Hackett Publishing

If you would like to purchase the 2-volume set please click HERE.

Volume 2 of a 2-volume set.

North American rights only.

From James I's "Address Before Parliament" (1610) to Joseph R. Biden, Jr.'s "Learned Hand Dinner Address Before the American Jewish Committee" (2005), this two-volume set offers an unparalleled selection of key texts from the history of American political and constitutional thought.

"This collection surpasses anything else I have seen in its representation of the complexity, breadth, and sheer intellectual splendor of United States political thinking.  I have trouble imagining how the editors could improve on their skillful blending of vital texts and neglected gems; of legal documents and literary treasures; of poems, speeches, sermons, and jeremiads.  The European and American roots of U.S. constitutional thinking are displayed in a fashion that reflects the best recent scholarship while at the same time the spokesmen from Indian nations are given the broad and full presence they deserve.  The torturous intersection of race and politics is explored in well-chosen texts by Black, Chicano, and Indian writers and through a host of legal documents and decisions. Conservative and progressive voices, labor activists and libertarians, analytical political philosophers, and Sunday editorialists; they all find their place within the editors' lucid arrangement.  This will serve as a superb textbook for classes on United States political theory, for classes on constitutional history, and for overviews of the struggle for democracy in America.  It is a great gathering of evidence for those who see the United States as having a political theory tradition of unique richness, range, and relevance."
     —Brian Walker, UCLA

"This is easily the most comprehensive, thoughtful, and updated collection of primary source readings in American political theory.  It covers material typically excluded in existing edited volumes, particularly source documents for Native Americans, women, and African-Americans.  Not only is the founding period well represented, but so too are the most recent expressions of American thought and politics."
     —Jim Savage, University of Virginia

"A thorough and reliable compilation that nicely reflects both European antecedents and American regional contributors to a vibrant political and constitutional national story—and at a bargain price for so much content."
     —Jon Kukla, author of A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny
        of America (Knopf, 2003)

"A fantastic, comprehensive collection of primary materials, perfect for classroom use.  Material is well-organized and presented with well-written, useful introductions contextualizing the documents and raising pertinent questions."
     —Ruth Grant, Department of Political Science, Duke University

"This is the finest set of documents for the classroom that I have seen.  This collection is complete, well balanced, and thought-provoking.  It is suitable for use in a variety of kinds of classes, including U.S. History on the survey and upper-division levels, U.S. Government, Political Theory, Religion, and Constitutional Development.  In a time of skyrocketing prices for texts, the moderate cost of these volumes is very attractive."
     —Paul Reddin, Department of History, Mesa State College

"The two-volume Classics of American Political and Constitutional Thought is incredibly comprehensive—I don't know of any collection that directly compares to it.  [This book] seems to have something for everyone."
     —Alan Houston, Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego

"This is a fine collection of writings with a variety of viewpoints.  It is an excellent choice for courses on American political thought and courses in American philosophy with a significant component on political thinking.  It is also attractively priced for a work of this size and quality."
     —David Nice, Department of Political Science, Washington State University

"A masterful and comprehensive anthology.  I plan on assigning one or both [volumes] next year."
      —Russell Muirhead, Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin


TABLE OF CONTENTS:

CHAPTER ONE: RECONSTRUCTION, RACE, AND GENDER:
Editors' Introduction.  Walt Whitman: Selected Poems (complete poems).  Angelina Grimke: Letter to Theodore Weld and John Greenleaf Whittier (1837) (complete).  Sarah Grimke: Letters on the Equality of the Sexes (1837) (excerpts).  Catherine Beecher: Treaties on Domestic Economy (1842) (excerpt).  Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions (1848) (complete).  Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Address to the New York State Legislature (1860) (complete).  Red Cloud: Speech (1866) (complete); Speech for War (1866) (complete); Cooper Union Address (1870) (complete).  Spotted Tail: Speech (1866) (complete); Speech (1878) (complete).  Satanta: Medicine Lodge Speech (1867) (complete).  Blackfoot: Speech (1873) (complete).  Crazy Horse: Last Words (1877) (complete).  Chief Joseph: Surrender to General Howard (1877) (complete). Sitting Bull: Powder River Speech (1875) (complete); Response to U. S. Government (1878) (complete); Remarks in Prison at Ft. Randall (1882) (complete); Undated Speech (complete). Wokova (Jack Wilson): Messiah Letter (undated) (excerpt).  Kicking Bear: Vision (1890) (complete).  Selected Freedmen's Documents (1865-70) (complete).  Civil Rights Act of 1875 (complete).  Susan B. Anthony: Speech in Defense of Equal Suffrage (1873) (complete); Statement at the Close of Her Trial (complete).  J. E. Brown: Remarks on Suffrage before the Senate (1887) (excerpt).  Mary Putnam Jacobi: Common Sense Applied to Women's Suffrage (1894) (complete).  Morrison R. White: U.S. v. Cruickshank (1875) (excerpt).  Joseph P. Bradley: Civil Rights Cases (1883) (excerpt).  Horace Gray: Elk v. Wilkins (1884) (excerpt).  George Washington Cable: The Freedmen's Case in Equity (1885) (complete).  The Dawes Act (1887) (excerpt).  Henry B. Brown: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) (excerpt).  John Marshall Harlan: Plessy v. Ferguson, dissenting opinion (1896) (excerpt).  Booker T. Washington: Who is Permanently Hurt? (1896) (complete); The Best Labor in the World (1898) (complete); An Open Letter to Louisiana (1898) (complete).  W. E. B DuBois: On the Talented Tenth (1903) (excerpt).  Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Our Androcentric Culture (1911) (excerpt).

CHAPTER TWO: CONTRACTUAL LIBERTY AND THE GILDED AGE:
Editors' Introduction.  Russell Conwell: Acres of Diamonds (c. 1870) (excerpt).  Mark Twain: The Curious Republic of Gondour (1875) (excerpt).  Morrison Waite: Mung v. Illinois (1876) (excerpt).  Terence V. Powderly and Robert Schilling: Constitution of the Knights of Labor (1878) (excerpt).  Henry George: Progress and Poverty (1879) (excerpts).  Carroll D. Wright: The Factory System as an Element of Civilization (1882) (excerpts).  William Graham Sumner: What the Social Classes Owe Each Other (1883) (excerpts).  Lester Frank Ward: Mind as a Social Factor (1864) (complete).  Samuel Gompers: Letter to Judge Peter Grosscup (1894) (complete).  Andrew Carnegie: The Gospel of Wealth (1889) (complete).  George D. Herron: Address before the Minnesota Congressional Club (1890) (complete).  Ida B. Wells: A Red Record (1894) (excerpts).  Booker T. Washington: Atlanta Exposition Address (1895) (complete).  W. E. B DuBois: Of Booker T. Washington and Others (from The Souls of Black Folks) (1903) (complete); The Development of a People (1904).  Melville W. Fuller: U.S. v. E. C. Knight (1895) (excerpts).  John Marshall Harlan: U.S. v. E. C. Knight, dissenting opinion (1895) (excerpt).  Katherine Lee Bates: America the Beautiful (1895) (complete).  John Phillips Souza: The Stars and Stripes Forever (1897) (complete).  The Populist Party Platform (1892) (complete).  Oliver Wendell Holmes: The Path of the Law (1897) (complete).  John Peter Altgelt: Address to the Laboring Order of Chicago (1899) (complete).  Rufus Peckham: Lochner v. New York (1905) (excerpt).  Oliver Wendell Holmes: Lochner v. New York, dissenting opinion (1905) (complete).

CHAPTER THREE: THE PROBLEMS OF INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM:
Editors' Introduction.  Thorstein Veblen: Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) (excerpts).  Jane Addams: Chicago Liberty Address (1899) (complete).  Mark Twain: To the Person Sitting in the Darkness (1901) (complete). International Workers of the World (Wobblies): Manifesto (1905) (complete). Upton Sinclair: The Jungle (1906) (excerpts).  David J. Brewer: Muller v. Oregon (1980) (complete).  Eugene Debs: Speech at Indianapolis (1909) (excerpt).  Jane Addams: Why Women Should Vote (1915) (complete).  Herbert Croly: The Promise of American Life (1909) (excerpts).  John Dewey: The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy (1910) (excerpt).  Woodrow Wilson: Fourth of July Address (1907) (excerpt); Address to the Jefferson Club of Los Angeles (1911) (excerpt); The New Freedom (1912) (excerpt).  Theodore Roosevelt: The New Nationalism (1910) (excerpt).  Walter Rauschenbusch: The Case of Christianity against Capitalism (1912) (excerpt).  Emma Goldman: Anarchism: What It Really Stands For (1911) (excerpt).  Robert LaFollette: Address on Free Speech in Wartime (1917) (excerpt).  William Rufus Day: Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918) (excerpt).  Oliver Wendell Holmes: Hammer v. Dagenhart, dissenting opinion (1918) (complete).  Margaret Sanger: Women and the New Race (1920) (excerpts); The Pivot of Civilization (1922) (excerpts).  Henry Adams: The Education of Henry Adams (1918) (excerpts).

CHAPTER FOUR: FREEDOM AS POWER AND OPPORTUNITY:
Editors' Introduction.  Eugene V. Debs: Speech to the Court (1918) (excerpt).  Oliver Wendell Holmes: Schenk v. United States (1919) (excerpt).  John H. Clarke: Abrams v. U.S. (1919) (excerpt).  Oliver Wendell Holmes: Abrams v. U.S., dissenting opinion (1919) (excerpt).  Walter Lippmann: The Phantom Public (1925) (excerpts).  Oliver Wendell Holmes: Natural Law (1918) (complete); Buck v. Bell (1927) (complete).  Herbert Hoover: Campaign Speech on Rugged Individualism (1928) (excerpt).  Franklin Roosevelt: Commonwealth Club Address (1932) (excerpt); First Inaugural Address (1933) (complete); State of the Union Message (1941) (complete).  John Dewey: Liberalism and Social Action (1935) (excerpt).  H. L. Mencken: On Being an American (1922) (excerpt).  Platforms of the Democratic and Republican Parties (1936) (complete).  A. Phillip Randolph: The Crisis of the Negro and the Constitution (1937) (complete).  George Sutherland: Powell v. Alabama (1932) (excerpts).  Charles Evans Hughes: West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937) (excerpt).  Benjamin Cardoza: Palko v. Connecticut (1937) (excerpt).  E. B. White: Freedom (1940) (complete).  Harlan Fiske Stone: United States v. Darby Lumber Co. (1941) (excerpts).  Robert H. Jackson: West Virginia v. Barnette (1943) (excerpts).  Learned Hand: Central Park Address (1944) (complete).  Hugo Black: Adamson v. California, dissenting opinion (1947) (excerpts).  Bernard Baruch: Address before the United Nations (1946) (complete).  Eleanor Roosevelt: The Struggle for Human Freedom (1948) (complete).

CHAPTER FIVE: THE COLD WAR AND THE LIMITS OF DISSENT:
Editors' Introduction.  Langston Hughes: Selected Poems (complete selections).  George Kennan ("X"): The Sources of Soviet Conduct (1947) (complete).  Hubert H. Humphrey: Address at the Democratic National Convention (1948) (complete).  Reinhold Niebuhr: The Irony of American History (1952) (excerpts).  J. Edgar Hoover: Testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (1947) (excerpt).  Joseph McCarthy: Speech at Wheeling, West Virginia (1950) (complete).  Frederick Vinson: Dennis v. United States (1951) (excerpts).  Felix Frankfurter: Dennis v. United States, concurring opinion (1951) (excerpts).  William O. Douglas: Dennis v. United States, dissenting opinion (1951) (excerpt).  Hugo Black: Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co., v. Sawyer (1952) (excerpt).  Robert Jackson: Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co., v. Sawyer, dissenting opinion (1952) (excerpt).  Whittaker Chambers: Witness (1952) (excerpt).  Sydney Hook: Heresy Yes, Conspiracy No (1953) (excerpt); Political Power and Personal Freedom (1959) (excerpt).  C. Wright Mills: The Power Elite (1956) (excerpts).  Dwight D. Eisenhower: Farewell Address (1960) (complete).  John F. Kennedy: Campaign Address to the Greater Houston Minsterial Association (1960) (complete); Inaugural Address (1961) (complete).  Leo Strauss: City and Man (1964) (excerpt).  Allen Ginsburg: America (1956) (complete).  Lawrence Ferlinghetti: I Am Waiting (1958) (complete).

CHAPTER SIX: THE GREAT SOCIETY AND ITS CRITICS:
Editors' Introduction.  James Baldwin: Nobody Knows My Name (1961) (excerpts).  Earl Warren: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1961) (complete).  Hannah Arendt: Reflections on Little Rock (1959) (complete).  Hugo Black: Engel, et al., v. Vitale, et al. (1962) (excerpt).  Potter Stewart: Engel, et al., v. Vitale, et al. dissenting opinion (1962) (complete).  Tom C. Clark: School District of Abington Township, PA v Schempp (1963) (excerpt); Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc., v. United States (1964) (excerpt); Katzenbach, Acting Attorney General, et al. v. McLung, et al. (1964) (excerpt).  Students for a Democratic Society: The Port Huron Statement (1962) (excerpts).  John F. Kennedy: Civil Rights Address (1963) (complete).  Richard Russell: Response to President Kennedy (1963).  Martin Luther King: Stride to Freedom (1958) (excerpts); Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963) (complete); Lincoln Memorial Address (1963) (complete).  Malcolm X: The Ballot or the Bullet (1964) (complete). Ronald Reagan: A Time for Choosing (1964) (complete).  William O. Douglas: Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) (complete).  Lyndon Baines Johnson: Commencement Address at Howard University (1965) (complete).  James Baldwin and William F. Buckley: Debate at Cambridge University (1965) (complete).  Stokely Carmichael: What We Want (1966) (complete).  Roy Wilkins: NAACP Convention Address (1966) (excerpt).  Caesar Chavez: Delano Plan and Statement (1968) (complete); Interview with The Observer (excerpt).  Betty Friedan: Our Revolution Is Unique (1968) (excerpt).  Kurt Vonnegut: Harrison Bergeron (1968) (complete).  Earl Warren: Miranda v. Arizona (1966) (excerpt).  Potter Stewart: Katz v. United States (1967) (excerpt).  John M. Harlan: Katz v. U.S., concurring opinion (1967) (excerpt).  The Supreme Court, Per Curium: Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) (excerpt).  Abe Fortas: Tinker v. Des Moines School District (1969) (excerpt).  William O. Douglas: Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) (complete).  Harry A. Blackmun: Roe v. Wade (1973) (excerpts). Byron White: Roe v. Wade, dissenting opinion (1973) (excerpt). Irving Kristol: When Virtue Loses All Her Loveliness (1970) (complete).  Saul Alinsky: Rules for Radicals (1971) (excerpts).  Russell Means: Address at Wounded Knee (1973) (excerpt); Human Rights Commission Address (1977) (excerpt).  John Rawls: Theory of Justice (1971) (excerpts).  Robert Nozick: Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974) (excerpts).  Michael Walzer: Spheres of Justice (1983) (excerpts).     Michael Sandel: The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self (1984) (complete).  Barbara Jordan:  Address before the Democratic National Convention (1976) (complete).  Jeanne Kirkpatrick: Dictatorships and Double Standards (1979) (excerpt).  Ronald Reagan: Address before the Conservative Political Action Committee (1974) (complete); First Inaugural Address (1981) (complete); Address before the National Association of Evangelists (1983) (complete).  Ursula K. Le Guin: A Left-Handed Commencement Address (1983) (complete).  Thurgood Marshall: Remarks on the Bicentennial of the Constitution (1987) (complete).

CHAPTER SEVEN: DEMOCRACY'S CHALLENGES AND THE PRICE OF POWER:
Editors' Introduction.  Gary Snyder: Before the Stuff Comes Down (1970) (complete).  Edwin Meese: Address before the American Bar Association (1985) (complete).  William J. Brennan: Address before the Text and Teaching Symposium, Georgetown University (1985) (complete).  Daniel Patrick Moynihan: Family and Nation (1986) (excerpts).  Antonin Scalia: Employment Division, Oregon Department of Human Resources v. Smith (1990) (excerpt).  Sandra Day O'Connor: Employment Division, Oregon Department of Human Resources v. Smith, dissent (1990) (excerpt).  Harry Blackmun: Employment Division, Oregon Department of Human Resources v. Smith, concurring opinion (1990) (excerpt).  Oren Lyons: Address at the Aboriginal Law Association Conference, McGill University (1991) (excerpt).  Daniel Elazar: Obligations and Rights in the Jewish Political Tradition: Some Preliminary Observations (1991) (excerpt).  William Rehnquist: United States v. Lopez (1995) (excerpt).  Clarence Thomas: United States v. Lopez, concurring opinion (1995).  William Kristol: The Politics of Liberty, the Sociology of Virtue (1995) (complete).  Antonin Scalia: Printz v. United States (1997) (excerpt).  Anthony Kennedy: City of Boerne, Petitioner, v. P. F. Flores, Archbishop of San Antonio, and United States (1997) (excerpt).  National Conference of Catholic Bishops/United States Catholic Conference: Economic Justice for All (1997) (excerpts).  Gertrude Himmelfarb: Welfare and Charity: Lessons from Victorian England (1997) (complete).  Roberto Unger and Cornel West: Progressive Politics and What Lies Ahead (1998) (complete).  Elie Wiesel: Speech at the White House on the Perils of Indifference (1999) (complete).  George W. Bush: State of the Union Address (2002); Second Inaugural Address (2005).  Anthony Kennedy: John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner, Petitioners, v. Texas (2003) (excerpt).  Antonin Scalia: John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner, Petitioners, v. Texas, dissenting opinion (2003) (excerpt).  Sandra Day O'Connor: Handi et al. v. Rumsfeld (2004) (excerpt).  Antonin Scalia: Handi et al. v. Rumsfeld, dissenting opinion (2004) (excerpt).  Joseph R. Biden, Jr.: Learned Hand Dinner Address before the American Jewish Committee (2005) (complete).

Credits.

Scott J. Hammond is Professor, and Howard L. Lubert Associate Professor, of Political Science, James Madison University.

Kevin R. Hardwick is Associate Professor of History, James Madison University.