Précis: The Rights Revolution in the Twentieth Century

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 446-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Tushnet
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Declaration Of Independence ◽  
Warren Court ◽  
Inalienable Rights

The idea of rights has been central to U.S. political and constitutional discourse from the beginning. The Declaration of Independence appealed to “inalienable rights,” and the first amendments to the Constitution were universally described as a bill of rights. Yet, something distinctive appears to have happened to the idea of rights over the course of the twentieth century. By the end of the century, rights-claims were being asserted in locations, such as schools and prisons, where they had not been found at the century's beginning, and they were being asserted on behalf of claimants, such as fetuses and new arrivals to the United States, who were outside the domain of rights earlier. Even the content of rights-claims changed. Much of the Warren Court's work completed a constitutional agenda outlined, albeit unclearly, in the 1940s and early 1950s as part of the New Deal's constitutional vindication. The Warren Court added something new—an emphasis on personal autonomy—to the New Deal's concerns for fairness in the political process.

Protestant Clergymen and American Destiny: I. Promise and Judgment, 1781–1800

1963 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 217-231
Author(s):  
James H. Smylie
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Declaration Of Independence ◽  
Common Experience ◽  
Democratic Revolution ◽  
The Common

Americans in “search” of the “goals,” “prospects,” and “purpose” of the United States share an interest in the latter part of the eighteenth century. This was the age of the democratic revolution in Western civilization which produced the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, those primary and permanent legacies paramount to our national existence. Although remote in time this period is the common experience of Americans because our lives are still regulated by the political instruments it produced.

scholarly journals Race and Politics in the United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 174-179
Author(s):  
Howard A. Palley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Black Population ◽  
The United States ◽  
Thomas Jefferson ◽  
Pursuit Of Happiness ◽  
George Washington ◽  
Declaration Of Independence ◽  
Chattel Slavery ◽  
Race And Politics ◽  
Inalienable Rights

Abstract The Declaration of Independence asserts that “All men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Nevertheless, the United States, at its foundation has been faced with the contradiction of initially supporting chattel slavery --- a form of slavery that treated black slaves from Africa purely as a commercial commodity. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both of whom had some discomfort with slavery, were slaveholders who both utilized slaves as a commodity. Article 1 of our Constitution initially treated black slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of apportioning representation in order to increase Southern representation in Congress. So initially the Constitution’s commitment to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” did not include the enslaved black population. This essay contends that the residue of this initial dilemma still affects our politics --- in a significant manner.

Remarks by Bert Lockwood

1973 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 82-86
Author(s):  
Bert Lockwood ◽  
Beatrice Brickell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Justice ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Southern Rhodesia

I would like to address myself to international outlaws and what domestic procedures are available to arrest their activities. While at first glance the nexus between domestic justice and international justice may seem tenuous, I wonder: Is it surprising that the same administration that is so insensate over the deprivation of the human rights of blacks in Southern Rhodesia is the same administration that proclaimed early in its tenure that if you have seen one slum you have pretty much seen them all, and hasn’t visited another since? Is it surprising that the same administration that evidences so little concern over the political rights of the majority in Rhodesia is the same administration that “bugs” and sabotages the political process within the United States?

scholarly journals U.S. War Powers and the Potential Benefits of Comparativism

2019 ◽  
pp. 752-770
Author(s):  
Curtis A. Bradley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Force ◽  
War Powers ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
Legal Methodology

This chapter describes U.S. law governing the use of military force, and it considers the potential value of comparative study of how different countries regulate the issue. As the chapter notes, there is significant uncertainty and debate in the United States over the distribution of authority concerning the use of force—in particular, over whether and to what extent military actions must be authorized by Congress. Because courts in the modern era have generally declined to review the legality of military actions, disputes over this issue have had to be resolved, as a practical matter, through the political process. For those who believe that it is important to have legislative involvement in decisions to use force, the political process has not proven to be satisfactory: presidents have often used military force without obtaining congressional approval, and Congress generally has done little to resist such presidential unilateralism. The United States is not the only country to struggle with regulating the domestic authority to use military force. This issue of foreign relations law is common to constitutional democracies, and nations vary substantially in how they have addressed it. Comparative study of such approaches should be of inherent interest to scholars and students, including those trying to better understand the U.S. approach. Whether and to what extent such study should also inform the interpretation or revision of U.S. law presents a more complicated set of questions that are affected in part by one’s legal methodology and how the comparative materials are being invoked.

The Politically Weak

2020 ◽  
pp. 93-119
Author(s):  
Martin Crotty ◽  
Neil J. Diamant ◽  
Mark Edele
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
Long Period ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Democratic Systems

This chapter investigates the cases of victory and defeat and explains what politically influential veterans were able to produce to secure benefits and rights. It focuses on China after its long period of war and civil war that ended in 1949, the United Kingdom after both world wars, the United States after World War I, and the USSR after World War II. It analyses the cases wherein veterans had little or limited success in securing meaningful social and political status. The chapter identifies factors that determine the veterans' status, where it is victory or defeat, or authoritarian versus democratic systems of government. It discusses the political process and the attempts to convert claims into entitlements in order to explain the negative outcomes for the veterans of victorious armies.

The Violence of Inequality: Race and Lobbying in the Politics of Crime and Criminal Justice in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 68-93
Author(s):  
Sappho Xenakis ◽  
Leonidas K. Cheliotis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Reciprocal Relationship ◽  
Criminal Justice Policy ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Us

There is no shortage of scholarly and other research on the reciprocal relationship that inequality bears to crime, victimisation and contact with the criminal justice system, both in the specific United States context and beyond. Often, however, inequality has been studied in conjunction with only one of the three phenomena at issue, despite the intersections that arguably obtain between them–and, indeed, between their respective connections with inequality itself. There are, moreover, forms of inequality that have received far less attention in pertinent research than their prevalence and broader significance would appear to merit. The purpose of this chapter is dual: first, to identify ways in which inequality’s linkages to crime, victimisation and criminal justice may relate to one another; and second, to highlight the need for a greater focus than has been placed heretofore on the role of institutionalised inequality of access to the political process, particularly as this works to bias criminal justice policy-making towards the preferences of financially motivated state lobbying groups at the expense of disadvantaged racial minorities. In so doing, the chapter singles out for analysis the US case and, more specifically, engages with key extant explanations of the staggering rise in the use of imprisonment in the country since the 1970s.

Jefferson, Madison, and the Making of the Constitution

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff Broadwater
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Early Period ◽  
The United States ◽  
Thomas Jefferson ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
James Madison ◽  
Declaration Of Independence ◽  
Constitutional Thought

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and James Madison, “Father of the Constitution,” were two of the most important Founders of the United States as well as the closest of political allies. Yet historians have often seen a tension between the idealistic rhetoric of the Declaration and the more pedestrian language of the Constitution. Moreover, to some, the adoption of the Constitution represented a repudiation of the democractic values of the Revolution. In this book, Jeff Broadwater explores the evolution of the constitutional thought of these two seminal American figures, from the beginning of the American Revolution through the adoption of the Bill of Rights. In explaining how the two political compatriots could have produced such seemingly dissimilar documents but then come to a common constitutional ground, Broadwater reveals how their collaboration ---and their disagreements---influenced the full range of constitutional questions during this early period of the American republic.

scholarly journals Political Science Funding Black Out in North America? Trends in Funding Should not be Ignored

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (03) ◽  
pp. 599-604 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Plazek ◽  
Alan Steinberg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Political Science ◽  
National Science Foundation ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Science Funding ◽  
National Science ◽  
One Year

AbstractRecent actions in Congress that threaten political science funding by the National Science Foundation (NSF) have caught the attention of political scientists, but this was not the first attack and not likely to be the last. Less than one year ago, the Harper government ended the Understanding Canada program, an important source of funding for academics in the United States and abroad. This article stresses the value of the program and the importance of this funding steam by demonstrating what the grants have done both more generally as well as for the authors individually. In addition, by looking at the political process that led to the end of the Understanding Canada program and the similarities in the attacks on NSF political science funding, this article identifies potential reasons why these funds were and are at risk. We conclude by arguing that normative action in support of political science is a necessity for all political scientists.

The Woman Suffrage Movement in the United States

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca J. Mead
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Woman Suffrage ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nineteenth Amendment ◽  
Suffrage Movement ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Woman Suffrage Movement

Woman suffragists in the United States engaged in a sustained, difficult, and multigenerational struggle: seventy-two years elapsed between the Seneca Falls convention (1848) and the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment (1920). During these years, activists gained confidence, developed skills, mobilized resources, learned to maneuver through the political process, and built a social movement. This essay describes key turning points and addresses internal tensions as well as external obstacles in the U.S. woman suffrage movement. It identifies important strategic, tactical, and rhetorical approaches that supported women’s claims for the vote and influenced public opinion, and shows how the movement was deeply connected to contemporaneous social, economic, and political contexts.

Al-Shabaab's threat to Somalia's capital will persist

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
The Political ◽  
Content Type ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Soft Targets

Significance This is the latest in a series of deadly terrorist attacks attributed to al-Shabaab since late July hitting high-profile targets in Mogadishu. The militant group is succeeding in carrying out these strikes as the country prepares for a political transition. Impacts The United States and other Western backers of the Somali government will step up security support to safeguard the elections. Al-Shabaab will accelerate complex attacks into November aimed at soft targets. The attacks will fail to disrupt upcoming indirect elections but could undermine confidence in security and the political process.

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