The Civic Constitution Civic Visions and Struggles in the Path toward Constitutional Democracy 2018 Edition by Elizabeth Beaumont , Oxford

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Oxford The Civic Constitution Civic Visions and Struggles in the Path toward Constitutional Democracy 2018 Edition by Elizabeth Beaumont

How have generations of Americans debated and shaped the constitutional meanings of liberty, equality, justice, and "We, the people"? What roles have engaged citizens and social movements played in effecting transformative constitutional change? These questions are at the heart of Elizabeth Beaumont's lucid and compelling study. In The Civic Constitution, she traces four crucial eras of constitutional dispute and reinvention: the revolutionaries who_x000D_catalyzed the Declaration of Independence and first state constitutions; the antifederalists and other critics who influenced the national Constitution and Bill of Rights; the abolitionists who paved the way for the Reconstruction Amendments; and the suffragists whose battles provoked the Nineteenth Amendment. _x000D__x000D_Beaumont argues that these groups should be recognized as civic founders-and co-founders-of the U.S. Constitution. Through newspaper broadsides, petitions, convention speeches, sermons, boycotts, and protests, these men and women worked to redefine fundamental law. Challenging established authority, they advocated vital new understandings of popular self-governance, rights, liberties, and citizenship. Indeed, though their roles are often overlooked in contemporary debates, these civic_x000D_reformers not only shaped the legal text and terms of modern constitutionalism, but reconstructed the meaning of civic membership, in terms of both norms and fundamental commitments._x000D__x000D_The Civic Constitution is a sweeping work of reinterpretation that speaks to students of American politics, history, and law. This richly documented study offers a keener understanding of the Constitution and a more profound perception of civic identity and democracy itself._x000D_ Table of Contents :- _x000D_ Acknowledgments_x000D_ Key to Abbreviations_x000D_ Introduction_x000D_ _x000D_ 1 : The Civic Constitution_x000D_ _x000D_ Part One: Revisiting the 18th Century Founding_x000D_ _x000D_ 2 : Making Liberty Popular_x000D_ Revolutionaries' "Common Sense" Popular Constitutionalism and New State Republics_x000D_ 3 : The Unfinished Constitution_x000D_ Quarrels and Claims of "We, the People" in Constitutional Creation and Ratification_x000D_ _x000D_ Part Two: Civic Struggles to Refound "We, the People" and the Constitution_x000D_ _x000D_ 4 : Pursuing Equality_x000D_ Abolitionists' Anti-slavery Constitutionalism and Reconstruction _x000D_ 5 : Claiming Justice_x000D_ Suffragists' Gender Justice Constitutionalism and Transformation_x000D_ 6 : The Complexities of a Civic Founders' Constitution_x000D_ _x000D_ References_x000D_ Index_x000D_