Clarence Thomas is one of the most vilified public figures of our day. To date, however, his legal philosophy has received only cursory treatment. First Principles provides a portrait of Thomas based not on the justice's caricatured reputation, but on his judicial opinions and votes, his scholarly writings, and his public speeches.

The paperback edition includes a provocative new Afterword by the author bringing the book up to date by assessing Justice Thomas's performance, and the reaction to his decisions, during the last five years.

Scott Douglas Gerber here argues that the Constitution of the United States should be interpreted in light of the natural rights political philosophy of the Declaration of Independence and that the Supreme Court is the institution of American government that should be primarily responsible for identifying and applying that philosophy in American life. Importantly, the theory advanced in this book - what Gerber calls "liberal originalism" - is neither consistently "liberal" nor consistently "conservative" in the modern conception of those terms. Rather, the theory is liberal in the classic sense of viewing the basic purpose of government to be safeguarding the natural rights of individuals. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, "to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men". In essence, Gerber maintains that the Declaration articulates the philosophical ends of our nation and that the Constitution embodies the means to effectuate those ends. From the opening chapter's bold revision of the character of the American Revolution to the closing chapter's provocative reinterpretation of many of the most famous cases in Supreme Court history, this book demonstrates the importance of approaching constitutional interpretation from more than one discipline. Indeed, Gerber's analysis reveals that the Constitution cannot be properly understood without recourse to history, political philosophy, and law.

Seldom has American law seen a more towering figure than Chief Justice John Marshall. Indeed, Marshall is almost universally regarded as the "father of the Supreme Court" and "the jurist who started it all."

Yet even while acknowledging the indelible stamp Marshall put on the Supreme Court, it is possible--in fact necessary--to examine the pre-Marshall Court, and its justices, to gain a true understanding of the origins of American constitutionalism. The ten essays in this tightly edited volume were especially commissioned for the book, each by the leading authority on his or her particular subject. They examine such influential justices as John Jay, John Rutledge, William Cushing, James Wilson, John Blair, James Iredell, William Paterson, Samuel Chase, Oliver Ellsworth, and Bushrod Washington. The result is a fascinating window onto the origins of the most powerful court in the world, and on American constitutionalism itself.

Law – charters, statutes, judicial decisions, and traditions – mattered in colonial America, and laws about religion mattered a lot. The legal history of colonial America reveals that America has been devoted to the free exercise of religion since well before the First Amendment was ratified. Indeed, the two colonies originally most opposed to religious liberty for anyone who did not share their views, Connecticut and Massachusetts, eventually became bastions of it. By focusing on law, Scott Douglas Gerber offers new insights about each of the five English American colonies founded for religious reasons – Maryland, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts – and challenges the conventional view that colonial America had a unified religious history.

Seldom has American law seen a more towering figure than Chief Justice John Marshall. Indeed, Marshall is almost universally regarded as the "father of the Supreme Court" and "the jurist who started it all."

Yet even while acknowledging the indelible stamp Marshall put on the Supreme Court, it is possible--in fact necessary--to examine the pre-Marshall Court, and its justices, to gain a true understanding of the origins of American constitutionalism. The ten essays in this tightly edited volume were especially commissioned for the book, each by the leading authority on his or her particular subject. They examine such influential justices as John Jay, John Rutledge, William Cushing, James Wilson, John Blair, James Iredell, William Paterson, Samuel Chase, Oliver Ellsworth, and Bushrod Washington. The result is a fascinating window onto the origins of the most powerful court in the world, and on American constitutionalism itself.

Clarence Thomas is one of the most vilified public figures of our day. To date, however, his legal philosophy has received only cursory treatment. First Principles provides a portrait of Thomas based not on the justice's caricatured reputation, but on his judicial opinions and votes, his scholarly writings, and his public speeches.

The paperback edition includes a provocative new Afterword by the author bringing the book up to date by assessing Justice Thomas's performance, and the reaction to his decisions, during the last five years.

The new reference series, Landmark Events in U.S. History, uses both contributed essays from eminent scholars and excerpts of primary source documents with explanatory headnotes to focus on critical events in American political history and explains how it came about and why it continues to play such a vital role in the history and political evolution of the United States. The first three books in the series are Marbury versus Madison, The Louisiana Purchase, and Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration of Independence remains one of the most valued and sacred political documents in American history. It has been and continues to be cited by emerging democracies, Supreme Court justices, and in political debates ranging from states' rights to equal rights.

Through documents and analytical essays, Declaration of Independence will explain the:
-- founding of the nation and its role in the crafting and interpretation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights
-- how historical figures like Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X used the spirit of the document to advance their causes
-- how Native Americans and women influenced and were influenced by the Declaration
-- how the three branches of government -- the president, Congress, and the Supreme Court -- have used the Declaration of Independence as a means to advance political agenda.

A Distinct Judicial Power: The Origins of an Independent Judiciary, 1606-1787, by Scott Douglas Gerber, provides the first comprehensive critical analysis of the origins of judicial independence in the United States. Part I examines the political theory of an independent judiciary. Gerber begins chapter 1 by tracing the intellectual origins of a distinct judicial power from Aristotle's theory of a mixed constitution to John Adams's modifications of Montesquieu. Chapter 2 describes the debates during the framing and ratification of the federal Constitution regarding the independence of the federal judiciary. Part II, the bulk of the book, chronicles how each of the original thirteen states and their colonial antecedents treated their respective judiciaries. This portion, presented in thirteen separate chapters, brings together a wealth of information (charters, instructions, statutes, etc.) about the judicial power between 1606 and 1787, and sometimes beyond. Part III, the concluding segment, explores the influence the colonial and early state experiences had on the federal model that followed and on the nature of the regime itself. It explains how the political theory of an independent judiciary examined in Part I, and the various experiences of the original thirteen states and their colonial antecedents chronicled in Part II, culminated in Article III of the U.S. Constitution. It also explains how the principle of judicial independence embodied by Article III made the doctrine of judicial review possible, and committed that doctrine to the protection of individual rights.

To Secure These Rights enters the fascinating--and often contentious--debate over constitutional interpretation. Scott Douglas Gerber here argues that the Constitution of the United States should be interpreted in light of the natural rights political philosophy of the Declaration of Independence and that the Supreme Court is the institution of American government that should be primarily responsible for identifying and applying that philosophy in American life. Importantly, the theory advanced in this book--what Gerber calls liberal originalism--is neither consistently liberal nor consistently conservative in the modern conception of those terms. Rather, the theory is liberal in the classic sense of viewing the basic purpose of government to be safeguarding the natural rights of individuals. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men. In essence, Gerber maintains that the Declaration articulates the philosophical ends of our nation and that the Constitution embodies the means to effectuate those ends. Gerber's analysis reveals that the Constitution cannot be properly understood without recourse to history, political philosophy, and law.