Constitutional Opinions: Aspects of the Bill of Rights

Leonard Levy, whose Origins of the Fifth Amendment received the 1969 Pulitzer Prize in American History, is widely recognized as one of our nation's preeminent constitutional historians. This book brings together his essays--four never before published--written over the past two decades. Although this collection spans the entire course of American history, Levy focuses primarily on colonial America and the Constitutional period. His essays cover a broad range of subjects, including free speech in the 17th century, John Liburne and the rights of the English, Quaker blasphemy and toleration, the Zenger case, the First and Ffifth Amendments, Jefferson as civil libertarian, and judicial activism. Levy's previously unpublished works offer new discussions of the history of our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the establishment clause of the First Amendment, and the right against self-incrimination.