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Additional resources for this
issue of History Now
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Why We the People? Citizens as Agents of Constitutional Change
General Constitution Resources
The authors of the essays in this issue have challenged
you to think about the Constitution in new and stimulating
ways. Here are some sources of information on the creation
of the Constitution itself in 1787. The two most recent
overviews of the creation of the Constitution are:
Berkin, Carol. A Brilliant Solution: Inventing
the American Constitution. New York : Harcourt,
2002.
Stewart, David O. The Summer of 1787: The Men Who
Invented the Constitution. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 2007.
Internet Resources
The Gilder Lehrman Collection boasts literally hundreds
of documents relating to the Constitution. The easiest
way to identify materials that meet your specific needs
(for example, drafting the Constitution in 1787 or debate
on adopting the Bill of Rights, 1787-1791) is to go
to the search page:
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/search/index.php
Use "Advanced Search," putting your preferred
keyword (“Constitution” or “Bill of
Rights”) in the "Description" field.
In the wider World Wide Web, you'll find an incredible
selection of materials. You might start with the "Top
Treasures" of the Library of Congress:
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/tr00.html
For an image of the Constitution from the National
Archives, see:
http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution.html
This can be supplemented by the historical essays and
teaching suggestions at the National Archives "Primary
Documents" website:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Constitution.html
Our faithful friends at American Memory don't fail
us here. Look at their "Primary Source Set"
for teaching the Constitution. Also, see the AmMem Primary
Documents in the American history segment on the Constitution.
It's a great guide to online resources from Library
of Congress collections in this area.
Supplement this with the "Collection Connections"
page resources on the Continental Congress and Constitution:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/collections/bdsd/history.html
And their "Primary Source Set" for the Constitution:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/community/cc_wethepeople_kit.php
The "Primary Documents" page for the Bill
of Rights serves the same purpose for those amendments:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/billofrights.html
The Avalon Project at Yale has mounted an excellent
timeline linking you to documents relating to U.S. Constitution
dating from the classical period to the twenty-first
century:
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/usconst.htm
As well as transcriptions of Madison's notes on Convention
debates:
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/debates/debcont.htm
The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia's
online "Kids" webpage allows students to explore
by Supreme Court decisions, topics, and keywords. The
"Founding Documents" link takes you to ancestors
of Constitution:
http://www.constitutioncenter.org/explore/ForKids/index.shtml
Last, but certainly not least, the NEH Edsitement website's
new lesson plans for September 2007 featuring the Constitution
can be found here:
http://edsitement.neh.gov/monthly_feature.asp?id=115
Resources for Why We the People? Citizens
as Agents of Constitutional Change Citizens as Agents
of Constitutional Change
You'll find my "general" suggestions for
resources for this issue useful for locating studies
of the actual work of the 1787 Philadelphia Convention
and the evolution of that frame of government over the
last 220 years. Let me remind you that Linda R. Monk's
The Words We Live by: An Annotated Guide to the
Constitution (New York: Hyperion, 2003), will be
especially helpful here.
The sources for the "Antifederalists" essay
in this issue will lead you to plenty of materials on
George Mason and other opponents of ratification. You
may want to add this one, which deals specifically with
Mason and the Bill of Rights:
Shumate, T. Daniel, ed. The First Amendment: The
Legacy of George Mason. Fairfax: George Mason University
Press, 1985. A series of lectures delivered at Mason's
namesake-university.
These are your best sources for reviewing the background
of the adoption of the first ten Constitutional amendments:
Amar, Akhil Reed. The Bill Of Rights: Creation
and Reconstruction. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1998.
Brant, Irving. The Bill of Rights: Its Origin and
Meaning. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1965. This
is somewhat dated, but it's the grandfather of modern
Bill of Rights scholarship.
Hoffman, Ronald, and Peter J. Albert, eds. The
Bill of Rights: Government Proscribed. Charlottesville:
University Press of Virginia, 1997.
The "sources" page for James Horton's essay
in this issue will provide more than enough to keep
you busy with material for studying the Constitution
and African Americans. The March 2006 History Now
issue on Women's Suffrage contains essays and resource
suggestions that should meet your needs for looking
at the changing legal status of women:
http://www.historynow.org/03_2006/index.html
Once again, I'll refer you to our "Civil Rights"
issue (June 2006) for material on the evolution of African
American rights in the twentieth century. I think you'll
fined James Patterson's "The Civil Rights Movement:
Major Events and Legacies" an especially useful
introduction:
http://www.historynow.org/06_2006/ask2.html
Once again (and again), I urge you to visit "LandmarkCases.org",
a project of the Supreme Court Historical Society. You
can't do better than this for materials on Brown
v. Board of Education. Everything can be downloaded
in PDF files, and the sources don’t begin and
end with the case’s hearing and the Court’s
decision – you can trace earlier cases as well
as the repercussions of Brown in political
cartoons, the Little Rock desegregation crisis, and
the success and failures of school desegregation in
the fifty years since Brown:
http://www.landmarkcases.org/
Your students will certainly want to learn more about
Fannie Lou Hamer. Here are two books that will help:
Mills, Kay. This Little Light of Mine: The Life
of Fannie Lou Hamer. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Dutton,
1993.
Lee, Chana Kai. For Freedom's Sake: The Life of
Fannie Lou Hamer. Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 2000.
There are several good online sources for Hamer as
well:
Transcript of Fannie Lou Hamer's oral history interview
in archives of University of Southern Mississippi "Civil
Rights in Mississippi" Digital Archive:
http://www.lib.usm.edu/~spcol/crda/oh/hamer.htm
A short sketch of her life:
http://www.beejae.com/hamer.htm
And a good Wikipedia article with current links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Lou_Hamer
For students who want to explore resistance to court-ordered
school desegregation, I'd suggest:
Duram, James C. A Moderate Among Extremists: Dwight
D. Eisenhower and the School Desegregation Crisis.
Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1981.
Reed, Roy. Faubus: The Life and Times of an American
Prodigal. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas
Press, 1997. A biography of the Arkansas governor who
defied President Eisenhower.
Webb, Clive, ed. Massive Resistance: Southern Opposition
to the Second Reconstruction. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2005. A collection of essays, many
on Little Rock.
The Little Rock High School is now a national historic
site as well. The website is pretty lean, but you may
find it useful:
http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/civilrights/ak1.htm
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