The Road to the Bill of Rights: The Constitutional Ratification Debates of 1787088

xix, [1], 203, [1] pages. Footnotes. Chronology, Appendix. Bibliography. Inscribed by the author on fep. This work was supported by the FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION FOUNDATION, INC. Dr. Craig Smith was named the Outstanding Professor in 2000 and won the same title from the National Speakers Association in 1997. He has also received awards for Distinguished Teaching and Distinguished Scholarship. He is the author of sixteen books and over 60 scholarly articles and book chapters. His most recent studies on the First Amendment include A First Amendment Profile of the Supreme Court, Freedom of Expression and Partisan Politics, Silencing the Opposition: Government Strategies of Suppression, and The Four Freedoms of the First Amendment. In 1983 he founded the Freedom of Expression Foundation. Dr. Smith taught at San Diego State University, the University of Virginia, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham before coming to Long Beach State. The author noted that "The debate over original intent is particularly important today because of the impact it has on the selection of Supreme Court justices. Because President Reagan claims to support original intent, he as nominated justices to the court who believe the Constitution should be as strictly interpreted as it was constructed. But it would be unfaithful to history to suggest that this position is solely a conservative one. Justices William O. Douglas and Hugh Black, for example, were strict constructionists when it came to the First Amendment. Douglas relied on historians to held him determine original intent. For example, in Roth v. United States, he wrote that "there is no special historical evidence that literature dealing with sex was intended to be treated in a special manner by those who drafted the First Amendment.".…