Notable Selections in American Government

41 selections of enduring intellectual value--classic articles, book excerpts, and U.S. Supreme Court decisions--that have shaped the study of American government and our contemporary understanding of it. Included are carefully edited selections from the works of the most distinguished observers of American government past and present, from James Madison and Richard F. Fenno, Jr., to Laurence H. Tribe, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Jane J. Mansbridge, and Aaron Wildavsky.

Part 1. The Intellectual and Ideological Context of American Government

CHAPTER 1. American Political Culture and Ideology

1.1. John Locke, from Two Treatises of Government

"The great and chief end therefore, of Mens uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property."

1.2. Alexis de Tocqueville, from Democracy in America

"The people reign in the American political world as the Deity does in the universe."

1.3. Robert N. Bellah et al., from Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life

"Individualism lies at the very core of American culture."

1.4. Amitai Etzioni, from Rights and the Common Good: The Communitarian Perspective

"In the United States, at the onset of the 1990s, communitarians felt that social responsibilities particularly needed shoring up."

Part 2. The Constitutional Framework and the Federalist System

CHAPTER 2. The Constitutional Foundation of American Government

2.1. James Madison, from Federalist, Nos. 47, 48, and 51

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

2.2. Charles A. Beard, from An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States

"The overwhelming majority of members, at least five-sixths, were immediately, directly, and personally interested in the outcome of their labors at Philadelphia, and were to a greater or less extent economic beneficiaries from the adoption of the Constitution."

2.3. Gordon S. Wood, from "The Intellectual Origins of the American Constitution," National Forum: The Phi Kappa Phi Journal

"[T]hey were men intensely interested in ideas and especially concerned with making theoretical sense of what they were doing. They were participants in a rich, dynamic political culture that helped determine the nature of the Constitution they created."

CHAPTER 3. The Evolution of American Federalism

3.1. John Marshall, from McCulloch v. Maryland, U.S. Supreme Court

"If any one proposition could command the universal assent of mankind, we might expect it would be this: that the government of the Union, though limited in its powers, is supreme within its sphere of action."

3.2. Samuel H. Beer, from "Federalism, Nationalism, and Democracy in America," American Political Science Review

"What is interesting about American federalism today is not its particular allocation of functions or powers between levels of government, but rather what it is adding to our national system of representation."

3.3. Daniel J. Elazar, from "Opening the Third Century of American Federalism: Issues and Prospects," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

"Nevertheless, within this deteriorating constitutional and political framework, the states have become stronger and more vigorous than ever. They have reasserted themselves as politics and have become the principal source of governemntal innovation in the United States as well as the principal custodians of most domestic programs."

3.4. Alice M. Rivlin, from Reviving the American Dream: The Economy, the States and the Federal Government

"A first step is to reexamine that peculiarly American institution, federalism. The current confusion of responsibilities between federal and state government is undermining confidence in government and impeding the implementation of policies needed to restore a healthy economy. Sorting out the roles more clearly could break the logjam, help both levels function more effectively, and improve both domestic and foreign policy."

Part 3. Civil Liberties and Civil Rights

CHAPTER 4. Civil Liberties

4.1. John Stuart Mill, from On Liberty

"If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."

4.2. Hugo L. Black, from Gideon v. Wainwright, U.S. Supreme Court

"Not only these precedents but also reason and reflection require us to recognize that in our adversary system of criminal justice, any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him. This seems to us to be an obvious truth."

4.3. Anthony M. Kennedy et al., from Lee v. Weisman, U.S. Supreme Court

"In this atmosphere the state-imposed character of an invocation and benediction by clergy selected by the school combine to make the prayer a state-sanctioned religious exercise in which the student was left with no alternative but to submit."

4.4. Harry A. Blackmun, from Roe v. Wade, U.S. Supreme Court

"This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy."

CHAPTER 5. Civil Rights

5.1. Richard Kluger, from Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality

"In the United States, schoolchildren could no longer be segregated by race. The law of the land no longer recognized a separate equality. No Americans were more equal than any other Americans. Jim Crow was on the way to the burial ground."

5.2. Jane J. Mansbridge, from Why We Lost the ERA

"While the ERA would have had few immediate, tangible effects, I nonetheless believe that its defeat was a major setback for equality between men and women. Its direct effects would have been slight, but its indirect effects on both judges and legislators would probably have led in the long run to interpretations of existing laws and enactment of new laws that would have benefited women."

5.3. Hugo L. Black, from Korematsu v. United States, U.S. Supreme Court

"Compulsory exclusion of large groups of citizens from their homes, except under circumstances of direst emergency and peril, is inconsistent with our basic governmental institution. But when under conditions of modern warfare our shores are threatened by hostile forces, the power to protect must be commensurate with the threatened danger."

Part 4. Democratic Participatory Organizations

CHAPTER 6. Interest Groups

6.1. James Madison, from Federalist, No. 10

"Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction."

6.2. Burdett A. Loomis and Allan J. Cigler, from "The Changing Nature of Interest Group Politics," in Allan J. Cigler and Burdett A. Loomis, eds., Interest Group Politics, 5th ed.

"From James Madison to Madison Avenue, political interests have played a central role in American politics. But this great continuity in our political experience has been matched by the ambivalence with which citizens, politicians, and scholars have approached interest groups."

CHAPTER 7. Political Parties

7.1. Larry Sabato, from "New Campaign Techniques and the American Party System," in Vernon Bogdanor, ed., Parties and Democracy in Britain and America

"The growth of political consultancy and the development of advanced campaign techniques were combined with the new election finance laws that hurt the parties, favored the prospering consultants, and encouraged the mushrooming of party-rivaling political action committees."

7.2. James L. Sundquist, from "Strengthening the National Parties," in A. James Reichley, ed., Elections American Style

"Political parties have always occupied an ambiguous position in American public life. They are profoundly mistrusted--yet accepted. Their constant maneuvering for petty advantage is reviled and ridiculed, but millions of people call themselves either Democrats or Republicans and cherish the ideals of their party with a religious fervor."

Part 5. Democratic Participatory Processes

CHAPTER 8. Electoral Politics

8.1. V. O. Key, Jr., from The Responsible Electorate: Rationality in Presidential Voting, 1936-1960

"The perverse and unorthodox argument of this little book is that voters are not fools. To be sure, many individual voters act in odd ways indeed; yet in the lar ge the electorate behaves about as rationally and responsibly as we should expect, given the clarity of the alternatives presented to it and the character of the information available to it."

8.2. Walte...