Title Page -- Dedication -- Introduction -- Chapter One - WHAT MADE THE CONSTITUTION: REVOLUTION AND CONFEDERATION -- The trouble begins ... -- "If this be treason, make the most of it" -- Jefferson stakes out America's rights -- Jefferson's view of the British Empire: A federation of independent states -- Gunsmoke-and fear of domestic tyranny -- A state is a state is a ... country -- Chapter Two - FEDERALISM VS. NATIONALISM AT THE PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION -- A constitution for the "United States" -- Reforming the Confederation -- A vision of national government: The Virginia Plan -- Monarchists and nationalists and federalists-oh my! -- Chapter Three - SELLING THE CONSTITUTION -- A rocky road -- Federalists battle Republicans over the Bill of Rights -- It all comes down to Virginia -- But what about The Federalist? -- The question of sovereignty: Never really explained -- Who ratified the Constitution: "The American people" or the sovereign states? -- Chapter Four - JUDGES: POWER-HUNGRY FROM THE BEGINNING -- Judging the judges -- The Court's first steps -- The Eleventh Amendment: Protecting the states from the Supreme Court -- Finally, a Bill of Rights! -- The Washington factor -- The trouble with France -- Washington crusades for a whiskey tax -- Jay's Treaty sparks controversy -- Breaking the law is . . . against the law -- The Federalists' secret weapon: Judges -- Jefferson and Madison argue for states' rights -- Chapter Five - THE IMPERIAL JUDICIARY: IT STARTED WITH MARSHALL -- High crimes and misdemeanors abound -- Impeaching Justice Chase -- The Supreme Court's march through Georgia (and Virginia) -- Madison's banking flip-flops -- "The wolf by the ear" -- The Dartmouth review -- The "great Lama of the mountains" vs. Marshall -- Marshall finds the elastic in the Commerce Clause -- Marshall nullifies the Declaration of Independence.

State sovereignty? Never heard of it -- Marshall finally gets one right -- Chapter Six - UNDOING MARSHALL-AND UNDOING THE UNION -- "The object and end of all government" -- Taney tackles the Commerce and Contracts Clauses -- The War for Southern Independence -- All men are (not really) born free and equal -- Dred Scott v. Sandford -- Chapter Seven - THE WAR FOR SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE AS A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS -- The Emancipation Proclamation -- The "reconstruction" of the Constitution -- Chapter Eight - THE PRO-SEGREGATION SUPREME COURT -- "Instrumentalities of the state"? Sounds like socialism to me -- Segregation is in the eye of the beholder -- Supreme logic: A corporation is like a freed slave -- It depends on your definition of "is" -- The income tax was unconstitutional -- Chapter Nine - THE COURT VS. FDR -- Uncle Sam wants YOU! -- Can you put that protest on hold until after the war? -- The political platform of the Supreme Court: Pro-war, pro-child labor -- The Supreme Court vs. the Roosevelt Democrats -- Chapter Ten - THE GRAND WIZARD'S IMPERIAL COURT -- "Updating" the framers -- How the Constitution got "incorporated" rather than interpreted -- How the Ku Klux Klan separated church from state -- The Supreme Court vs. Christianity -- Chapter Eleven - THE COURT ON PORNOGRAPHY, CRIME, AND RACE -- The "inarticulate roars" of the Court -- Freedom of pornography -- The Supremes and criminal law -- Cruel and unusual punishment -- Brown v. Board of Education and its offspring -- The civil rights legislation of the 1960s -- Chapter Twelve - THE COURT'S BRAVE NEW WORLD: FROM AFFIRMATIVE ACTION TO SODOMY -- Affirmative action -- Sex discrimination and the Fourteenth Amendment -- The Supreme Court and "privacy" -- The Supreme Court's electoral interventions -- CONCLUSION -- THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION -- THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES -- Acknowledgements -- NOTES -- INDEX -- Copyright Page.