Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation

The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation: Analysis of cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States

Call Number: KF4527

The book is printed every ten years, 2002 being the last publishing in print (with 2,628 pages, and a good table of contents). There are supplements of 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010. This last supplement to this book is located in the pocket at the back of the resource.

The revised and updated edition of The Constitution of the United States of America-Analysis and Interpretation is expected to be available from the United States Government Print Office (GPO).

This resource is an ongoing overview and analysis of judicial interpretations of each article of the U.S. Constitution and each amendment, as well as other materials, with supporting legal references.

This book/resource (since it is also available online) is also known as the Constitution Annotated and it is prepared by the Congressional Research Service as Senate Document. It offers commentary on every article, section, and clause of the United States Constitution, with citations to numerous Supreme Court Decisions construing these provisions. These supplements are printed biennially between editions.

Centennial Edition

There were an Interim Edition of Analyisis of cases decided by the supreme court to June 26, 2013.

1952 Edition

This edition offered annotations of Cases Decided by the Supreme Court of the United States to June 30, 1952.

The prefaces and editor foreward included the following:

“It is small wonder that W.E. Gladstone described the Constitution as “the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.” He knew, as should we, that the Constitution’s words, its phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, and sections still possess a miraculous quality—a mingled flexibility and strength which permits its adaptation to the needs of the hour without sacrifice of its essential character as the basic framework of freedom.

Congress has long recognized how necessary it is to have a handy working guide to this superb charter. It has sought a map, so to speak, of the great historical landmarks of Constitutional jurisprudence—landmarks which mark the oft-times epic battles of clashing legal interpretations. A first step was taken toward meeting this need by publication of Senate Document 12, 63d Congress in 1913. Ten years later, in 1923 another volume was issued, Senate Document 96, 67th Congress, and it was followed in turn by Senate Document 154 of the 68th Congress.

In 1936, Congress authorized a further revision, this time by the Legislative Reference Service. Mr. Wilfred C. Gilbert, now the Assistant Director of the Service, was the editor of this volume which became Senate Document 232, 74th Congress, and he has given counsel throughout the development of the present edition of this volume.

After another decade of significant and far-reaching judicial interpretation, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported out Senate Joint Resolution 69 of the 80th Congress calling upon the Librarian of Congress for the preparation of the new work.” (…)

“For many years the Congress has felt the need for a handy, concise guide to the interpretation of the Constitution. An edition of the Constitution issued in 1913 as Senate Document 12, 63d Congress, took a step in this direction by supplying under each clause, a citation of Supreme Court decisions thereunder. This was obviously of limited usefulness, leaving the reader, as it did, to an examination of cases for any specific information. In 1921 the matter received further consideration. Senate Resolution 151 authorized preparation of a volume to contain the Constitution and its amendments, to January 1, 1923 “with citations to the cases of the Supreme Court of the United States construing its several provisions.” This was issued as Senate Document 96 of the 67th Congress, and was followed the next year by a similar volume annotating the cases through the October 1923 Term of the Supreme Court. (Senate Document 154, 68th Congress.) Both of these volumes went somewhat beyond the mere enumeration of cases, carrying under the particular provisions of the Constitution a brief statement of the point involved in the principal cases cited.” (…)

“The purpose of this volume is twofold; first, to set forth so far as feasible the currently operative meaning of all provisions of the Constitution of the United States; second, to trace in the case of the most important provisions the course of decision and practice whereby their meaning was arrived at by the Constitution’s official interpreters. Naturally, the most important source of material relied upon comprises relevant decisions of the Supreme Court; but acts of Congress and Executive orders and regulations have also been frequently put under requisition. Likewise, proceedings of the Convention which framed the Constitution have been drawn upon at times, as have the views of dissenting Justices and occasionally of writers, when it was thought that they would aid understanding.

That the Constitution has possessed capacity for growth in notable measure is evidenced by the simple fact of its survival and daily functioning in an environment so vastly different from that in which it was ordained and established by the American people. Nor has this capacity resided to any great extent in the provision which the Constitution makes for its own amendment. Far more has it resided in the power of judicial review exercised by the Supreme Court, the product of which, and hence the record of the Court’s achievement in adapting the Constitution to changing conditions, is our national Constitutional Law.

Thus is explained the attention that has been given in some of these pages to the development of certain of the broader doctrines which have influenced the Court in its determination of constitutional issues, especially its conception of the nature of the Federal System and of the proper role of governmental power in relation to private rights. On both these great subjects the Court’s thinking has altered at times—on a few occasions to such an extent as to transcend Tennyson’s idea of the law “broadening from precedent to precedent” and to amount to something strongly resembling a juridical revolution, bloodless but not wordless.

The first volume of Reports which issued from the Court following Marshall’s death—11 Peters (1837)—signalizes such a revolution, that is to say, a recasting of fundamental concepts; so does 100 years later, Volume 301 of the United States Reports, in which the National Labor Relations Act [The “Wagner Act”] and the Social Security Act of 1935 were sustained. Another considerable revolution was marked by the Court’s acceptance in 1925 of the theory that the word “liberty” in the Fourteenth Amendment rendered the restrictions of the First Amendment upon Congress available also against the States.”

Online Resource

The document is free on FDsys (for Federal Digital System).

Contents

Preamble
Article I. Legislative Department
Article II. Executive Department
Article III. Judicial Department
Article IV. States’ Relations
Article V. Mode of Amendment
Article VI. Prior Debts, National Supremacy, Oaths of Office
Article VII. Ratification
Amendments to the Constitution

First Through Tenth Amendments: Bill of Rights
First Amendment–Religion and Expression
Second Amendment–Bearing Arms
Third Amendment–Quartering Soldiers
Fourth Amendment–Search and Seizure
Fifth Amendment–Rights of Persons
Sixth Amendment–Rights of Accused in Criminal Prosecutions
Seventh Amendment–Civil Trials
Eighth Amendment–Further Guarantees in Criminal Cases
Ninth Amendment–Unenumerated Rights
Tenth Amendment–Reserved Powers
Eleventh Amendment–Suits Against States
Twelfth Amendment–Election of President
Thirteenth Amendment–Slavery and Involuntary Servitude
Fourteenth Amendment–Rights Guaranteed: Privileges and Immunities of Citizenship, Due Process, and Equal Protection
Fifteenth Amendment–Rights of Citizens to Vote
Sixteenth Amendment–Income Tax
Seventeenth Amendment–Popular Election of Senators
Eighteenth Amendment–Prohibition of Intoxicating Liquors
Nineteenth Amendment–Women’s Suffrage Rights
Twentieth Amendment–Terms of President, Vice President, Members of Congress: Presidential Vacancy
Twenty-First Amendment–Repeal of Eighteenth Amendment
Twenty-Second Amendment–Presidential Tenure
Twenty-Third Amendment–Presidential Electors for the District of Columbia
Twenty-Fourth Amendment–Abolition of the Poll Tax Qualification in Federal Elections
Twenty-Fifth Amendment–Presidential Vacancy, Disability, and Inability
Twenty-Sixth Amendment–Reduction of Voting Age Qualification
Twenty-Seventh Amendment–Congressional Pay Limitation