Can you point me in the direction of a sound but digestible book to understand our constitutional rights?

9 comments

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_States

   Wikipedia is pretty thorough. Also the Constitution is like 6 pages long. It doesn’t say as much as people think it says. Most of it just establishes the structure of the us government, the different branches and their powers and responsibilities. Think 6th grade social studies.
   The rights part is pretty much the shit tacked on at the end after the fact.

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3. It is extremely short, and not written in complex language

4. I get you, if the constitution were easy to understand, we wouldn’t have 200 years of arguments over it. I can’t recommend a specific book, because every single author is going to have their own slant, bias and purpose.

5. Just read the constitution. It’s pretty short and mostly straightforward.

6. I’m not sure if this is more than you want to read, but I’d recommend [*Our Constitution: A Biography*](https://a.co/d/hCwLTa6) and [*The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction*](https://a.co/d/4y35F72) by Akil Reed Amar. They’re fairly readable books written by a very prominent constitutional scholar who is somewhat rare in being an originalist and a liberal. They aren’t hagiographies, but he’s also fairly complimentary of the constitution. He’s also widely respected.

   It’s not quite as academic, but [* The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law*](https://a.co/d/113xD2s) is also excellent. It is a collection of essays and speeches from one of the most important SCOTUS justices of the last hundred years and gets into some really insightful commentary on the American political system.

   They’re less essential, but Amar also wrote [*America’s Unwritten Constitution: The Precedents and Principles We Live By*](https://a.co/d/8Lk5gPj) which explains how we interpret the precedents built up since 1789 and [*The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840*](https://a.co/d/56HwPaB) which goes over the broader political discussions which shaped the Constitution and politics.

7. You’re probably more interested in the amendments

   https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments

   Most of the Constitution itself is just procedural, describing how the government is set up.

   But the problem is constitution is very vague and for the last 250 years has been interpreted multiple times by the Supreme Court so if you’re liberal Justice you’re going to interpret it with the liberal bias and if you’re conservative Justice you’re going to interpret with the conservative bias

8. What specifically are you looking to understand? History of the constitution? Your rights today?

9. Constitution is like 6-7 pages long….