...This chapter examines why state constitutions have been so widely criticized and consistently excluded from descriptions of America's constitutional tradition. It seems that the people who wrote the state constitutions failed to grasp the purpose and the nature of constitutional law...

...This chapter examines the campaigns to add labor rights to state constitutions. The quintessential arguments about America's exceptional liberalism and its uniquely negative-rights culture have focused on the labor movement, which Louis Hartz has argued was a participant in—rather than a rival...

... failures in the first state constitutions, drafted following the issuing of the Declaration of Independence. Separation of powers, hitherto a secondary idea, came to the fore to demonstrate that too much power had been concentrated in the legislatures. The same idea that exposed the problem also pointed...

..., but these rights have been overlooked simply because they are not in the U.S. Constitution. The book shows how they instead have been included in America's state constitutions, in large part because state governments, not the federal government, have long been primarily responsible for crafting American social...

...This chapter discusses the colonial assemblies under British rule, the First and Second Continental congresses, and the state constitutions after Independence. The chapter concentrates on formal issues of voting and representation. Two features of American politics before 1787 stand out. First...

...This chapter provides a definition of rights and describes the distinction between the categories of positive and negative rights. It first examines the rights movements' campaigns to add education, labor, and environmental rights to state constitutions before discussing the controversy surrounding...

... policies by allowing courts to protect them. The chapter contends that we should view state constitutions' responsiveness to social change as a feature that allows us to expand the existing understanding of constitutional development. state constitutions statutory law Elster Jon Marmor Andrei...

...This concluding chapter clarifies that the book has refuted the claim that positive rights are outside the American constitutional tradition by investigating the various campaigns to add education and labor rights as well as rights to environmental protection to state constitutions. By including...

... for positive labor rights, and the push for constitutional rights to environmental protection during the 1960s and 1970s. Together, these cases demonstrate that rights movements in the United States have used state constitutions for reasons that have been largely overlooked by theories of constitutional...

...This chapter examines the campaigns to add education rights to state constitutions, with particular emphasis on how the common school movement was able to establish the states' constitutional duty to provide education. The leaders of the common school movement insisted that government had a moral...

... for the insertion of positive rights to environmental protection into their state constitutions. As a result, state constitutions came to include broad rights to environmental health and protection. The chapter first provides an overview of environmental activism during the 1960s and 1970s before explaining why...

... North Carolina U S Supreme Court Delaware Rhode Island Stewart Potter Voting Rights Act 1965 Georgia state constitutions Idaho Virginia Arkansas Connecticut gender inequality Illinois women Equal Rights Amendment Montana felon disenfranchisement Maine Vermont Wyoming Hawaii South...