutionalism in the American Revolution. It ranges from the imperial debate that led to the Declaration of Independence to the revolutionary state constitution making in 1776 and the creation of the Federal Constitution in 1787. It includes a discussion of slavery and constitutionalism, the emergence of the judiciary as one of the major tripartite institutions of government, and the demarcation between...

"The Constitution is the most significant document in America. But do you fully understand what this valuable document means to you? In How to Read the Constitution--and Why, legal expert and educator Kimberly Wehle spells out in clear, simple, and common sense terms what is in the Constitution, and most importantly, what it means. In compelling terms and including text from the United States Constitution, she describes how the Constitution's protections...

"The prizewinning author of Founding Brothers and American Sphinx now gives us the unexpected story of why the thirteen colonies, having just fought off the imposition of a distant centralized governing power, would decide to subordinate themselves anew. The Quartet is the story of this second American founding and of the men responsible-- some familiar, such as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, and some less so,...

"By the president of the prestigious Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, the life story of the most controversial, volatile, misunderstood provision of the Bill of Rights. At a time of renewed debate over guns in America, what does the Second Amendment mean? This book looks at history to provide some surprising, illuminating answers. The Amendment was written to calm public fear that the new national government would crush the state militias...

"Americans of late have taken to waving the Constitution in the air and proclaiming, 'The founders were on MY side! See, it's all right here!' But these phantom constitutions bear little relation to the historical one. By entering the world of the Constitution's framers, and experiencing it one day after the next as they did, Ray Raphael helps us understand how and why they created the document they did. Casting aside preconceptions and commonly held...