Declaring Rights: A Brief History with Documents

by Jack N. Rakove

Questions about the original meaning of the Bill of Rights remain a source of active concern and controversy in the twenty-first century. In order to help students consider the intentions of the first Constitutional amendments and the significance of declaring rights, Jack Rakove traces the tradition and describes the deliberations from which the Bill of Rights emerged.

Genres: History, American Revolution, Law

240 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 1997

About the author

Jack Rakove is the William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies and professor of political science and (by courtesy) law at Stanford, where he has taught since 1980. His principal areas of research include the origins of the American Revolution and Constitution, the political practice and theory of James Madison, and the role of historical knowledge in constitutional litigation. He is the author of six books, including Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (1996), which won the Pulitzer Prize in History, and Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America (2010), which was a finalist for the George Washington Prize, and the editor of seven others, including The Unfinished Election of 2000 (2001). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and a past president of the Society for the History of the Early American Republic.

Reviews

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and useful little volume that guides you through ideas about rights in Anglo-American thought from the English Revolution to the Bill of Rights. Rakove guides you through these rather tough documents with a bunch of mini-essays, which were super valuable for me. He also frames the whole book around the issues of declaring rights as distinct from ideas about rights. He explores the many reasons people thought rights should be declared. In general, our modern understanding of rights-declarations as a legal doctrine to be enforced by the courts barely existed in this time period. Rather, rights were declared as checks on government power, reminders to the people of their rights and duties, and statements of principle or explanations of actions. The highlight of this volume for me was the thought of James Madison, who intellectually did not think declaring rights had much value but came around politically when he saw that the passage of the Constitution might hinge on the inclusion of a rights-declaration. Madison spells out a proto-Millian argument that the legislature might actually be a greater threat to individual rights than the executive, given the potential for the legislature to be hijacked by majorities. At the national level he wasn't too worried about this (think of his argument in Fed 10), but he thought it was far more likely at the state level, so he wanted more enforcement power at the federal level on the tendency of the states to succumb to the tyranny of the majority. This volume also gives some great introductions to anti-Federalist thought.

I would say US historians should read this volume in its entirety and then use passages of it in teaching. The language is obviously very hard and the paragraph breaks few in number, but a lot of insight about the evolution of political and constitutional thought can be gleaned for students in here. Hats off the Rakove for assembling such a useful conceptual and teaching tool here.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting readings but fairly difficult to follow for students.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

7.5/10

[Nick Springer · Rating 3 out of 5]

7/10