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• Cover
• Introduction
• About This Book
• Conventions Used in This Book
• Icons Used in This Book
• Beyond the Book
• Where to Go from Here
• Part 1: Getting Started with the U.S. Constitution
• Chapter 1: Identifying the Main Principles and Controversies of the Constitution
• Defining “Constitution”
• Knowing When and Why the Constitution Was Created
• Summarizing the Main Principles of the Constitution
• Identifying Some Areas of Controversy
• Chapter 2: Probing Underlying Concepts: Big Thinkers, Big Thoughts
• Building on Magna Carta
• Respecting the Rule of Law (or the Rule of Lawyers?)
• Analyzing the Concepts Underlying the Declaration of Independence
• Establishing a Republic
• Chapter 3: Untangling Some Confusion and Ambiguities
• Listing Some Sources of Confusion
• Discarding Out-of-Date Ideas?
• Clarifying Uncertainties
• Giving Some Important Principles the Silent Treatment
• Interpreting the Constitution
• Chapter 4: Catching a Bird’s-Eye View of the Constitution
• Presenting the Preamble: “We the People …”
• Article I: Setting Up the Congress
• Article II: Hailing the Chief
• Article III: Understating Judicial Power
• Article IV: Getting Along with the Neighbors — and Uncle Sam
• Article V: Changing versus Amending the Constitution
• Article VI: Fudging Federalism
• Article VII: Ratifying the Constitution
• Chapter 5: Changing the Constitution by Amendment and Interpretation
• Noting the Four Paths to an Amendment
• Explaining What Happens in Practice
• Listing the Amendments
• Debating the Need for Judge-Made Law
• Part 2: We the People: How the United States Is Governed
• Chapter 6: Scrutinizing Sovereignty: Who Rules America?
• Introducing “We the People”
• Hailing the Chief
• Congress: Flexing Its Lawmaking Muscle
• Giving the States Their Due
• The High Court: Saying What the Law Is
• Uncovering Conspiracies
• Chapter 7: Defining Federalism
• Tracing the Origins of U.S. Federalism
• Testing State Sovereignty: Some Recent Supreme Court Decisions
• Foreign Affairs: Looking at the Influence of Treaties
• Chapter 8: Separation of Powers: Checking and Balancing
• No Moonlighting for the President
• Keeping the Branches Apart
• Checking and Balancing
• Chapter 9: Doing Business: The Commerce Clause
• How the Commerce Clause Was Born
• Interpreting the Commerce Clause
• Hunting Down the Dormant Commerce Clause
• Tracing the Changing Meaning of the Commerce Clause
• Part 3: Assessing the Three Engines of Government: The President, Congress, and the Judiciary
• Chapter 10: Examining the Role of the President
• Being “eligible to the Office of President”
• Picking a President
• Canning the President
• Signing, Vetoing, and Pocketing Legislation
• Appointing Key Positions
• Hailing the Chief: The President’s Administration
• Battling Executive Privilege
• Making War versus Declaring War
• Chapter 11: Giving Everyone a Voice: The House of Representatives and the Senate
• Making the Laws That Govern the Land
• Visiting the People’s House
• Getting to Know the Senate
• Passing Legislation
• Chapter 12: “Saying What the Law Is”: The Judicial System
• Examining the Courts’ Function
• Appointments and Elections: Becoming a Judge
• Understanding Judicial Independence without Accountability
• Making the Judiciary Paramount: Judicial Review
• Casting the Swing Vote
• Labeling Supreme Court Justices
• Chapter 13: You’re Fired! Investigating the Impeachment Process
• There’s Nothing Peachy about Impeachment
• “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”: What Impeachment Is and Isn’t
• Explaining the Impeachment Process
• Understanding the Implications of Impeachment
• Tracking Impeachment in Action
• Removing State Officials from Office
• Part 4: Guaranteeing Important Rights: The Bill of Rights
• Chapter 14: The First Amendment: Freedom of Religion, Speech, and Assembly
• Considering the Amendment’s Wording
• Separating Church and State
• Assuring the Free Exercise of Religion
• Guaranteeing Freedom of Expression
• Leaking Classified Information
• Having Your Cake …
• Protecting the Right to Assemble and Petition
• Chapter 15: The Second Amendment: Bearing Arms
• Debating Interpretation: Individual versus State Rights
• Breaking Down the Amendment’s Clauses
• Upholding Individual Rights: D.C. v. Heller
• Considering the Continuation of the Debate
• Chapter 16: The Third and Fourth Amendments: Protecting Citizens from Government Forces
• Keeping the Feds Out of Your House
• Keeping the Government Off Your Back
• Chapter 17: Taking the Fifth — and a Bit of the Fourteenth
• Invoking the “Great Right” against Self-Incrimination
• Peeking Behind the Closed Doors of the Grand Jury
• Avoiding Double Jeopardy
• Agonizing over Due Process
• Opening Up the Incorporation Debate
• Taking Private Property
• Chapter 18: Regulating Crime and Punishment: The Sixth through Eighth Amendments
• Outlining Defendants’ Rights in Criminal Prosecutions: The Sixth Amendment
• Guaranteeing Jury Trials in Civil Suits: The Seventh Amendment
• Prohibiting “Cruel and Unusual Punishments”: The Eighth Amendment
• Chapter 19: Analyzing an “Inkblot” and a “Truism”: The Ninth and Tenth Amendments
• Reading the Constitution: The Ninth Amendment
• Considering the Tenth Amendment
• Part 5: Addressing Liberties and Modifying the Government: More Amendments
• Chapter 20: States’ Rights, Elections, and Slavery: The Eleventh through Thirteenth Amendments
• The Eleventh Amendment: Asserting State Sovereign Immunity?
• Cleaning Up the Framers’ Political Mess: The Twelfth Amendment
• Removing the Blot of Slavery: The Thirteenth Amendment
• Chapter 21: The Fourteenth Amendment: Ensuring Equal Protection
• Defining Citizenship
• Understanding States’ Obligations
• Achieving “Equal Justice Under Law” — Or Not
• Disqualifying Confederates from Office
• Repudiating Confederate Debts
• Empowering Congress
• Chapter 22: Starts, Stops, and Clarifications: Amendments since 1870
• Removing Race Qualifications for Voting: The Fifteenth Amendment
• Letting Uncle Sam Raid Your Piggy Bank: The Sixteenth Amendment
• Electing the Senate: The Seventeenth Amendment
• Outlawing Liquor: The Eighteenth Amendment
• Giving Women the Vote: The Nineteenth Amendment
• Moving Out of the Horse and Buggy Age: The Twentieth Amendment
• Repealing Prohibition: The Twenty-First Amendment
• Taking George Washington’s Lead: The Twenty-Second Amendment
• Enfranchising the Nation’s Capital: The Twenty-Third Amendment
• Banning Tax Barriers to Voting: The Twenty-Fourth Amendment
• Succeeding to the Presidency: The Twenty-Fifth Amendment
• Lowering the Voting Age: The Twenty-Sixth Amendment
• Limiting Congressional Pay Raises: The Twenty-Seventh Amendment
• Part 6: The Part of Tens
• Chapter 23: Ten Landmark Constitutional Cases
• Marbury v. Madison (1803)
• Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
• Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger (2003)
• Kelo v. City of New London (2005)
• Clinton v. Jones (1997)
• Roe v. Wade (1973)
• Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) (2010)
• Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)
• Glossip v. Gross (2015)
• Riley v. California (2014)
• Chapter 24: Ten Influential Supreme Court Justices
• John Marshall
• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
• Hugo Black
• Earl Warren
• Thurgood Marshall
• John Paul Stevens
• Sandra Day O’Connor
• Antonin Scalia
• Anthony Kennedy
• John Roberts
• Chapter 25: Two Sides of Five Constitutional Conundrums
• Is the Constitution Outdated?
• Should the Electoral College Be Abolished?
• Does the U.S. Supreme Court Have Too Much Power?
• Is the United States a Democracy?
• Does the President Have Too Much Power?
• Appendix: Constitution of the United States of America
• Preamble
• Articles
• Signatures
• Amendments
• About the Author
• Advertisement Page
• Connect with Dummies
• Index
• End User License Agreement