books about Constitution, good and bad

[Perd Hapley]

I am seeking to learn more about the U.S. Constitution, original intent, and the way it has been interpreted, misinterpreted and amended over the years.  While I suspect the best books will have a far-right/libertarian slant, I don't want to insulate myself from other points of view.  I'd like to start in the middle of the road, actually.  Anyway, can anyone recommend some worthwhile books, and classify them by the authors' bias or lack thereof?

So far the only book I can remember reading about it is Miracle at Philidelphia, by Catherine Drinker Bowen which is a narrative of the Constitutional Convention and the ratification.  Also, I have read the Fed. Papers.  Oh, yes, I have read the document itself a few times!  While not strictly a book on the Constitution, I have also read Felix Morley's intriguing Freedom and Federalism, which I recommend.

[Guest]

Unbelievably, one of the best was written by left-wing law professor Akhil Reed Amar: "The Bill Of Rights" 1998.

Trust me.  Highly recommended.  Amar didn't LIKE his conclusions, it's hysterical .

[Perd Hapley]

Well, this thread is almost a year old now, and I'm sure you've all used that time to contemplate my question.  Surely you folks will have some suggestions now.

Please? 

[crt360]

Go to your nearest law school book store.  Buy the Constitutional Law casebook and Emanuel's Constitutional Law Outline.  There are some other popular books on the subject by Tribe and Chemerinsky (sp?) that you might want to look at.  WARNING:  Reading too much con law material will mess up your mind and turn you into a drooling monkey.  Have some simple activities set up to occupy yourself during the recovery.

[SteveS]

If you want to PM your address, I can send you a 5 or 6 year old Con Law book.  I believe I have two or three.  For some reason, I kept all my books, thinking I'd need them to study for the bar exam.  I can look and see which ones I have.  I think they are a good starting point and do a decent job of explaining many of the basic concepts.

[RevDisk]

I am seeking to learn more about the U.S. Constitution, original intent, and the way it has been interpreted, misinterpreted and amended over the years.  While I suspect the best books will have a far-right/libertarian slant, I don't want to insulate myself from other points of view.  I'd like to start in the middle of the road, actually.  Anyway, can anyone recommend some worthwhile books, and classify them by the authors' bias or lack thereof?

So far the only book I can remember reading about it is Miracle at Philidelphia, by Catherine Drinker Bowen which is a narrative of the Constitutional Convention and the ratification.  Also, I have read the Fed. Papers.  Oh, yes, I have read the document itself a few times!  While not strictly a book on the Constitution, I have also read Felix Morley's intriguing Freedom and Federalism, which I recommend.

Federalist papers are nice and all, but you haven't lived until you've read the Anti-Federalist Papers.

[Hugh Damright]

In the 1960's, The Virginia Commission on Constitutional Government published a book called "We the States - an Anthology of Historic Documents and Commentaries thereon, Expounding the State and Federal Relationship". The book is inspired by, and addresses, the idea that the 14th Amendment empowers the US to integrate the schools. The book seems completely unbiased to me. Used copies go cheap on eBay (or Google it).

The Virginia Commission also gathered every congressional debate regarding the reconstruction amendments and condensed them into a huge book with tiny print: "The Reconstruction Amendments' Debates". I consider this book to be extremely biased, because the South is not part of the Congress, and it's all yankees. I don't see how it could be more biased ... State sovereignty is heresy, and secession is treason ... but there is also a contradicting minority view. This book is hard to find, but now and then one pops up on eBay for $20 to $60. One nice thing about it is that it has an index, so you can, for instance, look up "privileges and immunities" and find referenced every time this came up in the debates of the reconstruction amendments.

I have a book called "The Bill of Rights - Original Meaning and Current Understanding", edited by Eugene W. Hickok, Jr. I got mine cheap on eBay. It is the result of several conferences, with many authors. The first conference was in Virginia and regarded the USBOR original intent as a States' Rights document ... I suppose some would call that a Virginia bias, but being Virginian, it seems unbiased to me. The chapter on the Second Amendment is written by Kates and Halbrook, and I consider them to have a bias. But it's a good book, demonstrating how our current understanding of the USBOR is not the original meaning.