Part 3: Spaces of exception in American history / What Is the state of exception? / Gary Gerstle and Desmond King. Negotiating the rule of law : dilemmas of security and liberty revisited / Ewa Atanassow and Ira Katznelson -- Beyond the exception / David Dyzenhaus -- Part 2: The American experience with emergency powers. The American law of overruling necessity : the exceptional origins of state police power / William J. Novak -- To save the country : treason and necessity in constitutional emergencies / John Fabian Witt -- Powers of war in times of peace : emergency powers in the United States after the end of the Civil War / Gregory P. Downs -- Was there an American concept of emergency powers? John Dewey, Carl Schmitt, and the democratic politics of exception / Stephen W. Sawyer -- Charles Merriam and the search for democratic power after sovereignty / James T. Sparrow -- Constitutional dictatorship in twentieth-century American political thought / Joel Isaac -- Part 3: Broadening the exception. Frederick Douglass and constitutional emergency : an homage to the political creativity of abolitionist activism / Mariah Zeisberg -- Delegated governance as a structure of exceptions / Elisabeth S. Clemens -- Spaces of exception in American history / Gary Gerstle and Desmond King.
Summary:
"Americans take great pride in their respect for the rule of law and our Constitution. And yet too frequently specific legal rights and procedures protected by the Constitution have been suspended on the grounds of emergency, and we have tolerated the longer exclusion of groups such as African-Americans from the full protection of our laws and the Constitution. This collection of essays by leading historians and scholars of law and American history, explores what it means for a democracy to suspend the rule of law and how Americans both justify and dispute these suspensions. Too often they are treated as isolated events, ignoring larger patterns of exclusion from the rule of law, as well as the threat they pose to democracy. In this book the authors seek to weave together these stories to show what these suspensions tell us about the limits of American democracy"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.