Relations Between the States and the Federal Government After 1789

The ratification of the federal Constitution and the election of George Washington did not bring an end to the debate between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists— that is, proponents of a powerful central government and those who wished to see the states retain the greatest possible levels and scope of power, respectively.^[741] Despite the ratification of the nation’s new Constitution the Anti-Federalists did not give up, and did all they could to defend the power and autonomy of the states in the face of federal power.

Federalism, however, continued to gain ground, expanding in three areas. Firstly, thanks to the establishment of the principle of judicial review, which authorized the Supreme Court of the United States to determine the “constitution­ality” of a law. In this way, the Judicial power was designated as the guarantor and arbiter of Constitutional orthodoxy, standing above the powers engaged in the political fray: the Legislative and Executive. Secondly, the federal government was bolstered by the incorporation of new states into the union, which, from 1791 to 1959, went from 13 to 50. The union’s expansion process was no easy task, and would even trigger a devastating Civil War, when America’s southern slave states sought to secede from the Union, to protect their “states rights” (principally their slaveholding rights), from what they viewed as federal encroachment. The victory of the North (Union) definitively established the supremacy of federal power.^[742] Finally, the national government acquired more power vis-a-vis the states, as the restrictive interpretation of the Bill of Rights was discarded.

14.5.1 The Implementation of Judicial Review

Originally, during the crucial years from 1776 to 1787, in every state the general assumption tended to prevail that state legislatures were the sole judges of their own constitutional powers, and very few Americans believed that any state court had the authority to declare a law invalid on the grounds that it violated the U.S. Constitution (Nevins 1991, 168). At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia (1787-1789), however, there was a clear reaction to this uncontested supremacy of the state legislatures. In isolated cases, some state courts had asserted the right to deem a statute unconstitutional,^[743] but Madison did not wish to directly assign such power to the Judiciary, proposing the establishment of a Federal Council of Revision with the authority to nullify both state and federal bills as a way of countering the factious majorities in state legislatures. However, as Madison failed to win support for this Council at the Constitutional Convention, he would ultimately accept the Supreme Court as the institution of the federal government best suited to determine what laws were and were not constitutional (Hall et al. 2005, 601).

Upon the election of the Anti-Federalist Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) as Pres­ident of the United States, the federal government could have been weakened, as Jefferson was an avowed proponent of devolving power to the states in what he called the “Revolution of 1800”, featuring the Federalists’ defeat (McDonald 1995, 2).

14.5.2 From 13 to 50 States

When the original 13 states ratified the U.S. Constitution in 1791, the constitutional history of the United States had only just begun. As the years passed, new states were added to the union as the nation surged westward. This process began immediately, with the 1791 incorporation of the states of Vermont and Kentucky, and ended with the 1959 integration of Alaska and Hawaii. The process of the expansion of the United States of America is a fascinating phase of its constitutional history about which many are ignorant, but without studying this crucial aspect the consolidation of the Union and the presidential system cannot be understood.^[747]

14.5.2.1 The Legal Principles Governing Westward Expansion: The Ownership of Western Land

Even before the War of Independence was over, representatives from 7 of the 13 states had expressed their intention to annex virgin lands to the west when Britain finally surrendered its claim to them, expansionist plans which were blocked when the other six, which did not have western borders, considered it unfair for their fellow states to be able to expand when they were not.^[748] Thus, an agreement was reached by which the expansion of the United States was to fall under the purview of the Congress, already the nation’s supreme legislative body according the Articles of Confederation regime (Lawson and Seidman 2004, 73-74), establishing the principle that in the western lands distinct states should be formed, to join the Union with “the same rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence as the other states”.^[749] The states which had once aspired to expand their borders ended up ceding their rights to Congress over a period of two decades; the first to do so was New York in early 1780, forcing Virginia and the others.

Congress was, therefore, charged with developing the procedure according to which new territories would be incorporated into the nation. This was no small task, as it called for maintaining the balance which had made the emergence of the federal union possible. The first attempt at legislation governing the expansion process, the Land Ordinance of 1784, would prove, however, a failure.

14.5.2.2 The Land Ordinance of 1784

The first attempt to regulate America’s territorial expansion process was the Land Ordinance of 1784 (April 23). Drafted by Thomas Jefferson, it was intended to become the first law governing the territories lying west of the existing states (Berkhofer 1988, 267-298). Passed under the Articles of Confederation govern­ment, the law ended up failing because it called for the formation of new states in the west according to a schedule that was considered too hurried by the most influential members of the ruling elite, who believed that a plan to survey and sell the western lands should be undertaken to secure badly needed funds, and that measures should be taken to defend the widely dispersed westerners from threats by Indians or other white settlers (Johnson 2009, 7). Moreover, Congress feared that a rapid increase in the number of states might send the new nation spinning into anarchy.

14.5.2.3 The Legal Regulation of the Sale of New Lands: The Land Ordinance of May 20,1785

To avoid these problems, the Congress decided to restrict itself to regulating only the economic aspect of the measurement and sale of the new lands. To this end the Land Ordinance of 1785 (May 20), established the model for American territorial expansion, based on basic units of 6 square miles (about 9,600 m², slightly less than a hectare),^[751] a new and revolutionary system of measuring and bounding the land (Hine and Faragher 2007, 42).

This territorial division would prove essential, as it facilitated the United States’ evolution into a nation of small and medium-sized landowners.^[752] This, in turn, paved the way for the abandonment of censitary suffrage systems (under which affairs were dominated by great landowners, such as Washington and Jefferson), and the adoption of more democratic models based on universal suffrage, which definitively triumphed after the end of the Civil war (1865)—at least for men, as American women would not be granted the vote until after World War I (Keyssar 2009).

The addition of a large number of new landowners to the body politic made the election of 1828 a watershed in American politics, marking the first featuring mass participation, i.e. not controlled by members of the traditional, privileged gentry. The winner was Andrew Jackson, the victor in the first election featuring much of the phenomena that would characterize more modern electioneering: mudslinging,

rallies, pandering, the grassroots mobilization of voters, leaflets, etc. Jackson was sworn in as the seventh President of the United States (1829-1837).^[753]

14.5.2.4 The Public Status of the New Lands: The Northwest Ordinance

(July 13,1787)

Once the process of land parceling and sale had been undertaken by Congress it remained to establish the new lands’ public legal status, as the 1784 Land Ordi­nance had failed to pass. The representatives of the states were in agreement that none of the 13 founding states should be allowed to annex additional territory. Thus, it was necessary to determine how the new territories would be brought into the union as new states.

Based on this understanding a landmark law in the development of the United States was drafted: the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, a pivotal piece of legisla­tion^[754] that predates even the Federal Constitution of 1787; the Ordinance was approved on July 13, 1787, while the Constitution was not completed until September 17, and was not ratified until June 21, 1788, entering into force on March 4, 1789. Hence, the Northwest Ordinance is widely considered a “constitu­tional” text (Duffey 1995, 929-968).

The Ordinance of 1787 was a logical extension of the Land Ordinance of 1785 (Hyman 2008, 18-34), designed to regulate the type of governments to be established in the new territories on the land which had been surveyed and sold. To prevent the excessive haste which the 1784 Ordinance had been criticized for fomenting, the 1787 act introduced the principle (Sections 3-12)^[755] that the new states, prior to achieving statehood, would be required to first pass through a provisional status as “territories”, during which they were to satisfy a series of conditions (Onuf 1990, 255). Once organized the territories were to petition Congress for entry as new American states, a status which would place them on equal footing with all the others.

The historic measure was termed the Northwest Ordinance because, in principle, it only applied to a particular territorial area stretching west of the Ohio River, where, over time, there appeared five new states: Ohio (1803), Indiana (1816), Illinois (1818), Michigan (1832) and Wisconsin (1848), which respectively became states number 17, 19, 21, 26 and 30 of the Union (Anastaplo 2006, 25, 122).

It is true that some new states were incorporated outside of this regulatory framework. Such was the case with Vermont and Kentucky, which in 1791 were directly added as states 14 and 15. However, by 1796 the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 was being applied outside the Northwest Territory to incorporate the state of Tennessee. Since then the addition of new states into the federal union would generally be carried out according to the NWO model. In fact, 31 of the 50 states that today make up the United States joined the Union under the terms of said legislation.^[756]

14.5.3 A Problematic Expansion

The process for the integration of new states into the federal union was, however, lengthy and complex, and not devoid of problems. Among other things, it was one of the triggers of the American Civil War (1861-1865), which nearly destroyed the American union. Thus, it may be said that had it not been for the NWO the United States never would have become one of the most powerful nations in the world. It behooves us, then, to examine, if only by way of an overview, the essential stages of the process by which the union expanded.^[757] These were as follows:

(1) Firstly, mention must be made of the creation of five states (Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin) in the “Northwest Territory”, which the United States obtained from England after the signing of the Peace of Ver­sailles in 1783. The integration of this territory was the initial aim pursued by the Northwest Ordinance, enacted in July of 1787.

(2) The second step was taken when the principles and the procedure established in the Ordinance of 1787, were applied for the first time to an area not initially covered by said legislation, which was theoretically only intended for the settlement of the northwest. This precedent was set in the so-called “South­west Territory”, which became the State of Tennessee in 1796, after the express application of the terms set forth in the Northwest Ordinance.

(3) The third wave of state institution involved the territories that the Union had purchased from the Spanish Crown in 1795, 1797, 1813 and 1819 in the southeast, a region which saw the formation of the states of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, also pursuant to the procedure laid down in the 1787 legislation.

(4) A fourth stage began in 1803, when Napoleon Bonaparte sold the Louisiana Territory (Louisiana Purchase) to the United States, an expanse covering some 823,000 square miles of new land. In addition to doubling the nation’s territory, for the first time the United States stretched to the Pacific Ocean (Lawson and Seidman 2004, 17-85).^[758] In this immense territory, there would emerge nine full states and parts of five others, beginning with the State of Louisiana itself, which joined the union as the 18th state in 1812, by follow­ing, again, the procedure laid down in the Northwest Ordinance.

(5) By 1819, the union was already composed of 22 states, half of which permitted slavery, and half of which prohibited it. In addition to its human rights ramifications, this point of divergence also entailed significant economic factors, as the slave states’ economies were based on huge plantations culti­vated by slaves, while the free states’ economies were characterized by free farmers along with humble to more prosperous landowners, and workers engaged in mining and industry. Therefore, while in the former the principle of censitary suffrage prevailed, whereby only citizens with certain levels of income could vote in elections, in the free states universal suffrage was implemented virtually from the outset. The country, then, featured two dif­ferent, almost opposite models of the state. This key variance (economic, social and political) would have dramatic consequences.

As long as a balance was maintained between the number of slave and free states, federal institutions reflected that balance, especially in the Senate, where each state was (and still is today) represented by two senators. In 1819, however, Missouri aspired to enter the union as a slave state, which would have upset this delicate balance. To resolve the ensuing crisis in 1820, the slave and free states came to an agreement: Missouri would be permitted to join as a slave state, Maine would join as a free state, and slavery would be banned in all future territories north of the 36° 30' latitude line. It was also agreed that slavery would be prohibited north of said line (Wilentz 2004, 375-401). What came to be known as the “Missouri Compromise” was respected until 1845, and made possible the subsequent incorporation into the union of another six states: three slave (Missouri, Arkansas and Florida), and three free (Maine, Michigan and Iowa).^[759]

(6) The situation shifted on December 29, 1845, when the State of Texas joined the union via annexation rather than the application of the procedure adopted in 1787. Texas had actually been an independent republic since 1836 and its annexation, in addition to triggering war with Mexico (1846-1848), led to the collapse of the Missouri Compromise, as Texas entered the union as a slave state without its incorporation being balanced out by the addition of another free one.^[760]

(7) In 1846, the U.S. bought from the United Kingdom of Great Britain what was known as the Oregon Territory, the New Northwest, or the Far Northwest, where three states would be founded: Oregon, Washington and Idaho, which joined the union following the assimilation procedure called for under the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

(8) In 1848, the Mexican-American War ended, with the Americans victorious. Via the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed following the Mexicans’ defeat, the United States acquired vast western territories which would come to form the states of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and half of the State of Colorado today. This territory was expanded in 1853, when Vice­President Gadsden purchased from Mexico part of what is today the State of New Mexico (Gadsden Purchase).^[761] After the war with Mexico, the American government was able to turn its energies to restoring the balance provided by the Missouri Compromise—one which had been broken by the annexation of Texas. In May of 1848, Wisconsin joined the union as a free state, which brought the number of free and slave states to 15 each, thereby leveling the number of free and slave state senators at 30 each.

(9) When California joined the union on September 9, 1850, as a free state, it was already clear that parity between the free and slave states was in peril, as the latter’s capacity for expansion was practically non-existent given the aforemen­tioned ban on further slave states north of the 36°-30' parallel. In 1850, it was agreed that the doctrine of popular sovereignty would be respected, according to which each new territory would be able to determine the legality of slavery within its borders by a vote (Waugh 2003). In accordance with this system, California was incorporated as a free state, but its integration upset the balance in Congress, as the scales were tipped in the free camp’s favor (Morgan 1996, 173-175).

(10) The “Compromise of 1850” was complemented by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, signed in 1854 by President Pierce, which rescinded the provision of the Missouri Compromise that had precluded the creation of slave states north of the 36°-30' parallel. Henceforth states’ decisions to join the union as either free or slave states hinged on exclusively upon a “democratic” decision put to their (white male) inhabitants, which unleashed a frenetic rush to settle new territories. When it became clear that Nebraska would be a free state, Missouri slavery supporters did everything they could to keep anti-slavery settlers out of Kansas. The confrontation between the two sides, allowed a free Minnesota to achieve statehood in 1858. However, the civil war in Kansas (for which the territory came to be dubbed “Bleeding Kansas”) would prove to be indicative of a deep divide between the states, one which would result in a Civil War between the nation’s northern (free) and southern (slave) states (Ponce 2011, 5).

(11) The election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States in 1860, prompted the state of South Carolina to secede from the union. The separatist movement spread quickly and in February 1861, delegates from seven states met in Montgomery (Alabama) to found a new union: the Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis was elected its first President, and Alexander H. Stephens its Vice President. A month later the Confederacy had a new constitution. Lincoln took advantage of the outbreak of the Civil War (War of Secession), between the Union and the Confederacy to facilitate the creation of new free states—a task expedited by the vast majority he held in Congress after all the South’s representatives and senators had abandoned their positions. In 1861, Kansas became the 34th state and Nevada became a U.S. Territory. In 1863, West Virginia became the 35th state, without going through the territorial phase provided for under the terms of the 1787 NWO. One year later, Nevada became the 36th state after a territorial stage of only 3 years (Morgan 1996, 218-223 and 230-231).

(12) West Virginia was the last state to join without complying with the terms of the Northwest Ordinance. After the end of the Civil War, the victory of federal forces made it possible for future territories to be brought in as states according to the 1787 NWO system, including the incorporation of Nebraska (1867), Colorado (1876), North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Montana (1889), Idaho and Wyoming (1890). In the twentieth century, they would be followed by Oklahoma (1907), New Mexico, Arizona (1912) and, finally, Alaska and Hawaii (1959).

By 1959, the process by which the United States had added states to the union was over. In addition to the original 13 colonies, 31 of the 37 new States had followed the legal process laid down in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Only six had been integrated into the Union in a different fashion: Vermont, Kentucky, Maine, Texas, California and West Virginia (Morgan 1996, 509-514).

14.5.4 The Protection of Fundamental Rights:

The Union vs. the States

Another area in which the Anti-Federalists put up a fight had to do with defining the scope of application of the Bill of Rights. Most Anti-Federalists held that the historic set of amendments represented restrictions only applicable to the federal government, and did not view it as extending to legislation passed by state governments. It should be understood that while the ratification of the Bill of Rights granted the citizens of each state ample protection from federal power, from a legal point of view this protection of fundamental rights was interpreted in a narrow and restricted manner; forming part of the federal Constitution, it was viewed as applicable only to the federal government. Curiously, in this way the states retained a great deal of power, even if this was in detriment to their own citizens’ freedoms and liberties.

14.5.4.1 The Restrictive Interpretation of the Bill of Rights

The fact that the legal protections provided for by the Bill of Rights were limited to blocking actions by the federal government^[762] meant that Americans’ individual rights were totally vulnerable, from a legal perspective, as the governments of the 13 states were not compelled to respect these protections (Currie 2005, 279). It is noteworthy in this regard that slavery continued to be legal in a number of states because the first ten amendments to the Constitution did not protect individual rights under the constitutions and governments of the 13 states, as was made clear in the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott Decision (1857), in which the high court not only ruled that African Americans had no right to U.S. citizenship, but that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories.^[763] This situation would be utterly overturned, however, as a result of the landmark event of the American Civil War (1861-1865).^[764]

14.5.4.2 The War of Secession and the Consolidation of the American Union

The Civil War was not only an extremely bloody conflict, but also a decisive stage in the constitutional history of the United States (Bestor 1988, 219-234). From a legal point of view, it marked one more clash in a series of confrontations between the states and the federal government, dating all the way back to 1787. Firstly because, as we have seen, the war broke out when the number of free states surpassed the number of slave states, upsetting the delicate balance hitherto maintained in the Senate, a disturbing development for the slave states which prompted them to declare their secession from the Union. Secondly, because President Lincoln was conscious of the fact that, from a legal point of view, the Civil War represented a struggle to preserve the federal Union, saving it from an attempt by the southern states to return to the confederate model which the United States had adopted from 1783 to 1787.^[765]

Thus, when the war ended the victorious states of the North forced those in the South to add three amendments to the Constitution: Amendments 13,14 and 15, which came to be termed the “Civil War Amendments” (McDonald 2002, 193-222),^[766] in what has been called the “Second American Revolution” (McPherson 1990).

The 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except in those cases when it was imposed as a criminal punishment. The 14th Amendment defined the concept of citizenship to include all those born in the United States, who were to be protected by all constitutional guarantees, with clauses providing for privileges and immunities, due process and equal protection. Finally, the 15th Amendment prohibited the denial of voting rights to any citizen based on race or color, or as a result of his previous enslavement (Farber 2003, 144-175).

Ultimately said amendments sought to extend the protection of individual rights to possible encroachment by any of the nation’s 50 states. This expansion, however, did not come about until 1897, when the Supreme Court issued a decision which constituted what in American law schools is known as the “incorporation” of the Bill of Rights via the 14th Amendment.^[767] In its ruling the high court stated that the Bill of Rights ought to be valid and extend to the authority exercised by state governments. Specifically, the Supreme Court employed the legal argument that the due process clause, according to which each state was obligated to respect a citizen’s rights, expressly encompassed those set forth in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. This marked a watershed victory for advocates of federal author­ity, as the power of state governments was considerably undercut.

Despite this momentous victory for defenders of federal supremacy, even today some Americans believe that the issues at stake in the War of Secession have yet to be resolved, as fierce debate still rages regarding the different powers and author­ities which the states and federal government should wield concerning individual rights. Following the election of the Republican Party’s Ronald Reagan (1981— 1989), the federal government initiated a sweeping policy of “deregulation” which called for the progressive lifting of federal controls on economic activity, a course of action which Republican detractors allege not only exacerbated the gap between the rich and poor, but also set in motion the process leading to the dire financial crisis which began in September of 2008. Even more recently the Supreme Court made headlines and stirred up fierce controversy when it declared the medical coverage legislation endorsed by President Barack Obama to be constitutional, ruling that the imposition of the obligation to acquire health insurance is justified and endorsed by the tax-levying power which the Constitution assigns to the U.S. Congress.^[768]

TIMELINE

The Confederal Stage

1776 Declaration of Independence.

1777 Approval of the Articles of Confederation.

1783 Recognition of the United States of America as a nation (Peace

of Versailles).

1785 May 20. Land Ordinance.

1786 August 29. Beginning of Shay’s Rebellion (through January 1787).

September 11-14. Failure of the Annapolis Convention.

The Origins of the Federal Union

1787 February 21. The Congress calls for a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

May 25. First meeting.

July 13. The Northwest Ordinance.

September 17. Ratification of the federal Constitution.

December 7. Delaware is the first state to ratify the Constitution (30 votes in favor, 0 against).

December 11. Pennsylvania ratifies, 46 to 23. December 18. New Jersey ratifies, 38 to 0.

1788 January 2. Georgia ratifies, 26 to 0.

January 9. Connecticut ratifies, 128 to 40.

February 6. Massachusetts ratifies, 187 to 168. April 26. Maryland ratifies, 63 to 11.

May 23. South Carolina ratifies, 149 to 73.

June 21. New Hampshire is the ninth state to ratify, 57 to 47. The U.S. Constitution officially goes into effect.

June 25. Virginia ratifies, 89 to 79.

July 26. The State of New York ratifies, 30 to 27.

1789 January 10. The election of George Washington as the first President of the United States.

March 4. The Constitution goes into effect. April 30. George Washington is sworn in as president. November 21. North Carolina ratifies, 194 to 77.

1790 May 29. Rhode Island is the last state to ratify the Constitution.

1791 Vermont and Kentucky become the 14th and 15th states.

December 15. The Congress ratifies the Bill of Rights and the first ten amendments to the Constitution take effect.

1793 Re-election of George Washington.

The Consolidation of the Federal State

1796 Tennessee becomes the first state outside the northwest region to join the union according to the terms of the NWO and its procedures.

1797 End of Washington’s second term. He refuses to stand for election again. 1801 Election of Anti-Federalist Thomas Jefferson as President.

1803 February 24. Sentence in the Marbury vs. Madison case. Federalist John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835, frustrates Jefferson’s efforts to reduce the power of the federal government. Thanks to Marshall the Supreme Court of the United States becomes a powerful and pivotal instrument: established as the interpreter of the Constitution, its sentences are to shape the form, development and purviews of the federal government.

April 30. The United States buys Louisiana from Napoleon (Louisiana Purchase).

Missouri Compromise.

Annexation of the State of Texas (an independent republic since 1836) to the union. The balance is upset in favor of the slave states.

February 2. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo allowed the United States to incorporate a massive amount of territory across the American west (what makes up the modern-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado).

May. Wisconsin joins as a free State. Recovery of the balance between the free and slave states (15-15).

August 13. California joins the nation.

September. A commitment to the incorporation of new states as slave or free, to be determined by a vote.

May 30. The Kansas-Nebraska Act legalizes the founding of slave states north of the 36°30' parallel.

March 6. The Supreme Court of the United States rules that African Americans are not citizens (Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393).

War and Its Aftermath

November. (11) The election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States prompts the State of South Carolina to secede from the union. February 9. Jefferson Davis is elected President of the Confederate States of America.

March 4. Abraham Lincoln takes office as President.

April 12. A Confederate assault on the garrison at Fort Sumter is the first act of the American Civil War.

April 8. Adoption by the Senate of the 13th Amendment, which outlaws slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.

April 9. The end of the Civil War.

April 14. President Abraham Lincoln is assassination.

July 9. Adoption of the 14th Amendment, which contains a broad definition of citizenship and establishes that African Americans are indeed citizens of the United States.

February 3. Ratification of the 15th Amendment, which prohibits the governments of the states from denying a citizen the right to vote based on race, color or a previous condition of servitude.

March 1. In the case “Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co. v. City of Chicago” (166 U.S. 226), for the first time the US Supreme Court invokes the Bill of Rights to curtail the authority of a state government. End of the land surveying process initiated under the Land Ordinance of 1785.

1959 Alaska and Hawaii join the U.S. as states 49 and 50.

1951 Ratification of the 22nd Amendment, which limits presidents to two terms. 2012 June 28. The U.S. Supreme Court declares it constitutional for the federal government to require citizens to purchase health insurance, ruling that it is licensed to do so pursuant to the Congress’s taxation authority under the U.S. Constitution. (National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius.) 132 U.S. 2566.

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Further Reading

Berkin, C. (2002). A brilliant solution: Inventing the American Constitution. Orlando, FL: Harcourt.

Bernstein, R. B., & Rice, K. S. (1987). Are we to be a nation? The making of the constitution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Billias, G. (2009). American Constitutionalism heard round the world, 1776-1989: A global perspective. New York: New York University Press.

Breyer, S. (2005). Active liberty: Interpreting our democratic constitution. New York: Oxford University Press.

Brown, R. H. (2000). Redeeming the republic: Federalists, taxation, and the origins of the constitution. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Burnett, E. C. (1941). The Continental Congress: A definitive history of the Continental Congress from its inception in 1774 to March 1789. New York: Macmillan.

Cayton, R. L. (1987). The Northwest Ordinance from the perspective of the frontier. In R. M. Taylor (Ed.), The Northwest Ordinance 1787: A bicentennial handbook (pp. 1-23). Indianapolis, IN: Indiana Historical Society.

Collier, C. (2003). All politics is local: Family, friends, and provincial interests in the creation of the constitution. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England.

Corwin, E. S. (2008). The constitution and what it means today (14th ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Cox, G. W., & McCubbins, M. D. (2007). Legislative leviathan: Party government in the House (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

de la Teja, J. F., & Frank, R. (Eds.). (2005). Choice, persuasion, and coercion: Social control on Spain's North American frontiers. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.

Donald, D. H., Baker, J. H., & Holt, M. F. (2001). The Civil War and reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press.

Finckelman, P. (1988). The Northwest Ordinance: A constitution for an empire of liberty. In A. R. L. Cayton (Ed.), Pathways to the old northwest: An observance of the bicentennial of the Northwest Ordinance (pp. 269-305). Indianapolis, IN: Indiana Historical Society.

Finckelman, P. (2010). Race and the constitution: From the Philadelphia convention to the age of segregation. Washington, DC: American Historical Association.

Guelzo, A. C. (2012). Fateful lightning: A new history of the Civil War and reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press.

Harris, W. C. (2005). E pluribus unum: Nineteenth-century American literature and the constitu­tional paradox. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press.

Heideking, J. (Eds.). (2012). The constitution before the judgment seat: The prehistory and ratification of the American Constitution, 1787-1791. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.

Hendrickson, D. C. (2006). Peace pact: The lost world of the American founding. Kansas: University Press of Kansas.

Holton, W. (2008). Unruly Americans and the origins of the constitution. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Kaminsky, J. P., Saladino, G. J., Leffler, R. Schoenleber, C. H., & Hogan, M. A. (Eds.). (2009). The documentary history of the ratification of the constitution. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.

Main, T. J. (Ed.). (2013). Is the American Constitution obsolete? Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.

McDonald, F. (1992). We the people: The economic origins of the constitution. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

McDonald, F. (1995). Alexander Hamilton: A biography. Norwalk, CT: Easton Press.

McDonald, F. (1995). Novus Ordo Seclorum: The intellectual origins of the constitution. Law­rence, KS: University Press of Kansas.

McDonald, F. (1997). E pluribus unum: The formation of the American Republic (1776-1790) (2nd ed., 5th reprint). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Press.

McFerran, W. L. (2009). The principles of constitutional government: Political sovereignty. Gretna, LA: Pelican.

McGuire, R. A. (2003). To form a more perfect union: A new economic interpretation of the United States Constitution. New York: Oxford University Press.

McPherson, J. M. (2010). Ordeal by fire: The Civil War and reconstruction. New York: McGraw- Hill.

Meacham, J. (2008). American lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. New York: Random House.

Meltzer, M. (1990). The bill of rights: How we got it and what it means. New York: Crowell.

Morgan, T. (1993). Wilderness at dawn: The settling of the North American continent. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Morris, R. B. (1987). The forging of the union: 1781-1789. New York: Harper & Row.

Nelson, W. E. (2000). Marbury Vs. Madison: The origins and legacy of judicial review. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.

Poole, K., & Rosenthal, H. (1997). Congress: A political-economic history of roll call voting. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Quirk, W. J. (2008). Courts and Congress: America's unwritten constitution. Edison, NJ: Trans­action Publishers.

Robertson, D. B. (2013). The original compromise: What the constitution's framers were really thinking. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Storing, H. J. (Ed.). (2007). The complete anti-federalist (3 Vols). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Unger, H. G. (2009). The last founding father: James Monroe and a Nation's call to greatness. Philadelphia, PA: First Da Capo.

Urofsky, M., & Finkelman, P. (2002). A March of liberty: A constitutional history of the United States (2 Vols). New York: Oxford University Press.

Vidal, C. (Ed.). (2014). Louisiana: Crossroads of the Atlantic world. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Warren, J. P. (1905). The confederation and Shays’ Rebellion. The American Historical Review, 11(1), 42-67.

Whittington, K. E. (2007). Political foundations of judicial supremacy: The presidency, the Supreme Court, and constitutional leadership in U.S. history. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Williams, F. D. (Ed.). (2012). The Northwest Ordinance: Essays on its formulation, provisions, and legacy. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press.

Wood, G. S. (1998). The creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

Zinn, H. (2003). A kind of revolution. In A people's history of the United States: 1492-present (pp. 77-102). Harlow, UK: Pearson.